The Naughty and the Nice

Once again during this Christmas season, we have read many articles and watched TV Christmas specials decrying the commercial nature of Christmas and trying to determine what is the real meaning of Christmas. This morning in Norway, in the Christmas Day worship service in the Kragerø United Methodist Church, the pastor, Harald Olsen, made an interesting comment about that icon of Christmas materialism, Santa Claus. Everyone knows what Santa is about. He has a twice checked list of all the Nice and Naughty Children, bringing gifts to the Nice Children and a lump of coal in the stocking for the Naughty Ones. Doesn’t that make perfect sense? Shouldn’t only the deserving be eligible to be on Santa’s list for a gift?

But that is the exact opposite attitude God has in gift giving on Christmas: God’s gift, Jesus, is expressly for all the Naughty Boys and Girls, to give us the opportunity to reconcile ourselves with God and the world around us through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. No one is so naughty, so poor, so lost, so unworthy, so sinful to be ineligible for God’s Christmas list. God seeks us all and rejoicing is heard throughout heaven when anyone of us takes the Gift.

Merry Christmas! And may you be an instrument of delivering God's Gift to the world.

Sergei

We finally heard about Sergei. Sergei is the young man who had been coming to our street children center for a number of years but is now in prison, serving a too long term for minor theft. The story of his trial is in our last newsletter. In Ukraine, if you are accused of a crime, you are held in a holding center for those awaiting their trials. There doesn't seem to be concept of bail. If you are convicted in the crime, then you will continue to be held in the holding center until it is determined to which prison you will be sent, depending on the severity of your crime. You cannot visit or officially communicate with a prisoner (read here about unofficial communication) until they are assigned to a prison. And notification of which prison they are in is only given by letter and the letter at last arrived.

We heard rumors that Sergei would be going to a prison near the airport, which would have been great for visiting often, but in fact, his prison is near Rivno, about 200 miles from Kiev. By Ukraine standards, this is not too bad, since the policy is reported to be to send the prisoner as far away from the place they committed the crime as possible, reputedly to break up criminal connections. So now we await more information so we can arrange a visit.

Busy Fall

Time has flown as we have had many trips outside the Ukraine this fall. Now I have just returned from a 1 week trip to Switzerland and Germany where I was involved in two meetings: One was a 2 day meeting with three other missionaries to look over the new mission initiatives of GBGM which have begun in the last 15 years in order to review their strengths and weaknesses and discuss how we as missionaries could use our experience to help make upcoming mission initiatives better. We met in Interlaken, Switzerland, a very pretty place.

The next meeting was in Braunfels, Germany, where all the District Superintendents of Europe met with their respective Bishops in discussing the future of the UMC in Europe. Assisting us was Bishop Shnase from Missouri Conference who gave us lectures on the Five Principles of Fruitful Congregations: Radical Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Intentional Faith Development, Risk-taking Mission and Extravagant Generosity. The discussions were very much in line with the other conferences and meetings where I have been this fall. Now it is time to implement these ideas! It is great to be home in Kiev. Here is the Braunfels town square:

Here are a few more pictures from the trip. But our trips are not completely over for 2007: Helen left this morning for Moscow to attend the Eurasia Episcopal Area Financial Committee as the Ukraine and Moldova Annual Conference representative.

No promises for an easy ride.

We have been home in Kiev for over a week and now are in the midst of a pastor's meeting. All of our pastors come together twice a year at our apartment for a time of prayer, fellowship and planning for our district.

But just before the meeting started today, I got some bad news: our new street children center was broken into for the second time this week. Thankfully, we had not put too much expensive things into the center, just tables, chairs and some of the humanitarian aid. Sunday, the first time they broke in, the thieves stole some humanitarian aid clothes, cleaning supplies, an electric hot water boiler, toilet paper(!) and some of the medicine we were given during our free medical clinic. The second time, though, they pulled out our washing machine, dryer and dish washer in an attempt to try to steal them, but then must have abandoned the thought. They did this time steal the stove top we had and a 10 year old microwave. Again, two electric hot water boilers were stolen (replacements for the one stolen Sunday), most of the rest of the humanitarian aid clothing, the replacement cleaning supplies and...toilet paper. Also two chairs were taken. The police investigated, but said since the most expensive thing stolen was the stove top, only around $300, they really wouldn't pursue it too much. Also sad is that a few simple portable DVD players owned by the children and stored at the center were taken. Sometimes it seems they just don't get a break.

We now have 2 guards staying at the center at night and between the two break-ins, we ordered an alarm system, though a phone has to be installed before the alarm can be put in. We have also ordered bars for our windows. Please pray for Svetlana, our daily director, as the burden of dealing with the police, etc., has been on her.

St. John's Downtown

While in America, just before we attended the Russia Initiative Conference at Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City and after our Georgetown visit, we were able to make a one day visit to St. John's Downtown United Methodist Church in Houston, TX. As mentioned previously, this church has around 9,000 members in which 3,000 are homeless or former homeless. We wanted to see how this church has been able to blend a congregation of homeless poor, middle class and wealthy people.

When we arrived at the church, we waited for the pastor since he was preforming the funeral of a 21 year old member of the church who had been shot in gang-related violence. The neighborhood around the church is not an easy one to work in. After the funeral, the pastor, Rudy Rasmus, greeted us with hugs and warm welcome, spending the rest of the day with us showing us the church and its ministries.

Two points stood out as he related how this church has managed to grow while still maintaining its blended character. One was of "extreme welcome". Since homeless people are refused entry to so many places, it is difficult for them to "challenge the door", that is, get up enough courage to actually walk inside the church. To ease this, St. John's Downtown has a 3 tier welcoming system. People called Ambassadors are on the street around the church before services to invite people with hugs and handshakes to come on in. Greeters are inside the door to give more hugs,
information and direct people to the sanctuary. Ushers in the sanctuary then give more hugs and show people to their seats. We were told you probably would get hugged 5 or 6 times before you actually sit down. This sense of welcome gets people, especially the poor and homeless, over the barrier of entry to a new place. The second point was "to never compromise the vision of the church". The vision of St. John's is to be a place for all people of all economic and social classes. As any church becomes more successful, the pressure to accommodate the church to those who give the most financially is always present. It takes a lot of work to guarantee equal access to the pews for all in a church which crosses economic and social classes. We hope to remember these points as we begin our "equal access" church in the Dosvitok Children's Center building.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our trip to America is over and we are back in Kiev. Well, I am back and Helen arrives today. She had a meeting with the Northern European Central Conference Board of Drug and Alcohol Concerns (the same board where we met 14 years ago) in Germany and is probably landing at the airport as I write these words. With all the flurry of activity and being outside the United States, it is hard to believe that today is Thanksgiving.

And we do have a lot for which to be thankful. We are very thankful for the generous support we have received for our ministry in Ukraine, both financially and spiritually. Between conferences we were able to visit First United Methodist Church of Georgetown, TX, just north of the state capital, Austin, who have been faithful supporters of our work, especially the Dosvitok street children ministry. You have heard Texas being called the Lone Star State, (one star in the state flag), but the Texas state motto is "Friendship". This motto was certainly lived up to by our wonderful hosts, James and Shirley Varner who have worked tirelessly in promoting our work in Georgetown. Here they are as we are about to enjoy one of Shirley's great meals.

Isn't it great to be able to sit outside and eat breakfast in November? We even got to go to the Alamo on the Saturday before we spoke at the church on Sunday.


More on our trip to America and what has happened in Kiev in the coming days.

Boy Howdy!

We have been in Texas over a week now. The Living Faith, Seeking Justice Conference in Ft. Worth, sponsored by the General Board of Church and Society, was very inspiring. One quote from a conference speaker:

"The Church is a lot like Noah's Ark, it may stink at times, but if you step out of it, you'll drown."

During the conference, there was some time to do some Texas things, like eat reel Texas bar-bee-que. Here are three happy Europeans chowing down on a moderate portion of ribs:

Helen, Dominic Schmidt from Germany, first time in USA and Finn Uth from Denmark.


The moderate portion of ribs. It was an all-you-can eat deal, by the way.


You sure can't get a ride like this in Germany:


Adam Hamilton, pastor of Church of the Resurrection which supports two of our churches in Ukraine and a main speaker at the Living Faith, Seeking Justice Conference commented on the fact the "sweet spot" of the United Methodist Church is our combining of the Evangelical and Social Gospels, how they cannot be separated. If we neglect either, the church does not do it's job. He quoted the General Rules, an official source for our doctrinal standards and which were the basic foundation of the Methodist Church:

Firstly: By doing no harm, by avoiding evil of every kind,

Secondly: By doing good; by being in every kind merciful after their power; as they have opportunity, doing good of every possible sort, and, as far as possible, to all men:

To their bodies, of the ability which God giveth, by giving food to the hungry, by clothing the naked, by visiting or helping them that are sick or in prison.

To their souls, by instructing, reproving, or exhorting all we have any intercourse with; trampling under foot that enthusiastic doctrine that "we are not to do good unless our hearts be free to it."

Thirdly: By attending upon all the ordinances of God; such are:
The public worship of God.
The ministry of the Word, either read or expounded.
The Supper of the Lord.
Family and private prayer.
Searching the Scriptures.
Fasting or abstinence.

A good foundation, let us build upon it.

A quick post from the US! We made it fine, arriving Monday night, though one bag was delayed. That bag came the next day. Helen is already at the Living Faith, Seeking Justice Conference, while I am staying with Randy and Susan Sublett in Carrollton, TX, good friends from my time in Texas, 20 odd years ago. I will go to the conference today and the two days on my own in Dallas gave me time to run around and do errands. We do have a US phone number, so if you would like the number, add a comment to this post with an email or send a request to dosvitok@gmail.com. Be sure to let us know who you are! Addresses like xtremfriend34@yaxoo.com don't always jog our memories. We will be in the US until Nov 18.

Our last post from Kiev for while is today's, as Helen and I are traveling to the US for a couple of Conferences. The first is the Living Faith, Seeking Justice Conference in Ft. Worth TX, sponsored by the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, where we hope to get some ideas and inspirations for the street children ministry. After the conference ends, we will be in the Dallas Ft. Worth area, then going to Georgetown, TX, to visit folks at the First UMC Georgetown, generous supporters of our homeless children's ministry. Then on Nov 14, we travel to Leawood KS near Kansas City to the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, which is hosting the Russia Initiative Consultation, a gathering of all the US United Methodist churches who sponsor UM churches in the former Soviet Union. A delegation of 11 is coming from Ukraine, so I think we are going to lobby for a change in the name to be a little more inclusive of the countries involved which includes Belorus, Modova, Russia and Ukraine. We also hope to visit St. John's UMC in Houston if we have the time, a UMC church of 9,000 - 3,000 of which are homeless or former homeless. We hope to learn some of the unique characteristics of having a church which stretches across economic classes, like the one we hope to plant in Kiev.

So, on our last day before departure, we took a stroll down the main street of Kiev, Khreschatik, which is closed to cars and open only to pedestrian traffic on Saturdays and Sundays.


A popular live broadcast karaoke-type singalong TV show is filmed here on Khreschatik on Sundays. People are picked out of the crowd to try their luck and people were having a good time as we passed by.

Mini-Grand Opening

Today was the first day in the new Dosvitok children's center! As noted before, we are saving the real Grand Opening when the entire center has been completed, but from today forward the center is open 6 days a week from 10:00-17:00. It has been one year and four months since we lost the lease on our old premises and 6 months and 2 days since we purchased the premises we have now. Our and your prayers have been answered and the ministry can move ahead in a more effective way. Here are some pictures from the first day. The pictures as usual do not show many faces as we try to protect the privacy of the children who are homeless.

You will note that we have two pictures of people playing checkers. Ukrainian checkers has different rules. The pieces can only move forward as in American rules and jumps are obligatory, but pieces can jump both forwards and backwards. Also, when you reach the back row and get "crowned" a king, the king moves like a bishop in chess. I claimed I was new to the rules since I lost both games I played.

Our meetings continue. Yesterday was the Financial Committee of the Annual Conference, today the Administrative Council. Here is Sergei Bogomozyuk, pastor from Uzhgorod giving his best fiscally responsible stare. Valerie Fedorov, treasurer of the Istochnik church in Kiev, sits next to him.


I would have some pictures of the administrative council, but Helen took the camera to the Dosvitok street children center where she and the staff are cleaning up for our opening tomorrow. It is not a grand opening, which we will save when the entire center has been completed, but from tomorrow, the center will be open for the children to come every day! The kitchen was finished at the beginning of this week in the Dosvitok center. For those who are interested in some pictures of the completed kitchen, click here. There are also some other pictures of the status of the rest of the repair work. If you want to compare to what the kitchen looked like before the repair work, click here.

This week is our visitors week, as we are having three conference meetings held at the Ukraine and Moldova Annual Conference Office (our apartment). The United Methodist Women's Council meeting will be held today, the Annual Conference Financial Committee tomorrow, and the Annual Conference Administrative Council on Friday. All of the committee members will be getting nice Ukrainian snacks such as these and will be well supplied with pens, some of which actually write.

Our visitors week started off, however, by a visit from Raiya Pinchuk and Sasha Lutsiak from Chernivtsi, a city in Western Ukraine. Raiya is the wife of the pastor of the church, Alexander Pinchuk and Sasha is the church lay leader. They will be attending the Russia Initiative Consultation, which will be held in Kansas City and had their interview with the US Embassy yesterday. Since they had to be at the embassy at 7:00am, (the embassy processes 200-300 visa interviews per day) they came a day early to spend the night with us. Here they are after the interview, with the smiles of those who have just received a visa.


A common joke about the strictness of the visa application process to get a US visa is that the last Soviet institution in Ukraine is the US Embassy.

Raiya's husband Alexander spent 7 years in prison because of his faith. Actually, it was about 3.5 in prison and the rest in a mental institution. He refused to serve in the Army (Ukrainian Christians from the Soviet period have a strong pacifist tradition) during the Afghanistan war and was asked was it because of his faith. When he answered in the affirmative, he was then visited by psychiatrists. They asked him the standard question in cases such as this, "Do you believe the Holy Spirit speaks to you?" When he said yes, the diagnosis of schizophrenia was immediately given, backed up by the admission of the patient of hearing imaginary voices. He subsequently was committed to a mental institution. Hard to believe this happened only 15-20 years ago in Ukraine. Now Ukraine has one of the best statutes and application of the statute regarding religious freedom among the former Soviet republics.

Yesterday we traveled with Jim Dwyer to Poltava for a worship service. As you might recall from the last post, we were going to have to take the bus back, because there were no tickets on the Express train from Poltava, almost directly east from Kiev. The express actually starts in Xarkhiv, Ukraine's second largest city, so they reserve most of the tickets for people starting from Xharkiv. We found if we bought the ticket from Xarkhiv, even though we would board from Poltava, THEN there were seats available. Tricky, eh? We discovered this from the woman in front of us while waiting in line to see if any tickets were available. We couldn't resist taking our picture in front of a famous persona from Ukraine's Soviet past.
Jim was the guest preacher at the service and we welcomed a new lay missionary who will serve in the pastoral role in Poltava, Irina Malchenova. She has been serving as an assistant to the pastor in the church for the past year and with the departure this September of the former pastor, she has now begun this new position. A native of Poltava, she looks forward to helping the church grow. A few pictures from the trip are here, along with the name of the above persona, if you did not recognize him.

James Dwyer, our Regional Executive Secretary from the General Board of Global Ministries of the UMC came to visit us this weekend. It is always nice to have guests, as we break our routine and enjoy the beauty of Kiev.

James and I are here discussing deep missiological issues in front of the new chairs we have purchased for the street children center.
Tomorrow, we leave for Poltava, one of our churches in central Ukraine in the city where in the early 1700's, Peter the Great of Russia defeated Charles the XII of Sweden, starting the decline of the empire of Sweden, at the time known as the Great Mistress of the North. James will be the guest preacher. Another train ride is involved, this one leaving at 6:30am tomorrow morning to arrive by 10:30 in Poltava. Due to people commuting to Kiev to weekly work from Poltava, we will have to take a 5 hour bus ride back, since the express train is full.

This Ukrainian building technique near our new center caught our eye.

Back from Kerch. Total time in Kerch: 39 hours. Total time on train (round trip): 46 hours. As you can see from Helen, it is important to get nice and settled in on these trips.

It was very nice catching up with old friends while in Kerch for the annual Charge Conference (Methodist lingo for yearly business and planning meeting). Kerch was Helen's and my first appointment in Ukraine and therefore especially dear to us as we lived in Kerch for a little over 2 years. Kerch is the oldest city in Ukraine and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on the continent of Europe, around 8,000 years old! We stayed with some friends and right across the road from where they live, a 7th century BC cemetery was recently uncovered, the time when the city was a Greek colony known as Panticapaeum. Our friends were sad we had not been there earlier as during the excavation, when all the skeletons adorned in jewelry were readily available to see. We enjoyed worshiping at our old church and pastor Evgenia Kozarenko was especially proud to show off her first child, Versavia. Here are some other pictures of the trip to Kerch. Be sure and put your cursor on the captions as they expand so you can read more. Also use the "slideshow" option for the best view.

Today we leave for Kerch for their annual Charge Conference. Kerch is where Helen and I began our ministry in Ukraine and our married life. The city is located on the eastern tip of the Crimean peninsula, on a little strait of water separating Ukraine from Russia, and separating the Black Sea from the Sea of Azov. Click on the maps to see them slightly larger. It is also the church the farthest away from us in Kiev, entailing a 24 hour train ride. Kerch does not have its own separate train in the fall and winter, but just two cars which are attached to the Kiev-Sevastopol train. When the train stops in Djankoy, the city at the top of the Crimean peninsula, the cars are detached and wait on a side track for 4 hours until they are picked up by the Djankoy-Kerch train, which tears up the track of the remaining 200 km (124 miles) in 5 hours.
But we enjoy the leisurely pace, it is nice to have time to read, talk and be disconnected from electronic media for several days. The two train rides, up and back can almost be little mini-retreats. We will stay in the home of Olga (not her real name), a good friend of hours from our Kerch days. She has been through a hard time recently as her husband died of cancer last year (only 5 weeks from diagnosis until death) and she now must live with her mother 5 hours from Kerch on the other side of the bay in Russia, who has Alzheimer's and cannot be left alone. Nursing homes are not available. She is coming to meet us as we arranged for some home care so she could have a respite to be in Kerch to see her house and son who is in the seaman's university in Kerch. Pray for Olga and her situation. More on Kerch when we return on Tuesday.

We heard from Sergei today, the young man we wrote about in our newsletter who is in prison. He called Svetlana, our daily director of the center from a cell phone. What? Called from a cell phone? In prison? Yes, Ukrainian prisons have some conveniences. Apparently, a cell phone is made available so prisoners can call quickly to ask for the person called to call them back. Sergei was greatly appreciative Helen and I were at the court during his trial, he didn't expect anyone to show up, thought everyone would be angry or wouldn't care. He told us to tell all of you who are praying for him a big thanks, as it means so much to him. Sergei also related that he wished he had listened to Svetlana and us and realizes he made a big mistake. We can't visit him until he is moved from the holding center to one of the regional prisons. We hope it is nearby Kiev; it could be anywhere in the country, depending on the type of prison (strict regime, light regime) to which he is assigned. At the holding center he is in a cell with 50, yes 50 other men. But this seems to be a normal practice in the prison system. Continue to keep him in your prayers, especially so he will not get the drug-resistant TB very prevalent in the prisons and of course, to be safe from violence.

I (Bill) went to a Children-at-Risk Coalition meeting today, a group of Christian ministries that work with troubled children, primarily in Kiev. Helen was having a staff meeting with the employees of our center and couldn't go. Ministries include those to street children, work in orphanages, independent living dormitories for older teens, etc. The director of a ministry named Child Rescue is now the head of the Ministry of Children's Affairs in Kiev. In contrast to previous suspicions about non-governmental orginizations (NGOs) working with children, the government in Kiev is wide open to cooperation with NGOs, secular or religious. This openness is a direct answer to the prayers of our coalition and others.

One statistic that was shared and particularly troubling is that of all homeless children who have been processed through government shelters, orphanages or other institutions, 10% are found to be HIV+. Pray for us as we will encounter this situation more and more in our work.

Helen and I just returned from Lugansk, a city in Eastern Ukraine which has been known for its mining industry. I am starting my yearly circuit of the United Methodist churches in Ukraine to hold what is known in United Methodist lingo as the Charge Conference, or a yearly business meeting where reports of the previous years work of the local church are given and future plans are discussed. Here are some pictures of our trip.

Today is Helen's Birthday! We celebrated by taking the kids out to a cafe nearby in the grand Norwegian tradition of throwing your own birthday party. We deviated from tradition a little bit because we had the celebration on the exact day of her birthday, while Norwegians seem to celebrate their birthday on most any day of the year except the exact day. And more than once. I must admit though, Helen disputes my interpretation of the date(s) of celebration. Here are a couple of pictures. By the way, Helen also blogs for the Norwegian United Methodist Mission website. So all you Norwegian readers, enjoy.

Here are a few more pictures from the Dosvitok center as the renovation stands today. Click here for a lovely view.

Newsletter September 2007

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! Exciting things are happening in the Ukraine and Moldova Annual Conference. Two of these directly concern the ministry of Bill and Helen in Kiev.

Street Children Ministry

First is our Street Children Ministry, Dosvitok, which means Daybreak. As many of you know, in July 2006, the ministry lost the half-basement it had rented for 4 years. For the last year, the ministry has been operating “On the street” as we searched for a new place to operate. When Helen founded the ministry, it started on the street, so old skills were put to use again. With real-estate property prices in Kiev growing faster than any other place in the world in 2006 and 2007, it seemed as soon as a suitable place was found, the price was out of reach. But in March of 2007, in answer to the faithful prayers of many, Dosvitok purchased a 208 square meter (2239 square feet) first floor of an apartment building in the same area of Kiev as the former center, this time near a lake and park area. The entrance to the new center is at street level, on opposite side of the building from the entrances that the other residents use. There is a fenced-in paved area in front of the entrance which is for the center’s use only. You can see the outside entrance area of the center by clicking here.

The purchase was made possible by a gift from Blacksburg United Methodist Church, covering 1/3 of the purchase price, gifts from United Methodist Churches in Norway, covering 1/3 of the price, and a loan from the United Methodist Church of Norway covering the remaining cost. Completing the purchase exhausted the reserves held for the ministry, but with the climbing real-estate market Kiev and the inability to find a suitable place to rent, the opportunity could not be passed up. The ministry has been blessed though by new donations coming in which are helping to pay for needed renovations and the day-to-day program of the center. You can see interior shots of the building before renovations were started by clicking here.

Renovations have been moving at a slow, but steady pace. The first floor we purchased was an unfinished storage area, so extensive renovations have to be completed before we can open the center to full time usage. A staff meeting was held in the new building shortly after the purchase using plastic chairs set up in an unfinished room. One conclusion of the half day meeting was that the bathroom needed to be finished first! You can see the before renovation and after result by clicking here.

As the rest of the building consists of private residences, Dosvitok wants to be the best neighbor it possibly can be. Therefore, we wanted to not let the children know where the center was located before we were open on a full time basis so to keep down the chances of them hanging out around the building without supervision. A medical team though, from Central PA led by Woody Wolfe, a long time supporter of United Methodist work in Ukraine through the Central PA Ukrainian Initiative, came to Dosvitok on the 18 & 19^th. With the bathroom complete and the main activity hall at least painted, it was decided to open the center for one day only to hold a medical checkup clinic for the children. Two of the “children”, both 18, are a new mother and expectant one in the ninth month and it was good for the doctors to check out them and their baby and baby-to-be. A hernia was discovered on the almost 2 month old (boy), which probably would not have been discovered otherwise. The mother smokes and probably injects a homemade methamphetamine drug known as “vint”, so we are anxious to get the center up and running so as to have these mothers coming to a controlled environment so we can monitor the development of their babies and help them to care for their babies. Nothing else serious was discovered except for the general hazards of life on the streets such as high blood pressure for the smoker/glue sniffers, scabies and bad tooth decay, serious enough of themselves. Click here for some pictures. Note: We try not to show faces of the children for their own protection and safety. Please do not post these pictures elsewhere on the internet. Thank you.

Monday was a sad day for us in the street children ministry. Sergei, one of the children who has been with us since the beginning, now 18, was on trial for stealing a cell phone. One and one half years ago, while a minor, he also was a participant with another young man in a cell phone robbery. Both were caught and while his partner, 18 at the time received four years, Sergei got 2 years probation. We worked with Sergei to make sure he understood that crime was not the way to solve his numerous problems. Sergei’s father died while he was young and his mother started to drink. She sold their apartment for a case of vodka which put Sergei and his two sisters on the street.

Recently things had been looking up for Sergei and his siblings. His older sister received an apartment (from the government) in the village in which they were born and Sergei’s younger sister had been staying there looking after the older sister’s child. Sergei had gotten a job loading and unloading trucks in Kiev to help support himself and send some money to his two sisters. But cell phones are a status symbol and the best models are hard to purchase on a minimum wage job. The temptation seemed to be too much for Sergei.

Sergei was always the first one to greet us when we came to the old center. Laughing and playing around he constantly had his arms around our necks, reaching out for the contact he did not receive much in his life on the street. But today those hands were in handcuffs as he was led to the “cage” in the courtroom, the place in a Ukrainian courtroom where the accused is locked in. He was crying and so were we as the judge asked him, “Where is your father?” “Dead.”, Sergei replied. “I notice your mother was recently released from prison. She broke probation as well.” “Yes…”., mumbled Sergei. “Anything to say for yourself?” said the judge “Please, I’ll get a job, I’ll do better..” The judge gave Sergei a long look, then said, “Sentencing at 2:30pm”, and the courtroom broke for lunch. The guards handcuffed Sergei and led him out, sobbing as he went, but glancing our way under the stern gaze of the three guards. No communication is allowed between a prisoner and anyone else. We came back at 2:30, waited for 20 minutes outside the courtroom, but then a guard walked by and said, “Oh, it is already over. Judge took a quick lunch; he got 4 years 2 months.” So we didn’t even get to wave goodbye. This term was especially saddening when we read in the Norwegian newspapers how a man charged with being an accomplice to murder got 4 years in prison, while a young man Sergei’s age, also a repeat offender, convicted of robbing a cell-phone kiosk in a mall was sentenced to counseling and 58 hours of community service. Sergei will be held in Kiev for one month as they decide to which prison they will send him. After that, once his prison is known, we can visit. Prison in Ukraine is a tough place, over crowded and disease ridden, with no effort to separate young offenders and hardened criminals. In a newspaper article this week about the processing center jail where Sergei is staying until his prison is chosen, the HIV infection rate was said to be 20-25% of the inmates.

After having done the ministry “on the street” for over a year, the negative difference can be seen in the life of the children to whom we minister. The lack of a building has made it difficult to give the children structure and specific Christian and basic elementary educational programs. It is hard for us not to think that if we hadn’t been on the street for this past year, perhaps Sergei could have avoided his prison term. Pray for us as we now have this new center to even more effectively do ministry which positively impacts the children’s lives. Two of our priorities are to develop a program for young mothers at the center and to establish programs which we minister to the whole family, not just the child who shows up at the center. Our staff needs to expand to take care of the increase of children we expect with the opening of the new center.

New Church Start Up.

Bill has been appointed by the Bishop to start a new church in Kiev which will at first meet in the Dosvitok Street Children Center. The vision of the church is to be one which will be open to all, especially without regard to economic class. As any church growth expert will tell you, sociological factors are against mixing economic classes in a church, perhaps even as difficult as having a multi-racial or multi-ethnic congregation. The new church is to be named St. Luke’s UMC and with the inspiration of the gospel of Luke and the call of Christ, there is hope to overcome these natural barriers with the supernatural love of God. This church is being sponsored by the partner church program of World Evangelism and the World Methodist Council in cooperation with the Russia Initiative and special help from Ted and Kay Reissing of Peach Tree UMC in Peachtree GA.

Conference News

One of the biggest events of 2007 in the life of the United Methodist Church in Ukraine has been the Leadership Institute in Kiev put on by the Church of the Resurrection (COR) in Kansas City. COR is a 11,000 member United Methodist Church which holds this seminar on building church leaders and helping local churches reach people for Christ every year in Kansas and attracts more than 1,500 pastors and church leaders from around the United States. We were blessed to have this valuable seminar in Kiev for all our pastors in Ukraine and up to 3 lay leaders from each church completely sponsored by COR. Concepts learned in the seminar were followed up by “homework” for the pastors and their churches, turned in at Annual Conference in July. Every church now has a purpose statement and a pastor with a 6 month preaching plan designed to grow her/his congregation. Other ideas learned at the seminar were also implemented. Continued follow-up will be done as Bill leads the annual Charge Conference in every local church before Annual Conference 2008.

Annual Conference 2007 was highlighted by the entry of a new church into our Annual Conference: The Great Commission Church UMC of Kishinev, Moldova. The church passed their probationary period which is required for all existing churches which desire to become United Methodist with good reports from their mentoring church in Chernivtsi and Bill as District Superintendent. Congratulations to the church and their pastor, Leonard Chernoy. Many thanks for the prayers for our pastor in Sevastopol, Illya Boroxov who was having kidney problem symptoms. The problems turned out to be a cancerous tumor of the prostate which went into the bladder, but an operation removed the tumor and no trace of the cancer has been found elsewhere in his body. Pray for his continued recovery. Two announcements of joy for the Ukraine and Moldova Annual Conference were the birth of the first child of Pastor Evgenia Kozarenko who had a girl, Versavia Denisovich Kozarenko and the birth of a son, Adam Lyubomirovich Rudko, of the associate pastor in Lviv, Lyubomir Rudko.

Prayer Concerns:

Dosvitok: (Street Children Ministry):

- Sergei, for safety from disease and violence in prison. The chance of being infected with drug-resistant tuberculosis and AIDS is high in prison.

- Mortgage Payment - Though we have very good terms on the loan from the United Methodist Church in Norway, we still need to pay it off, pay for the renovations and keep up the daily budget of the ministry.

- Young Mothers Program

- Acquisition of new staff members who are both called by God and qualified.

St. Luke’s UMC in Kiev (new church plant)

- Core leadership group

- Organizational planning before start of public worship

New Church plants which are being planned in the Uzhgorod region and Chernivtsi

Alexander Pinchuk, pastor of Chernivtsi UMC, continuing debilitating back problems

Elections in Ukraine on Sept 30, 2007.

Thanks so much to all our supporters. May God bless you as He blesses us through you.