Ben and Kristy Williams – Missionaries in Lviv Ukraine

Developing Your Spiritual Gifts – An update on the JV Ukraine Women’s Conference

March 6th, 2010 Posted in General Updates | No Comments »

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THANK YOU for joining us in prayer for this conference! What a success it was! I just finished meeting with my fourth youth group girl, discussing what they’d learned from the conference and how God will use it to change them. In the end, we had 33 of us in attendance, and it was exactly how God wanted it to be. The hotel and conference room were perfect accomodations for our 24 hrs. together. We had 8 different Ukr. churches represented, and God really encouraged the girls in their interaction with women from other churches. It is so important for them to make their own contacts in Western Ukraine. We always smile at how God connects our Christian youth. Many are dating. Some take time to visit other cities and ministries. Often students look to transfer to college in L’viv and start attending our church. This is the body of Christ in action. And then we always have summer camp in common. The same theme and t-shirt and theme song really build cross-city bonds. But that weekend, we were bonded by the Holy Spirit who revealed to each of us our strengths and weaknesses in Spiritual gifting. For example, my strongest spiritual gifts are Teaching, Leadership, and Evangelism. My areas of great weakness are Serving, Exhortation, and Mercy. We had a lot of time at the conference to really reflect on the meaning of these gifts in our own lives. Teaching and Leadership were no shock. I love teaching Bible studies and leading groups of people. I was quite surprised about Evangelism, simply b/c there are many forms of evangelism that are uncomfortable for me, but I do love talking about my relationship with Christ, and what a change it is has made in my life. The weaknesses I was also not surprised about…selfishness is deeply rooted in me, causing a lack of service and mercy. Exhortation (encouraging, speaking the truth in love, being there for people) is also affected by selfishness and an unwillingness to enter into uncomfortable situations or conflict.

In our church teams, we had a time of sharing and building up one another in their strengths. You could tell that, for some, it was the first time they had recognized their strengths for themselves and heard it confirmed by their female peers. Some were crying; others were red from embarrassment to hear such encouragement. We went around and then did a time of sharing weaknesses. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing to do, but I stressed the importance of identifying sin and areas of disobedience, and how we can make steps towards holiness in those areas. I saw that the girls need more work in the area of not being complacent in their weaknesses and using the excuse “well, that’s just how God has made me.” Overall, it was a beautiful time of sharing, and we all desire more of that. I think that is one of my jobs here in this church, in Ukraine – to provide big and small experiences for youth to grow in Christ. Thank you for praying for this time, for giving financially (we as missionaries pay for most of the costs of such activities),  and for believing in what God is doing in Ukraine.

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Daily Bread

March 6th, 2010 Posted in General Updates | No Comments »

blogmovingIt was a week ago that 8 guys from our youth group and our team leader lugged furniture, boxes, and bins into our unfinished, but almost remodeled apt. Now, a full week later, I am sitting in almost the same place, still surrounded by all of our possessions in a week-old dust heap, nothing really having come together the way that we wished. It has been a full week of baby-sitting very slow construction workers who have no urgency to finish up their projects. It has probably been one of our worst weeks in Ukraine to date, which always sends us to Scripture, begging God for some clarity and peace in the midst of chaos. We have a week-long missions project that begins Monday with a team of Americans and our church that we’ve been looking forward to volunteering with for MONTHS. Now these workers will interfere with ministry, which to me seems to be robbing God of the service we want to give Him.

I have been seeking wisdom this week from the Sermon on the Mt. (Matthew 5-7) because Jesus is so straight-talking, leaving no excuse for excuses in bad attitude or behavior. This morning, enjoying McDonalds for probably the 7th time this week (nothing in the kitchen works, from fridge to sink to microwave), God faithfully met me in His Word, like He always does when we’re open to His teaching. I just felt overwhelmed with all the dust and no where to get started around me. It is in these times when we don’t even know how to pray or where to start.

Matthew 6:11 Give us today our daily bread. “Lord, I don’t even know what my daily bread is supposed to be today. I ‘d like to unpack but there is no permanent home for our things. I’d like to clean, but several projects are not finished sanding and cutting yet. I’d like to leave to close up our old apt., but instead I will stay and micro-manage those working here on Saturday, while Ben does the soccer ministry with the international students. So Lord, what on earth is my daily bread? Matthew 6:8 For your Father in Heaven knows what you need before you ask Him.

What a growing process in patience, in waiting on God, in choosing to be joyful always, regardless of circumstances. At the end of Matthew 6, Jesus reminds us that “isn’t life more important than food, clothes, shelter?” I guess that, until I figure out what my 3/6/2010 daily bread is going to be, I can go and count my blessings because life really is so precious.

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Work in Process

March 2nd, 2010 Posted in General Updates | No Comments »

blogxrystsvietWow, I haven’t even posted about our women’s conference. What women’s conference? That seems like ages ago! These 2 girls, Svieta and Xrystya were there with me, growing leaps and bounds through the seminars about Spiritual Gifts at our conference. I am so encouraged by their excitement in Christ as they continue their studies in Poland. They have each other and can really excel in developing as Christian women while away. More stories from the conference later…

blogmovinggirlsI am writing from a stool under a sunny window sill that has no window coverings in our new apt. Next to me are walls with no base boards, a 10 foot high door frame with no door, and 15 IKEA bunk bed pieces that have yet to be assembled. We learned our lesson 3 years ago about internet – we made sure that we could get internet FIRST before even considering the place, rather than waiting a year like last time!!  Waiting on the doors, the blinds, the base. It is chaos here. Utter chaos. Not just physically but emotionally, too. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but we must press on to get there. Pray for us as we really need patience to endure the finalization of work, and then the unpacking of the move. We do a 360 and are really overwhelmed. But our hearts are very grateful for the help we’ve gotten from our Ukrainian and American friends here, as well as the beauty and excitement of a new place.

Unfortunately my girls haven’t even gotten to see the place yet, but they were sure kind to come over and help me pack those white “hat box” bins that we were blogging about over 3 years ago!

A Day in the Life : February 18, 2010

February 18th, 2010 Posted in General Updates | 1 Comment »

No day looks the same in our lives. The routine we think we have only exists in our minds or on paper. Otherwise it is countless new adventures and experiences. Take just these past few hours, for example.

1:00 AM For some reason our heat turned off automatically. Brrrrr.  Then the internet goes down, just in time for me NOT to submit my essays for our grad class, due “that night”, which technically means midnight California time. I put it off until morning. I didn’t feel stressed about it. Perhaps it was because of the relaxing pedicure and nice haircut I had gotten the night before, a total together of $12. Not a bad price to pay to fight the winter blahs and prepare for the JV Ukraine ladies conference on Friday.

6:30 AM Ben wakes us up. His bus leaves at 7:40am to Lutsk, where he and Svyatoslav are going for the day to do a camp visit. They will meet with two of our camp partners from different churches, who chose not to do English camp last year. It is of course still important to remain connected, because our partnership does not simply hang on English camps. They will be in the bus for 7 hrs. today, so pray for their travel.

7:00 AM Praise God, the internet was up and working, and it was still before midnight in CA. I got the assignments turned in on time. I enjoyed the quiet and productive 2 hours of the morning, since I’m either sleeping or preparing for language lessons. We canceled them b/c it is a big ministry day.

bloglenabday 9:00 AM Head out to the city. Twice I had to cross the road because the public “home owners association” workers are out, cutting off giant icicles and shoveling snow off all the Austrian building roofs on the street. It’s fascinating. And dangerous. Sidewalks are covered in sheets of thick ice because of the thaw we had yesterday. There is no salt used here. Only an occasional sand sprinkling. I jump on the bus for some errands for the women’s conference, which has been consuming my mind over the past few days. Both bus drivers were VERY angry today and were driving recklessly. It crossed my mind to report them, but I didn’t have the energy. My cell phone reminded me that it is Lena’s birthday, but I went to text her, to find that there was less than 50 cents on my phone. Oops. Better buy some phone credit in the “vending machine”, since everyone here is “pay as you go”.

10:30 AM Paid my bills at the post office, which is what you do. No check books or Bill-pay here. It was frustrating to see that our heat bill for our new apt. is 1/3 the price of the heat per month we pay at our rented place. That’s what happens when you have ancient radiators and incredibly drafty windows. (That landlord never agreed to a deal to replace the windows while we lived here.) blognewwindow

Then I stopped by the outdoor market. I saw the grossest thing: a dead rabbit for sale, lying on its back on a wooden table, skinned on its stomach, all organs visible, including his private parts. You know, the disgusting chicken feet everywhere don’t even phase me, but that rabbit was nasty. I went to my favorite vegetable table (don’t worry, there is no meat sold in that area), picked out apples, odd garden lettuce, cucumbers, and then was shocked at the price: $5 total. But then I calmed myself down when I realized that it is a miracle that we can get fresh lettuce and Granny Smith green apples. Chill out, I told myself. Look at all the $ you saved on your hair cut last night!

11:30 AM I get home in time to bake a special American cake for Lena’s b-day, which we’ll celebrate with 40 other girls from 10 different churches who will gather Friday and Saturday for our ladies’ leadership conference on Spiritual Gifts and learning how to use them. Thank you for joining us in prayer for this. It is incredible that all the spots were filled. We’re so grateful.

bloglaurs1:00 PM Now I have to run to another meeting at 1pm with our missionary guests from Czech and Slovakia who are also helping with the conference. Here are Laura and Lauree, other Josiah Venture sisters, with Brittney, and also a pic of me and Cameron. These pictures were taken a year ago at our Josiah Venture Missionary Women’s Conference. Now it is time for us to host a retreat for others. It’s exciting to be involved in such ministries!  Pray for the Holy Spirit to really move, and for deep relationships to be formed among the girls, encouraged by what God is doing in youth work around Western Ukraine. We’re not in it alone!

NEVER A DULL MOMENT!   blogkristycam

Prayers for our Women’s Retreat

February 8th, 2010 Posted in General Updates | 1 Comment »

bloggirlsconfWe (Josiah Venture Ukraine, made up of me, Brittney, and Cameron, my female teammates) are hosting a girls/women leadership retreat outside of L’viv 2/19-21

We invited female leaders and potential leaders from the ~ 10 different churches that we have worked closely with in Ukraine. We’ve been planning the event for a while, and at this point in the calendar, I always feel anxious about who will actually show up. Ukrainians aren’t accustomed to RSVP, and sometimes attendance depends on what ever else cool or uneventful might be happening that weekend. I tend to take the “no’s” personally. I need faith! It’s just that we work so hard and REALLY want no one to miss it. Such conferences are few and far between in this land.

Pray for faith that God will bring us exactly who He desires. Pray that we fill all 40 spots. Pray for over half of our guest, who will be traveling to get to us. Pray for our speakers from Slovakia. Pray that this will be a valuable time for the girls to be encouraged in Christian leadership and to realize the great potential that God has placed on them to partner in the Gospel.

International Games Parties

February 8th, 2010 Posted in General Updates | 1 Comment »

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Much thanks to those of you have been praying since fall semester for the launching of a new ministry to help Ukrainian Christian youth reach out to some of the thousands of foreign, study abroad students in our city. They are mostly Muslim students from Morocco, and there are a few Chinese guys as well with whom our group has connected. It all started with a visit to their USL classroom (Ukrainian as a Second Language), which our language tutor is a big part of organizing. From there, Ben just kept inviting them to soccer every week, and word spreads fast. We’ve seen at least 20 different international students come out to soccer over the past few months. They have their regulars, and relationships are slowly forming.

Through Christmas we’d been praying for some kind of break through to connect deeper, regardless of language barriers. Our church joined us in praying, and since then, we’ve had two Wii/Playstation games parties, visited their classroom again, and have had multiple visits to their dorms, which may be the better place to hang out, since there are international student pods there. The students’ Ukrainian is improving, too! I was most impressed by a deep discussion about the Koran v. the Bible, which Syava and one guy had. Please pray for the development of this ministry. We believe that spring has some new things in store, and may they taste and see that Our Lord is good and that only the God of the Bible is worthy of following.

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Just How Valuable Is Your Marriage?

February 4th, 2010 Posted in General Updates | No Comments »

blogJVmarriageconfAfter crashing at our students’ apt. over the Ukr/Polish border on Sunday night, we drove in our frozen van the 6+ hours to Krakow for a JV large- scale marriage conference, talking pretty much non-stop the entire ride, and getting KFC and Polish McDonalds every stop we could (the menu is better than the Ukr McDs, but we’re not complaining. And who brags about going to KFC? Missionaries do.)

We’d found an old marriage survey from our great leaders, the Laremores, a pastor and his wife from NJ who invested weekly into our marriage for our first 3+ years. It was basically a questionnaire of “how am I doing as your spouse in the following categories?”

  • I pray with my spouse on a regular basis. I pray for my spouse on a regular basis.
  • I praise my spouse in public. I do not speak unwholesomely about my husband/wife to others.
  • I encourage my spouse to grow as an individual, and allow them to pursue personal interests, talents, …
  • I speak honestly and openly to my spouse.
  • Particularly in conflict, I treat my wife with love/I treat my husband with respect
  • I enter into my spouse’s “world” and invite them to better understand yours.
  • Do we invite Christ into all personal problems.
  • Am I living with the power of the Holy Spirit?

That questionnaire launched us into a 4-day conference that was wonderful, first looking at the design of man and woman from God’s point of view, then going through a seminar on repentance and fixing heart issues, not just trying unsuccessfully to change behaviors, really discussing what it means to be one flesh (and what that does NOT mean, i.e. you are not to be one with your children; you are not to live parallel lives that sometimes coincide; dealing with problems in physical intimacy), how he needs unconditional respect and she needs unconditional love, and so on. Each day there were blocks of hours allotted for us to take alone time, answering more and more questions, dealing with deep issues that don’t get resolved in the day-in and day-out of marriage. There were a lot of lightbulb moments, like “oh, so that’s why she reacts like that.” and “I never even realized I was cutting him down when I do that.”

We went into this believing that we have a strong, healthy marriage. We left, thrilled with the areas that God clearly showed us we need to work on, humbled by the verse “do not think you are standing firm, lest you fall”, and excited by the fact that it can keep getting better, especially when the Holy Spirit is the constant center (not just when we remember to invite Him in, or when we’re desperate for help in some area.)

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While Away from Blog Land…

January 30th, 2010 Posted in General Updates | No Comments »

bloglivingroomIn trying to identify why such blog silence (if 2 weeks is really silent at all) is because the first week after elections I realized that weather (-25 C = -13 F)  and the apartment are zapping every ounce of energy we have! We canceled language lessons for a week and gave our 110% to finish buying everything we need for the final remodeling details. It was below zero every day, as we headed out in 3 layers of clothing, praying that the van would start, keeping the battery on the heated bathroom floor overnight, in hopes that we’d able to drive and not have to walk around each day. Our van, a ‘94 Volkswagen (diesel) was out of commission for 3 days, simply from the chill. And we were trying not to panic because we knew we were going to Krakow (8 hrs. away) for almost a week, and wouldn’t be available to troubleshoot problems and buy materials. Thank goodness we hired a wonderful project manager, who helped us make sure everything was in place.

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I remember going to bed on Saturday, not sure if our van would even make it to Poland the next day, feeling like a slave to this apartment. We really needed the trip to Poland! We’ve been praying about our time investment in this apt. effort, and we believe God has blessed us with a great opportunity, the project has gone considerably smooth considering some very odd circumstances, and there is only a month left in the project, which has actually come in UNDER budget. We just needed to get out of dodge and invest our energy in something even more valuable than property: our marriage. Read above for more details of a remarkable conference.

They Say We Need A Revolution

January 16th, 2010 Posted in General Updates | No Comments »

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At our youth New Years Eve party, I mentioned (in a blog post) that we played Steal Bingo/Anonymous Gift Exchange/Polyana/DirtySanta (whatever you and your friends call that game) at 6:30am. I was lucky enough to receive a really nice, hard-covered day planner, where you write in the dates yourself, so you can insert pages of notes wherever you wish. You aren’t limited to a month or whatever. I live for planners like this. I am a journaler and one who writes out the details of each day to make sure that I’m accountable for my time, esp. as a missionary. (One of my biggest struggles in full-time ministry is figuring out when to say no, how to rest, and how to separate school/friends/student time, and remain faithful. It’s been 3 years. The journal/planner is one way to stay sane during insane periods of my life.)

Once a month, I “clean out” my email, and make sure that I am caught up with finances, bills, and communication with certain people. As I read emails, there is frequently the phrase “Hey, can you pray for…” – I then take a page out of the journal and try to be faithful to the requests. Tonight Ben brought to mind a HUGE prayer request for tomorrow:

UKRAINIAN ELECTION DAY is Sunday, January 17. Yikes. This holds a lot for this country, since 5 years ago the elections were corrupt, the Orange party demanded a recount, and then the corrupt loser poisoned the winner, disfiguring him and leaving Ukraine in a revolution. Five years have passed. We’ve been reading articles about people selling their votes, and that if you show on your mobile phone camera that you voted for Yanykovich (the same sore loser who poisoned the current president), you will get an equivalent of $10-20. And let’s just say that people will do it.

JOIN US IN PRAYING FOR FAIR ELECTIONS. Right now there are almost 20 candidates/parties. Anyone with more than 3% of the votes gets a say in Parliament. The two winners will go on to a second “tour” which will decide the final president in the Spring. If this corrupt guy gets elected, Ukraine is heading towards Russia and Russian will become an official country language. (His Ukrainian is embarrassingly terrible.) If the Princess with the Braid gets elected, that means other issues with corruption, but at least she is West-leaning. We would vote for someone not at all aligned with the oligarchs who stole all the industries in 1992 and are billionaires. The rich keep getting richer while the country weakens. Grrr…

Christ is Born! Let us praise Him!

January 9th, 2010 Posted in General Updates | No Comments »

Go to Facebook or www.benandkristy.com/pictures/gallery2 to see more photos!

The title of this blog is the traditional Ukrainian Christmas greeting. Where we say “Merry Christmas” in the States (which, to Satan’s delight, is offensive to many), the Ukrainians, at least in the western part of the country (different sides of the country have different customs), praise the birth of the King of Kings. All over Lviv are big nativity displays, and posters that celebrate Jesus’ first coming. Go figure – this country under severe communism and prohibition of religious practice for many decades is proudly announcing Christ, and our country, so proud of its freedoms and tolerance, must keep such expressions subdued. (Now we just have to get these dear Ukrainians to live for Christ with their lives, not just believing that the Messiah was born 2,000 yrs. ago, w/o any affect on their lives today. It has all the significance in the world! In this life, and more importantly, in life to come.)

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I left off blogging just a day or two ago, inundated with homework for the new quarter, and not sure how we’d end up spending the Orthodox Christmas. All changed after our Christmas morning 1/7 church service, when a bunch of our youth with no family traditions on that day, grabbed their left-overs from Christmas Eve on the 6th, and had Christmas Lunch at Yulia’s house. Wow, it was Ukrainian and awesome. We even played Family Feud in English while waiting for lunch to be ready. At 5pm, we left for what ended up being 2 full evenings of Christmas Caroling, a big tradition for the youth in our church. We bundled up, wore matching hats and scarfs, and sang our hearts out to countless apartments and houses in the neighborhoods around the church. You can imagine the sight – there were over 20 of us each night! Many families were actually waiting and hoping that our group would come, all prepared with donations (common for good carolers to make a few hundred bucks)  and snacks for our group. We even caroled at the widow of Chornovil, a famous Ukrainian nationalist with a giant monument in Lviv. It was freezing and snowing, but the mood was incredible. At each house, we sang 3-5 songs and recited 3 poems. (Ben and I tried to stay in the back with some of the “tough, cool guys” because we only knew the lyrics well to maybe half.) I can’t really explain it, but for sure the Holy Spirit went before us as we sang about Jesus and asked Him to fill those houses those 2 nights. I kept thinking about the youth of Lviv, and how it is that generation that is going to bring joy and hope to this area of the world. It was really a privilege to celebrate in such a way with the kids and church that we care so much about.

Last night was especially fun because we convinced the group to carol to one building in the center, where they thought our language tutor lived. It was actually our new apt. building, and we started at our place, inviting them into this dust-infested shell of an apt. They were confused, because we hadn’t really let people know about our place yet. When we told them that we bought a place, there was much rejoicing. But we were even more encouraged when we went down to the 2nd floor and caroled for both neighbors, who were actually home that night! They were excited to meet us (we’d met one and not the other), and I am praying that God will use such an introduction to not only foster good relations with the 2 other residents in our building, but also that they would know about our work for Christ in this city.

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