Developing Your Spiritual Gifts – An update on the JV Ukraine Women’s Conference
March 6th, 2010 Posted in General Updates | No Comments »
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.
It 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.
Wow, 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…
I 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.
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”.
1:00 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!
We (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
After 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.)
In 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.
