Twenty Years of Partnership
For the past few months, our home church in Budapest has been walking through the book of Philippians, and recently we landed near the end of the letter, in chapter four, verses ten through twenty. It’s a passage about how unique the Philippian church was. They didn’t just send Paul off with well wishes, they partnered with him, specifically through financial giving, again and again.
As we read through it, we couldn’t help but think of our own home church, Kilcona, and how they’ve done exactly that for us since the very beginning. This year marks twenty years for us in overseas missions, and that kind of partnership has been there from day one.
We had the chance to share a little about this at our home church this past Sunday, along with some updates on what we’ve been up to this past year. If you’d like to watch, we’d love for you to take a look at what’s been stirring in our hearts from this passage.
https://www.youtube.com/live/Eqnzj0P8AT4?si=yfrcQA8Bt9Fq3Em0&t=2156
We are on the Leadership Team with YWAM Kyiv. That means involvement with all sorts of aspects like creating operating policies, making decisions on staff and leading them in ministry. Two years ago we had a team come from Kilcona to serve YK byย doing repairs around our property but mostly redoing the exterior on our main building’s first floor. They left some funds for us to be able to complete the second floor later on.
Recently we finished the first (to the right) but now we are moving on to the second (pictured above). So part of our job is helping to raise funds through awareness. You may have noticed a post on facebook about this, butย for this project, we are looking for donors for doors ($300 US, we need 9), and windows ($250 US, we need 41). Just one more of the different things we do around here.
SBS (School of Biblical Studies) is a very intense 9-month program that takes students through all 66 books of the Bible, reading the whole ย Bible at least 5 times. Its not for the faint of heart but with such a challenge comes a depth of understanding of God’s Word.
We started Easter with a sunrise service – yup – even the kiddos climbed out of bed at 5am to be downtown to celebrate with our church when the sun came up. Why do such a thing? Because the very best thing in our life, the presence of God, was made real by the innocent death of Jesus and his resurrection. The events that we celebrate at Easter define our lives, not just the work we do but our very purpose and joy in life.
ย Of course, like most people we want our kids to enjoy our celebrations too so at 8 in the morning we had our friends over for a special breakfast and the kids got to hunt for psanky (Ukrainian painted eggs). There may or may not have been some chocolate involved too.
On of our teacher intern teams was sent to Asia this fall, here is a part of an update from them. Keep in mind thatย because of the nature of our work we cannot post explicitly the names or places where theyย minister.
Here is an update from one of the teams that we sent out to Paraguay.
On of our outreach teams went to work in Greece. Here is a small update from them:
The foundation concrete is all poured and drying. There is plumbing running through it that will soon hook up to the septic field. Imagine two floors above this of windows and walls and you have the soon to be ready home for the Doerksen’s. We are really looking forward to this after already a month living in an apartment in the city.
It is great to be back in Kyiv! Our friends welcomed us at the airport and today we made it to the property where DTS and Titus programs are in full swing.
Hospitality comes from two greek words:
Teaching Adventures 