Seeking and Building Relationships

Last Sunday, our team had the great opportunity to go to a village called Nikolipolia and help run their local church service. David, Megan and Katie-Sue shared a little bit of what God is doing in their life, we sang two songs and I had the privilege to preach. The congregation consisted of fifteen 40-80 year old men and women and we had so much fun. We stayed for tea and pieces of bread lathered in mayo with a little piece of sausage on top. The LORD put on my heart to talk about his great power and how he is living and dwelling inside of us, and because of all of this we should not limit His power in the church and in our daily lives. We should all dream big for the church, for a harvest of new believers and unity among the Bride of Christ (all-Christians). I also am speaking this Sunday at another church that we are visiting, and Easter is one week later in Ukraine this year than in Canada, so I will be speaking about Palm Sunday.
  
 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
        Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
    Behold, your king is coming to you;
        righteous and having salvation is he,
    humble and mounted on a donkey,
        on a colt, the foal of a donkey.(Zechariah 9:9 ESV)

 Well David and I finally got to see the gem of Zaporozhye this last Monday, Hortitsa Island. A lady from the English Club that we help at invited us and how could we decline? We did not know who all was coming or what we were going to do but we just went for it and it turned out to be amazing! It ended up being our English Club friend Ann and her two daughters, her friend named Lienna, a man named Dima, another missionary John Charlier, David and myself. We were told in the morning that we did not need to pack a lunch because Ann was going to bring chicken....we did not know how she was planning on bringing chicken but it is Ukraine, so we just rolled with it. We ended up touring around part of the beautiful island and having a picnic along the Dnieper River. Out of Ann's little mickey mouse backpack came a pot filled with fresh chicken wings that she cooked that morning, a homemade thermos with tea and a pan with an apple cake, it was a delicious picnic meal.

The bridge to Hotitsa Island

The most exciting part of this day was just the fellowship and conversation that we had together. They are not believers in Christ but I was able to have a very good conversation with Dima. We talked about a very large range of topics, starting with me trying to explain the fact that legalistic/political churches are just buildings and not a strong community of believers of Jesus and we went all the way to the question of why Christians disagree with having sex before marriage. He says that he believes in God but he hates "religion" and he wants freedom, so I did explain the true freedom that I have through the LORD and it was a great conversation. We exchanged phone numbers and tonight he came to the English Club and we talked more and plan to meet this week and talk more. Please pray that God will reveal to him the freedom that he can have through Jesus and that he will come to know Christ.

I was also able to have a great conversation with another youth named Vasiliy. He speaks very good English but would like to get even better, and he enjoys talking with me and says that he would like to be my friend and show me around the city. He is not religious and says that he does not need a God in his daily life. I am just building a relationship with him and I am sharing the gospel when I feel that the Holy Spirit is leading me. I enjoy talking with Vasiliy and it is great to learn more about the city through him. Please pray that he will see that God is a living and loving God that desires a relationship with him and that he will enter into relationship with Christ.

Praise God these past few weeks for his financial provision. We have found out that roughly $40,000 dollars has been given to The New Hope Center and now they can begin working on some of their bigger building projects! Also please pray for the healing of a girl named Alona, an unusual pain in her tailbone is not allowing her to sit and this has been going on for quite a while now and we believe that God wants to heal her of this and He is the only God that can bring healing to her body. I have really been sensing the presence of spiritual warfare and darkness in the last few days so prayer that God's light will shine through and that we may see a harvest of believers come to know the love of JESUS CHRIST in this Easter Season.
Blessings,
Mitch