As we come to the end of this term, it is important to share with you what has been accomplished throughout these past 5 years, especially since you have financially supported us. It has been a term like no other, but we have seen God’s faithfulness in a way we can’t even express in words. In the book of Lamentations, the author has gone through a devastating experience, displacement, and the destruction of his beloved home, but he can still say, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23 ESV
The life of the long-term missionary is really based on trust.
First, the missionary must trust that God will take care of them and their family, year after year. The missionary must also trust that the people that are back at home believe in the calling that God places on his church to ‘Go into all the world’ and that they also believe that some people have a unique calling to be sent beyond their own country’s borders. Missionaries must also trust that those same people will act on their beliefs and will financially support the people they are sending. Finally, the senders put a great degree of trust in the missionaries themselves since the senders are not there to oversee the work. We are so grateful for this wonderful gift of a trusting relationship, because it really shows forth the uniqueness of God’s kingdom and we believe brings him glory! He is trustworthy, and therefore, his kids walk that way too because we are made in His image. Nevertheless, as so many have done their part to send, we want to do our part to share a bit of the past five years. Although you haven’t been there in person, you can see that we are working hard for the kingdom and we are using our time and energy in a way that you can be confident in us. This email is a bit longer than others, but we hope you will take the time to read it, especially because the work we did was done by you as well as our partner.
2019 (September-December) – Our home assignment ended in August and we returned to Ukraine. We had many students in our Bible school and we were busy with teaching them through books of the Bible such as Chronicles, Nehemiah, multiple prophets, Mark and Romans. Our students graduated in December and most participated in Titus Project at the beginning of 2020.
2020 – The beginning months were very exciting – training 11 new Bible teachers! We love this because it multiplies our work – more Bible teachers who are not easily tossed about by ‘every wind of doctrine (Eph 4:14)’ and are strengthening the body of Christ. We sent a team of teachers to the French speaking parts of Europe, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and we kept one team in Ukraine (which we led) to teach in churches and in our evening Bible school for professionals.
Obviously, in 2020, Covid began. We still chose to run our yearly Bible school and all the students came in just before restrictions began everywhere on travel. This was a very full year for us. While many places around the world slowed right down, our work just got busier. We had many students and teams coming to Ukraine because Ukraine was quite open, even throughout covid. Also, Ben was asked to help co-lead the base while our base leaders were on a 6-month furlough, he needed to help oversee a large building project, and as YWAM Kyiv, we also ran multiple courses beyond our Bible course. We ran out of classroom space, so our living room turned into a classroom for awhile.
2021 – Once again, the year began with Titus Project. We sent one team into Belarus and we kept two different teams in Ukraine. Our goal is always to have the teams teaching people how to study the Bible. It was very exciting because these teams had very fruitful outreaches and as we moved towards March, we could see that our Bible school that we run each year was receiving more applications than ever before. Our staff team was also growing very quickly. Our Bible teaching team alone was at 18 people (YWAM Kyiv had grown almost up to 50 fulltime staff), with new Bible teaching courses being pioneered. After a very full few years, we endeavored to get home to Canada for the summer, even with all the covid restrictions and quarantines. We were thankful that we did because while we were there Angela’s mother received the news that her cancer had returned and there would be no option of further treatment.
Instead of leaving in August as planned, we stayed until the end of the year. During that time, Angela’s mother passed away (October). It was a very hard time because Angela was so close to her mom. Of course Ben and the kids also went through so much grieving – Angela’s mom was such a wonderful, loving person to everyone, especially her family and grandkids. Some YWAM work did get done during those months. Angela wrote a book to help graduates from the Bible course that YWAM runs all over the world called After SBS and Ben finished another course towards his Biblical Studies degree. It was also a special time to be home with Angela’s dad and her brother’s family as everyone grieved together.
2022– Just after the New Year, our family returned to Kyiv, Ukraine. Russian troops were gathered around the border, but like most people, we didn’t believe a nation would really attack another nation right in Europe. We trained new Bible teachers in Kyiv with Titus Project like we do every January. We sent one team to Armenia and we kept a team in Ukraine. We were preparing for our largest Bible school yet, which was due to start in March, and we were also anticipating beginning a new course on Church History.
Everything changed on February 24. Our team in Armenia continued to teach for a few weeks, but found they were unable to really focus on teaching while worrying for the safety of their friends and family in Ukraine. Our team in Ukraine obviously was unable to continue (the churches in the area we were teaching all turned into rescue and refugee housing. Many of our staff gathered at the YWAM base to seek the Lord for safety and guidance. Our family went to nearby Romania for a month while we prayed and asked God what to do. He led us to Norway for 3 months, where our kids finished up school online and Ben joined a team there to teach 20 students how to study the Bible (the same course we run in Kyiv, but a 3-month version).
Angela began a new role for YWAM Kyiv in the area of communications, since this became very important due to the war. After the 3 months, taking much time to pray as a family, we decided to temporarily relocate to Budapest, Hungary. This enabled us to stay close to Ukraine, and we also had a great school there for the kids (International Christian School of Budapest – ICSB – a sister school to the one in Kyiv). Many of our children’s friends from Kyiv were in Budapest as well. Now it was Ben’s turn to take on a new role: Educational Technology teacher.
Despite the difficult circumstances we faced in 2022, we were still able to teach students from all over the world how to study the Bible. Angela pioneered a new Titus Project location in India where she was able to take a staff team and train 9 new Bible teachers. We continued to lead and support YWAM Kyiv with our work in administration (Ben), global communications (Angela) and team leading (off-site staff displaced during the war). Ben also helped disciple younger students as he taught part-time at the kid’s school, which helped reduce tuition costs.
2023- We began the year with our first trip back to Kyiv since the war began. We went for two main reasons: to meet as a leadership team for planning 2023, and to clean up our house in Kyiv so it could be used for hospitality. The time as a team was fruitful as we planned for ministry during wartime. There was very little electricity, so it was cold, but we were safe.
We returned to Budapest after a few weeks and Ben continued to teach at ICSB part time. During this year, Angela was able to teach the ‘Bible week’ in the Budapest Discipleship Training School. Ben also finished his last course for his bachelor’s degree in Christian Ministries (with a focus on Biblical Studies) with the University of the Nations.
One of the teams of which Angela has been a part for about 10 years is a team of Bible department leaders in Europe that bring together YWAM Bible staff on our continent. The purpose for gathering everyone together is to encourage, serve, and equip one another. The trend away from a biblical worldview, even among Christians, can become discouraging, and so Angela helped to convene a gathering in Norway with over 40 in attendance.
A significant area that we developed in 2023 has been an approach to humanitarian aid work in Ukraine which we call ‘Waves of Hope.’ Each Wave of Hope is approximately 10 days. We bring in teams from all over to build homes, run kids’ camps, and share the gospel while praying for people. We built over 70 homes in 2023. Coordinating all the teams, translators etc. was a lot of work in communications (Angela develops all of the registration forms, builds the websites, manages the social media team and writes the newsletters).
Of course, our primary focus is still to teach the Bible and train up new Bible teachers. We continued to do this in many locations, including Quebec during a trip home to Canada in the summer. Angela helped develop an international team for Titus Project – our Bible teacher training program that currently works in over 15 locations around the world – this small team is responsible for curriculum updates and resources. Ben also became more involved in the kid’s school with moving into coaching basketball and volleyball for the middle school and high school boys.
2024 (January-June)
This year has been full as usual. We have done our best to continue to be involved and help with the work in Ukraine. We have been there to visit multiple times in the past few years for leadership team meetings, staff retreats and just to say hello. We took our children to visit Kyiv this spring so they could go through their things. This was their first time back home since the war began. It was good to be there all together. It was a bit emotional, but life-giving. We have also been Bible teaching in multiple locations, preached in our church here in Budapest, spoke at a lady’s outreach event for Hungarians, filmed Titus Project training videos, and helped run a new fundraising campaign called ‘Give a day for Ukraine.’
Now we are just over two weeks away from travelling back to Canada for our one-year home assignment. It is good to reflect on the work we have done, the people that we have served, the goodness of God. We understand this update was a bit longer than usual, with many more details. However, like we said at the beginning, we know that you are not here with us to see the many people’s faces we teach, the programs we run, the hours we spend in preparation, teaching, serving, working. We are so grateful for your trust, and we always want to do an excellent job communicating so that even though you are not here, you can be confident that we are being faithful to our calling as those who have been sent.
If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to ask. We previously sent out our plans for our home assignment in an email, but if you would like to revisit those plans and can’t find them, they are posted on our website.
As you can see, God has been so faithful to our family, faithful to the people we have served, and has definitely surrounded us with his loving kindness. We are really looking forward to a year in Canada and to the future ahead.
Thank you for taking the time to read about our work summarizing the last four years.
With love,
Ben and Angela (Cassie, Jay, and Kai)
Ps. Here is a list of most of the teaching topics that we have done during this past 4-year term (in a somewhat chronological order), in case you are curious:
• The books of 1 & 2 Chronicles
• The gospel of Mark
• The book of Romans (multiple times)
• How to prepare a teaching
• How to present a teaching
• How to teach creatively
• Cross cultural ministry
• How to study inductively (multiple times)
• The book of Philemon
• The book of Jonah
• The book of Genesis (multiple times)
• The book of Song of Songs
• The book of Ezra
• The book of Nehemiah (multiple times)
• The book of Ruth
• The book of Malachi (multiple times)
• Why can we trust the Bible is God’s Word?
• What happens to the church when people stop reading and studying the Bible?
• The book of Revelation (multiple times)
• An introduction to wisdom literature
• An overview of the Bible
• How to teach the Bible
• The book of Exodus
• An overview of worldviews
• The book of Job
• The problem of theodicy
• Pneumatology
• How to teach online
• How to work as a team
• Conflict resolution
• How to preach inductively (multiple times)
• How to study the prophets
• The book of Amos
• The book of Micah
• The book of Zechariah
• The book of Song of Songs
• Biblical wisdom with the tools of today and the future
o Robotics
o Digital citizenship
o Typing
o Coding
o Using AI responsibly
o Digital presentations
• Leading 1 hour times of intercession on:
o Business in Budapest
o People in the technology field
o Music and Film
o Unreached people (Sentinelese near India, Nuiqsut northern Alaska)
Teaching Adventures 