HOPE 4 KYIV $050 ----11/30/06
Posted by: lifeunlimited <lifeunlimited@...>
The Monthly Praise and Prayer Letter Of
Bob and Jo Ann Tolliver
Missionaries to Kiev, Ukraine
Number 050
November 30, 2006
Dear Friends, Family, and "InPact" Prayer Partners:
Even though this is a week early, so much is happening that we wanted to write you again and bring you up to date on a number of things, especially since we will be arriving in Collins just two weeks from today for a holiday break. We hope to see many of you while we're home for five weeks.
Updates on Past Matters:
+ Nothing more has been done on the needed electrical work, and we don't expect much of anything more until probably after the new year. We finally gave up on high speed internet and ordered service cancelled yesterday. We're weary of paying out money and getting minimal service. We finally got service up and running, but discovered we could receive but not send e-mail. After about a week of service, it was cut off. We discovered it was because all our reserve money had been used up. So, we gave our building guy money to pay it; but, instead of taking it to the company, he took it to a bank. So, while we were continuing to be charged, we still had no service. Finally, a week later we got on line . . . but still unable to send.
During all this time we also had two phones we could not use because when the service was hooked up a couple of months back, they got wires crossed and all incoming calls had an eardrum splitting screech. Our building guy was convinced it wasn't internet, so would do nothing about it. Then a week ago we got service back, only to have it cut off again three days ago because we had again used up all our deposit money.
Well, that was enough. We cancelled. Of course, in order to fully cancel, we have to provide a written request. They want to know why we are canceling, so that means Bob must write a letter, have it translated into Ukrainian, and then hand delivered to the company. Hopefully we'll get that done this week for a delivery next week. Of course, we'll probably owe them more money.
But, . . . now that we have disconnected all the high speed modems and wires, all our phones work just fine. But, of course, it had nothing to do with the internet installation! 🙂
+ Bob's syllabus on the doctrine of salvation ended up being 53 pages long. He'll do one more revision after he's had some time to let his brain cool down, but it's already being requested by pastors and other missionaries. It is also a resource for some of our guys working with our Persian, Spanish, and Chinese groups. As soon as he does the revision, we'll have it translated into Russian, Ukrainian, Farsi, Spanish, and Chinese.
+ Our efforts to register the church with the government is proceeding steadily. Within a few weeks the papers will be ready for the attorney to file. With holidays coming up, however, it may be late January before it is actually done.
Recent Events and Developments:
+ Our two young adult Bible study fellowship groups (Timothy and Esther) have been meeting together the past four weeks watching an outstanding DVD presentation by Robert Morris called "The Blessed Life", one of the best and most balanced studies we've ever seen on the subject of biblical stewardship. We recommend this study highly, and without reservation. Beginning next week the groups will divide up again.
+ Even though we've had lots of people out translating or ill, and our missionaries come and go, our attendance has held steady, with new faces almost every week. We have recently added a "children's church" for our kids under age six. They go to our fellowship room during the sermon and have their own activity time. This is being led by our own Deb Ash and Sveta Smoktol. Adding this ministry has enabled some of our people to come more regularly, and enables them to get more from the services.
+ Two Sundays ago we were especially blessed to have a Latin American evangelist/musician from Chile in our services. Tomas is an outstanding guy who has been making several trips a year to Ukraine since 1993. He blessed us with his spirit, his short comments, and his brilliant guitar and vocal artistry as the Lord spoke through him. We are talking seriously about working together in the future for some serious evangelistic outreach into the Spanish speaking community.
+ Bob, Vitaliy, and Stan have been sharing the preaching responsibilities. We know this is the thing to do, although Bob really hates being out of the pulpit. But the guys work together so well as a team sharing many duties, that it's unthinkable to return to the traditional way. We're still concentrating on basic doctrinal truths that the church holds to. Earlier, Bob preached on the Word of God as our authority, the person of Jesus Christ as our only redeemer, and the power of His Blood. Vitaly then took two Sundays and preached on the Holy Spirit, followed by Stan preaching on hell, Bob preaching on "Two Good Men Who Went To Hell" (an evangelistic message), and last week Stan preached on heaven. This next Sunday Vitaliy will preach his final message on the Holy Spirit, and then Bob will preach one more time before our return to the States. That will be his last time to preach here until the last Sunday in January.
+ Our Thanksgiving day here was a non-day for the most part. We had a baked potato for lunch and a bowl of soup for supper. However, the next night, last Friday, we had about 14 singles and young marrieds over for an American TG dinner of baked chicken, green beans, cranberry Jell-O, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. We had a great time finishing up around the tables sharing favorite TG memories and telling them about the real story behind Thanksgiving and the founding of America. As was to be expected, most of them knew little or nothing about the true purpose of America's founding. We then watched a great patriotic music DVD, "Let Freedom Ring" filmed at Carnegie Hall by the Gaither Homecoming Family just a few months after the September 11th attack.
+ Our language ministries continue bearing fruit. Bob continues meeting weekly with the pastor of the Spanish church and the leader of the Persian ministry. Two weeks ago we had a dinner for Chinese students in our home with 20 attending, fourteen of them Chinese. A young man and a young woman both accepted Christ that night. A week later Bob baptized two Chinese guys in our bath tub because the baptistry was not available and one of them was going back to China right away. Our Spanish church pastor baptized one guy last Wednesday and will baptize three more on December 9th. Bob may also baptize some from the Persian and Chinese groups at that time. Several have indicated a desire, but you never really know until it happens.
+ Last night we entertained the Iranian Bible study group as they provided authentic Iranian food . . . delicious! There were 23 present with Iranian, Lebanese, Ukrainian, Cuban, and American nations represented. Seventeen were Iranian, at least eleven were unbelievers. After a great dinner, we all sat around the tables as M. shared his testimony. Not having a clue what he said, Bob then shared a little, starting with, "I don't have a clue what M. said, but it was great." Everyone laughed.
Then Bob began to read portions of a writing he's been working on, entitled "Echoes From The Hollow", based on experiences he had in the past where his voice would echo off the hills and canyon walls. He characterized the empty human spirit as being such a canyon where questions such as, "Who am I?", "Is there a God?", "Does He know me?", Can He be known?", "Does He care about me?", and so forth. To our amazement, we learned later that M. had talked about the echo in his own empty heart as he first began his search for God, asking some of the very questions Bob mentioned. Only God could do something like that. And, to have this happen with an Iranian group is beyond "Wow!". Two of the young women were at the point of tears by the time Bob finished. After the presentations were done, two of the young men told M. that they wanted to begin the "search". Isn't God absolutely awesome!!!
+ Next Friday we will have a similar meeting with our Spanish group when we will entertain them with a dinner, followed by the movie "Last Flight Out", discussion time and fellowship. As we write, the Spanish group is ministering in an orphanage for Down's Syndrome children about four hours away. They raise their own money, rent a van, buy gifts and food items, and minister to these kids by playing, singing, giving them baths, cleaning the rooms, doing laundry, etc. All of this going on right now is making it very difficult to even think about going to the States. We feel so needed here. We keep thinking, "What could we be doing in the States that would be any more exciting than this?"
+ We have employed two people to do translating for us into the various languages we work with ---- namely Farsi, Russian, and Ukrainian. Tania volunteers her translating time for a few things that need to be translated for the pastor of the Spanish church. We have much to be translated, and we're afraid we may wear our friends out. We really need someone to translate into Chinese as well.
Current and Upcoming Events:
+ We're still communicating with five or six churches about volunteer teams for the future, but nothing has firmed up yet. We also have an American couple who visited us last Summer who just informed us that they're returning to Kiev next Summer and feel the Lord wants them to work directly with us in church planting. We'll be talking about that via phone while we're in the States.
+ We just learned Tuesday night that a dear friend, Paul Simon, from Reedsburg, WI where we used to live, died after a lengthy illness. Paul was a friend who accepted Christ in his later years after a lifetime in the Catholic church. He placed many days of hard work into the ministry center we used to own in Wisconsin. Now free from the prison of a failing body, Paul is living in a freedom he never knew before.
+ Bob has been working on some new photo albums for our webshots.com site and also for PowerPoint presentations. He's currently creating at least three new albums ---- "Ancient Kiev", "Kiev Today", and "Why KIBC?". His research has taken him back into the 5,000 + years of ancient history in which he has made some startling discoveries that further help us understand the intense spiritual darkness and bondage that exists here. For example, the Trypillian Culture was almost certainly a pre-flood culture that was likely destroyed by the flood itself. Then, one of the first major migrations after that involved the Scythians, and then the Samartians, both tribes of people from Iran. How "coincidental".
+ Jo Ann seems to be almost constantly in the kitchen, which seems to be her real ministry center. Her excellent cooking skills and hear heart of unconditional love for people have made an excellent combination that has endeared her to the people. In addition to providing our regular meals, she's always baking delicious sweets, coming up with a new idea like "Winter Vegetable Soup" (awesome!), and preparing meals for the many groups and individuals who grace our home. A typical week looks like this ---- Sunday lunch for 10 to 20 young adults after church, Monday ordering food for delivery from "Forshet" (semi-"super" market), Tuesday fixing supper for Brent and Bob as they meet, Wednesday supper for Bob and M. as they meet, and then refreshments for the "Timothy" and "Esther" fellowship groups that evening, and Friday for either singles night or a language group dinner. Bob is in awe of her because he sees the joy she receives in serving people in such ways.
+ As you can imagine, the speed with which international ministries is developing the first year of the church's existence is beyond imagination. The Iranian group is now talking about having weekly worship time in addition to their Thursday night English class and the following Bible study. But, there are other language groups on our hearts . . . namely, Arabic and Jewish at the moment. But, as is our firm policy at KIBC, we do absolutely nothing until the Lord makes it clear this is what we need to be doing. There are many needs and ministry opportunities, but not all of them fit the purpose of the church to evangelize and plant churches in the many language groups here in the city.
+ We will return to the States on Thursday, December 14th, arriving in Springfield, MO at 7:20 pm. Praise God for free mileage tickets! It looks like we'll see all of our children and most of our grandchildren this year as we celebrate a very short family Christmas together in Collins. Cindy's will be home from the mission field in South America and will spend the most time with us. Debbie and the girls will come from Fort Worth and Abby from University of Missouri in Columbia. Cheri's and most of her clan will arrive from St. Paul, and Deanna's crew will come from northeast Missouri. With varying arrival and departure schedules, it looks at the moment like we'll all be together about three or four hours on the 26th for Christmas. Then people will start scattering. So, unfortunately, very little of our time at home will be with family. But, that's life American-style anymore.
+ We do have a fairly full reporting/speaking schedule while we're home, though. In case you live nearby, here's where we'll be:
> Dec 17 AM ---- Attend services somewhere, hopefully our home church.
> Dec 17 PM ---- Report and speak at our home church, FBC, Eldorado Springs, MO.
> Dec 24 AM ---- Time with some of family; church nearby.
> Dec 24 PM ---- Time with some of family; church nearby.
> Dec 31 AM ---- FBC, Washburn, MO with Glen Erwin and church
> Dec 31 PM ---- Open
> Jan 07 AM ---- Brief Report Wellspring Church, Bolivar, MO
> Jan 07 PM ---- Open
> Jan 10 PM ---- FBC, Hurdland, MO (pending but not confirmed)
> Jan 14 AM ---- FBC, LaGrange, MO
> Jan 14 PM ---- FBC, Winfield, MO
> Jan 15 AM ---- Visit relatives in Illinois
> Jan 18 PM ---- Lead Prayer Walking Workshop in St. Louis
> Jan 21 AM ---- Open
> Jan 21 PM ---- Open
> Jan 22 AM ---- Speak at MBC State Evangelism Conference, Springfield. MO
> Jan 23 AM ---- Fly back to Kiev.
A Growing Team:
The more we are here, the more we realize that our missionary team truly consists of more than just the two of us. By God's grace, we actually have others who are as much a part of the team as if they had been assigned by some administrative authority. And, they actually have . . . . the Lord Himself. We want you to meet some of them:
+ Tania ---- picture this. Nearly four years ago two women of dark skin, Tania and Carmen, show up in services at the other church where we used to serve. They are from Cuba. The next week Carmen's husband, 'Jesus, attends. We have them to our apartment for lunch, discover they are strong believers who had been trained and experienced as missionary evangelists in their home church, but had fled Cuba because of persecution. Within weeks, at our request, they had begun a ministry to Hispanics. Among other things, they began prayer walking around a university, met a Peruvian girl who was a nominal Christian, began a Bible study in her room, and in a matter of two or three months had a Bible study group meeting there and another Saturday night Bible study with an attendance of 18 to 20 people weekly in the apartment of 'Jesus and Carmen.
Long story short ---- Seven members of the Ukrainian National Baseball team, along with others, were saved. In addition, Igor from Venezuela was saved. He and Raidel, a Cuban member of the baseball team, became lay pastors of a new church. Two years later 'Jesus and Carmen immigrate to America, last Summer Igor goes to America to marry our friend, Keri, . . . and Tania stays in Kiev with no passport, and unable to get approved refugee status.
In the meantime, Tania faithfully serves the Lord as a leader in the Spanish church, witnessing to people and prayer walking wherever she goes. The end result is probably a dozen or more Hispanics and Ukrainians who have come to Christ; she disciples and mentors several of them.
Latest chapter ---- a young man from Cuba is recently saved through the ministry of the church. Because he has no money, he has asked to be "deported" back to Cuba to his family. Expecting a typically long process of paper work, he is shocked to realize that he has been given tickets on a November 30th flight. Frantically, he contacts pastor Raidel about being baptized, and they arrange to baptize him in Raidel's apartment bath tub the evening of November 28th. Tania goes to take pictures. In their conversation, Tania tells him that if he will tell her the name of his town, she'll try to see if there is a good church there. When he tells her, she is totally shocked. There's a great church in that town, she has been there teaching Vacation Bible School, the pastor is a good friend who has been in her home in Cuba many times, and . . . the rest is history.
A sovereign God still accomplishes His divine purposes, even when you are a refugee in a foreign country. Tania currently lives with us, and we count her not only a dear friend, but also a part of our family, and certainly a part of our missionary team.
+ We'll write later about Brent, M., Stan, and others who are part of our team here.
Prayer Requests:
As you can imagine, prayer is critical to what's going on here. Please pray about these very special needs.
+ Pray for the young men and women in the Iranian group. Pray that the believers will be wise and cautious, yet courageous, in determining those with whom they will share the Gospel. It is highly dangerous to talk to the wrong people at the wrong time, and could result in deportation, imprisonment, beatings, or even death. Pray for the unbelievers whose hearts are opening up to the Gospel. Pray that God will speak directly to them here in Kiev as He has been doing in the Middle East, through supernatural dreams and visions that leave no doubt about the reality of Jesus Christ.
+ Pray for the Chinese ministry as we undergo a changing of the guard in leadership. With Jeannie Tabb returning permanently to the States, we need to link up with those who are taking the baton. Pray that God will make it clear how we fit into all of this, and how we are to proceed with our ministry to this language group. Pray for us as we meet Monday with the various leaders to see how all this will fit together. Pray for Monica, Leo, Sushu, and others who have now returned to China; pray that they find good churches to link with, and pray that they will be protected as they share the Gospel in another hostile country.
+ Pray for the Spanish ministry as Raidel faithfully serves as pastor while trying to fulfill responsibilities on the job and as husband and father to a new baby. Pray that more Hispanics will come to Christ. Pray for Tania as she ministers so effectively there. Pray for her as she continues trying to get her passport renewed, and as she leads Bible studies, works for missionaries, and teaches Spanish. Pray for Igor and Keri in America as they ponder their future, especially as Igor's "Fiancé Visa" draws closer to expiration. Pray for Stan as he gives continued oversight to the Spanish work. Pray that Raidel will grow both in Bible knowledge and spiritual wisdom and maturity, and that he can preach and teach the Word with accuracy and passion. Pray for the people as a whole that they'll become more fervent in both living right and in sharing the Gospel with their peers.
+ Pray for a very special financial need . . . a big one. Because of the continued growth in our services of people from many nations, we have a serious need for a good translation system that will allow several of our people to speak simultaneously into special multi-channel sound system that will enable them to quietly translate to others who are listening on headphones. Such a system costs about $5,000, and cannot be purchased in Ukraine. We're asking the Lord to provide the funding so we can make that purchase while we're in the States and bring it back with us in January. On any given Sunday we could right now translate into Russian/Ukrainian, Spanish, Farsi, and Chinese, as well as other languages that are represented from time to time.
+ Pray for our family: Cindy's will be traveling from Colombia to the States in about three weeks. Debbie has been approved for disability; pray that the financial grants will be retroactive, and that the funds will begin coming soon. Pray for Cheri's in St. Paul as they deal with ongoing challenges of teen life magnified by the clash of cultures and with spiritual battles. Pray for Deanna's as they continue seeking the Lord for His purposes and as they continue shepherding that wonderful group of people in LaGrange.
+ Pray for the two of us as we keep finding more time slots for ministry projects, as we seek to know what is most important, as we look for personal time, as we sense the driving intensity of this ministry increasing each day, as we lead the church, as we minister to people in our wonderful apartment, as we prepare to return to the States for the holidays, as we share our story with others over the next six weeks, and as we already anticipate returning to Kiev in later January.
+ Pray that we can get some CD presentations and Christmas letters done in time for at least some of you to enjoy. It's the only real way we have of letting you see "with your own eyes" some of what God is doing just now through His awesome sovereign purposes.
+ Pray that God will not only lead supporters to continue supporting us this coming year, but that some will increase, and that others will join the "In-Pact" team. Pray that God will lead only those of His choice to be partnered with us, and that those will recognize it and stand with us.
Finally:
Well, as you can tell, we're truly having the time of our lives. How we wish we could share these experiences with you in person. Although that's not possible, we do pray that you understand just how truly you are a vital part of this ministry. We praise God for you every day, and thank you for your faithfulness in friendship, prayer, and financial undergirding. We are anxious to see some of you, and sorry we can't see everyone. We do hope if you're in the area of one of these services mentioned above, you'll make a point to come see us.
For all you Midwest people, we're certainly praying especially for you today as you fight your way out of the ice and snow! We've seen pictures on the news, and are amazed at the strength of the storm. We trust you're all safe and snug.
In His Bond, By His Grace, and For His Kingdom,
Bob and Jo Ann
The Tolliver's
Bob ---- lifeunlimited@pobox.com
Jo Ann ---- grandma12@pobox.com
http://community.webshots.com/user/kic4n
http://www.praykiev.org
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