Fw: Hope4Kyiv #061 ---- 11/23/07
Posted by: lifeunlimited <lifeunlimited@...>
Monthly Praise and Prayer Letter Of
Bob and Jo Ann Tolliver
Missionaries to Kiev, Ukraine
Number 061
Nov 23, 2007
Dear Friends, Family, and In-Pact Partners:
Happy Thanksgiving from Kyiv, Ukraine! We know we already sent you an "official" greeting yesterday via e-card, but wanted you to see how we celebrated Thanksgiving here last night. We shared some of our TG traditions with two other Americans and a small group of young adults. In the picture front row you see Tania from Cuba next to Jo Ann, Zhanna from Ukraine, missionary Lydia from America, and Sasha from Ukraine. On the back row is "F" from Iran, Iryna from Ukraine, "M" from Iran, Ira from Ukraine, and missionary Joel from America. Jo Ann fixed her typical beautifully decorated table, we found fresh turkey at the local market, and had a few of our stateside TG dishes . . . turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, corn, cranberry Jell-O, lime Jell-O, and Jo Ann's home-made bread. Thanks to Lydia, we topped it off with mince meat and pumpkin pies along with gourmet coffee and hot tea. Wish you could have been here!
Tania is our Cuban "daughter" for whom you've prayed so many times. We'll say more about her shortly. Zhanna is Ukrainian and a fairly recent addition to our church. She attends a Christian university in Kyiv. Lydia and her husband Dennis are missionaries with the Evangelical Free Church, providing professional counseling and training Ukrainians in Christian counseling. Sasha was one of our first translators at St. James Bible College, found out about KIBC less than a year ago and now calls it home. She works with an NGO ministering to HIV/AIDS victims.
"F" is a believer of less than a year whom "M" led to Christ. He's a key leader in our Persian work. Iryna is "M"'s wife and a member of our worship team. Ira was the last translator Bob used at St. James Bible College and has been part of KIBC since its beginning. Her father is a village pastor. Joel is a missionary with Strategic Church Planting Ministries from North Carolina and has been involved with missions all his life. He and Ira are "an item". He speaks fluent Spanish, so also works with our Spanish ministry doing lots of training and mentoring. Everyone except Lydia is a member of our Esther Fellowship and Timothy Fellowship groups with whom we meet each Wednesday.
News, News, News!
+ The seven ladies made their trip successfully to the international women's conference in Cuxhaven, Germany. Each one came back bearing deep changes and great encouragement. We had a picture of them, but the file was too large to send, so it had to be deleted until a later time.
+ We both meet every Tuesday with the pastor of our Spanish ministry and several key members of the church who are being trained for leadership ministries. We are currently taking them through the "Transferable Concepts" published by Campus Crusade. In this picture you have people from Dominican Republic, Ukraine, Peru, and Cuba. The church also has others from Spain, Colombia, and other Latin American countries. Raidel, the pastor (on the far right), is a Cuban who has lived in Ukraine for a number of years, coming here to play baseball. He is member of the Ukrainian national baseball team which has won numerous international medals.
+ As we mentioned earlier this month in a special letter, our own "Tania" (pictured in the white aboveand also with Jo Ann below ) has been accepted to emigrate to Sweden, and, to our shock, will be doing so on December 4th, just over a week from today. So, we are scrambling frantically trying to help her get ready for the move. We don't know which city she'll go to yet, and we don't know if she will go directly into her own apartment or will spend some time in a refugee camp. We are so excited for her, but very sad to think of our lives without her after nearly five years of friendship and ministry together, and then over a year of living with us as part of our family. While we don't know all the details, it looks like the UNHCR will provide her financial subsistence, housing costs, will help her find work, and will even pay for more education for up to three years. We don't know the specifics, but this is great news. She will be able to concentrate on learning Swedish, and will also be able to work on her graduate degree. As we know details, we'll let you know.
+ More Amazing News! After having been told one day that he would never be able to get his homeland passport renewed even if he paid someone $500,000, the very next day "M" learned that he could . . . and would! The highest government official of his homeland personally extended it for five years! The same day he also learned that next Summer he could get a permanent Ukrainian passport (something everyone said could not happen), and that very same day the company building the apartment building in which their new apartment is located informed them that they had miscalculated the size, and they would be getting a minimum of $5,000 refund and perhaps more. Now they will be able to finish off the interior much more quickly and possibly get moved in by sometime in January.
+ The Timothy and Esther Fellowship groups are still flourishing. It has been very disappointing to see some who we thought really saw the vision end up dropping out of the groups, but those who do understand have remained faithful. God continues raising up young adults to take on leadership roles, and frankly, this is one of the things that keeps us here. If we could not see a strong core of leaders coming up, we're not sure we'd feel the motivation to remain in Kyiv. Bob's TF group now consists of seven guys, four of whom are extremely loyal, plus missionary Joel who comes as his ministry allows. Jo Ann's EF group has five strong and loyal gals, although she'll lose Tania next week. All told, we have representation from America, Cuba, China, Ukraine, Iran, India, and Lebanon in the groups. But, these all represent the future of the church. It cannot be sustained by missionaries and a handful of nationals indefinitely.
+ Bob adds another teaching responsibility this coming Sunday as he begins a study on "Victory in The Battle" pertaining to spiritual warfare. It has the potential of being an extensive study, but he's trying very hard to limit it to no more than six or eight weeks. There are just so many different topics that need to be examined, and others are in the wings preparing to cover some of them. Also, he doesn't want to spread himself too thin. Right now he's preparing for four different assignments a week plus preaching most Sundays. He feels like he lives in the office much of the time.
+ Jo Ann's loving hospitality and cooking creations are surely winning her lots of fans. Hardly a Sunday goes by with less than fifteen people staying for lunch; and it's usually between 20 and 25. But, they sure have a good time. We wish you could slip in sometime and just watch as these university students (and a few others thrown in) interact through fellowship, feasting, and frequent times of ministering to each other. It is truly the Church . . . alive and active.
+ Not everything is always pleasant. Being an English language international church, we are sometimes like a magnet to people who come to us for reasons that are often selfish. Currently we have a couple of men we're having to deal with. One comes only for refreshments during fellowship time and stuffs his pockets with cookies and chips, often before anyone else gets any. Another comes to try to get money. Both of them seem to make the rounds each week to several churches. But, we'd rather minister to such people as much as we can rather than take a chance of missing someone who really does need our love. One thing is certain . . . KIBC has virtually no issues of conflict or discontentment. Occasionally there might be some clashes between personalities, but it doesn't last long. This is an incredible fellowship of believers.
+ New Language groups are constantly on our hearts. Currently we're trying to strengthen our Arabic and Chinese ministries, both of whom have had some challenges. At the same time, we're asking the Lord to expand our ministry to Ukrainian and Russian speakers, and to open the doors for ministry to Tamil and Hebrew speakers. We praise God for the procedure the Pastoral Leadership Team set in place at the beginning of the church that we would do only what God directed us to do, and we would do it only when He opened the door. In light of that, we also anticipate our prayer ministry to really take off, and the proposed small group ministry to be initiated soon. We still wait on the midweek evangelistic Bible study to fall into place.
+ The church leadership just last week increased our missions giving by another three percent as we press on toward eventually giving 50% of our income away in missions and benevolence. Currently we are nearing the 20% mark. The people have clearly seen with their own eyes how God responds to compassionate love, unhindered generosity, and extravagant giving. We are so proud of them!
Family News:
+ Personally we're doing fine, but are having increasing difficulty keeping our weight down. We just don't get the outside exercise we need, and ministry responsibilities keep us behind desks and in chairs far too much. And, of course, we still don't get the sleep we need, so we usually live tired, and when we do get a break to sit down and relax, we often fall asleep. It's scary how much we're becoming like Bob's parents were.
+ We will not be coming to the States for Christmas, and probably won't be back until Summer . . . probably arriving in late May or early June. Before then we have a trip to Sweden and one to Germany that we must take. Other than that, we expect to spend most of our time here in Kyiv.
+ Our kids are all doing fine as far as we know, and busy. Cindy's are so busy it makes our heads spin just thinking about them. They are supervising volunteer crews, in the beginning stages of building another Bible school in Medellin, providing media equipment for various churches, serving as host and hostess to both nationals and visitors, and are doing more video production, while Christopher continues excelling in school activities. Debbie and the girls are o.k. as far as we know; we seldom hear. We have heard by the grapevine that Debbie has lost lots of weight and is doing quite well in spite of the continued undiagnosed MS. Cheri's are seeing their next slowly empty out, down to three now as Anya has moved to Texas. Roma is still in Northwoods, Iowa. They're planning on a trip our direction hopefully in the Spring. Deanna's are still in LaGrange where Jim pastors and writes his "Walk With Jesus" e-letter. Their ministry continues being fruitful with lives being changed, and many being ministered to.
Prayer Requests:
+ Pray for Ukraine and the political situation. With the new Parliament to begin the new session eminently, there is still no coalition as promised during the special elections. Citizens are again giving up on anything much changing, and that always leads to further opportunities for corruption and self-serving legislation. Pray that Yushchenko will have the backbone and the moral fiber to not only speak righteousness and integrity, but take actions that advance them.
+ Pray for the church as it continues experiencing numerous outpourings of God's presence. Pray that hearts of fear and/or pride will be broken before the Lord, and the Holy Sprit will flow in convicting, cleansing, and restoring power. Pray that Jesus will be the focus of choice in every gathering, and that every sign of sin and carnality will be crushed under His magnificent presence.
+ Pray for our students, that God will give them hearts of faithfulness that will not yield to the pressures of class assignments and social opportunities that can draw them aside from where the Father is trying to take them. Pray that they will be bold, strong, and courageous in their testimonies and in their lifestyles.
+ Pray for our language ministries . . . the Arabic that it will begin to seriously reach native Arabic speakers who want to do more than learn English, but have a genuine curiosity for spiritual things, . . . the Farsi work that it will continue growing beyond the 20 to 25 currently involved in Bible studies, discussion groups, tutoring sessions, and social activities, . . . The Chinese ministry that Louis will have others come along side and see the vision of reaching many of the 13,000 Chinese students in the city, and that he will teach and minister with anointed authority and power, . . . the Spanish church as it adjusts to Tania's departure, and as it continues reaching more and more new Latin Americans from new places like Colombia and other countries, . . . the Russian and Ukrainian ministry that God will raise up leaders to re-start that work on many fronts. Pray that God will give us wisdom concerning potential ministries in Tamil and Hebrew languages.
+ Pray that somehow in this busy season we can get something tangible done on our three websites that need to be up and running. This has been frustrating simply because of time limitations.
+ Pray for Tania as she faces major overwhelming adjustments in her future. After living as a refugee in a foreign country such as Ukraine for nearly five years, she is now moving to another foreign land where she has virtually no friends, church, or support base. Pray that her trip will be uneventful, that she'll find a comfortable and cozy place to live quickly, that she'll find a job, and that she'll find a wonderful visionary church where she can experience fellowship, good Bible teaching, and ample opportunities to put her giftings and calling into good use.
Finally:
+ Thank you again for your undergirding and encouragement. We never take you for granted. Without you, we would not have the strength and endurance to keep going sometimes.
+ If you are planning on sending us any packages that need to be here by Christmas, you most definitely need to do it by airmail, and preferably by priority air. One of the safest and most reliable ways is through the US Postal Service where Priority Air will usually get to us within two weeks. Cards and letters by USPS airmail usually take two weeks or more.
+ If you have an interest in perhaps helping support Tania financially, it can easily be done through our Life Unlimited Ministries, a 401.c.3 tax-exempt non-profit religious organization. Contact us about that if interested.
+ Some recently asked about the situation concerning donating air miles toward future airline tickets for us. Rather than take the time to explain here, if you're interested in that, drop us a note and we'll explain it to you.
+ Please take time to drop us a line. We really do long to hear from you.
We love you all, and praise God for you every day.
In His Bond, By His Grace, and For His Kingdom,
Bob and Jo Ann
The Tollivers
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