Ben and Kristy Blog

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

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.