PRAISE
EYES. Yes, thank you for praying. My left eye continues to improve and from the sight I now have it is obvious that it will be better than in my right eye. Still a ways to go, but that’s okay. God is good.
REST. We have already been able to make a couple short breaks here and there keeping the work flow down to necessities, and it has been very good. We leave tomorrow for a whole week of vacation and really look forward to that! This time to Kyiv. It has been a long time since we have done more than pass through. (Even though I talk about Abe’s meetings in Kyiv, that is for simplicity sake. He actually meets with people in a neighboring city where the Baptist Union has it’s headquarters.) We are so grateful for this opportunity.
PRAYER
Pray for our friends, Leonid and Natalia, who are celebrating their 25th anniversary today. We have known them just a few months short of those 25 years as they applied to become missionaries serving in Russia with us. They served there for about 9 years and then returned to Ukraine and took a pastoral role in the church we attend here. Now they are deeply involved reaching out to the refugees in our city, holding Bible studies with them, inviting them to meals. And this anniversary even will actually include a large number of refugees in a hope of touching their hearts again for the Lord. About 20 couples will be there, plus others, all people they have an active relationship with. What a beautiful thing to do! And Abe will be speaking and participating in the celebration. Pray that people will see the beauty there is in a faithful marriage with Christ in the center.
And pray for the Center of Hope ministries. The work goes on. This time I will include a few pictures just so you can “feel” people.
Providing physical bread
Transforming communities
CENTERS OF HOPE—Reaching communities for Christ. Bringing transformation inside and out.
Reaching Kids 
Feeding the spiritually hungry!
The war seems endless to us and discouraging when we concentrate on the physical, material, economic devastation, but God wants to do great things. As you pray, be assured those prayers are not lost.
One of the most difficult things for us to grab hold of in intercessory prayer is the fact that it doesn’t appear to be doing anything. We want to make something, do something that we can see. The hardest thing to get past when trying to understand intercessory prayer is that it somehow seems we aren’t doing anything. Most of us want to do something for God.
The Scriptures teach us something amazing about the activity of intercessory prayer. Remember Moses holding up his arms during the battle with the Amalekites? He wasn’t down there fighting, but he was interceding. What an old man does with his arms on top of the mountain shouldn’t have any effect on the battle in the valley below. But it does in the kingdom of God. And what you do sitting in your homes and churches while praying for the needs in Ukraine shouldn’t seem to have any effect logically, but it does in the kingdom of God.
Father, help me to trust that when I intercede on behalf of Your plans and purposes, You are moving in power. Let me continually be aware that this will always be the most effective “doing” I can engage in throughout my life.
(Thoughts from Harvest Ministries)
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