Ukraine 2011 Day 9

We are in Vienna airport at the gate awaiting our return flight home.

Yesterday was a great day of sightseeing ad shopping topped off by a Mozart concert dessert.

We had a great trip and feel like we did some good in Krasnoarmeysk.

I think every team member is ready to get back to MJ.

See you soon.

Buddy

# Posted @ 10:45 AM on Saturday, July 16, 2011
3 comments

Parting was sweet sorrow as we left our hostesses and translators this morning. We've been through a lot together the past six days.

The work at the shelter ended up touching the lives of nearly twenty young people; the classes at Dimitrov, twelve; and about thirty at the park at Krasnoarmeysk. So there are 62 souls who have been exposed to the Truth. The last night at the gospel meeting we had a total of 41, with three new visitors. Sasha's preaching was powerful and many questions were asked. Please pray for Anya and Kate, two young women who have studied and are considering obeying the gospel soon.

We love the people of Ukraine, but we are looking forward to being with all of you on Sunday. As Dorothy said, "There's no place like home!"

Love you,
David and Melissa

# Posted @ 9:48 PM on Thursday, July 14, 2011
5 comments

Ukraine 2011 Day 8

Everyone and all luggage arrived in Vienna on time. We are in Hotel Astoria while a thunderstorm rages outside. In for the night and will sightsee tomorrow.

Hotel has wifi but not for iphones or ipads. Rats!

More later.

Buddy

Wednesday blog day...6?

Hello from Ukraine! We've all had a really good day today. Started the day off with running water... Always a good sign. Mrs. Sissy, Mrs. Pat, and Dasha headed out early to Dimitrov, and had eleven kids. That was the biggest number there all week, and it makes for a total of twelve kids taught the Bible there this week. The rest of us were able to go to the park for VBS, and again had a good number of kids. (I'm not sure of the exact amount.)
After VBS, we were able to have a sort of "goodbye lunch" with Sasha and his family and all of the translators. We then had a couple hour window where the ladies did some shopping and the men had another meeting regarding plans for the church building. Please continue to be prayerful about this, because the church is in desperate need of a bigger place to meet here in Krasnoarmeysk.
At six o'clock we had our biggest turnout for a Gospel Meeting yet. (Possibly in all the years our group has been coming here to Ukraine I was told.) There were 41 in attendance including our 14. Sasha taught a very powerful lesson on baptism. A few responded with questions afterwards. Continue to pray for Anya as she is still being studied with.
Today has been bitter-sweet. We're all excited to see our families back in the states again, but it's always hard to leave new friends behind. Especially all the kids we've been able to grow so close with this week. Tomorrow we head out to Vienna. Please be prayerful for safe travels over the next few days! God bless.
-Erica Sircy

Ukraine Team. Tuesday Blog

Hey everyone back home! I get the honor of writing today's blog from Ukraine. Today was fun and we had great weather! It was windy so it kept us cool. A few things that i can write about are funny but very true. Today we came up with 'awards' for our taxi drivers. To start off with, I have never been in a taxi before so it was an experience. The awards we are talking about are awards for what our taxi drivers put us through while getting us to our destination. One taxi driver got the award for running over the most pot holes and another driver got the award of best looking taxi. One in particular got the award of going the fastest while playing 'chicken' with the other cars. But the most important thing is that the drivers did get us to our destination no matter how they did it. But talking about good news, we had a Bible study today with a woman named Anya and she is thinking about baptism. We had a good day and good week so far but we all miss our families. The team told me to tell all of their family members that they love you and and can not wait to see you. Our classes are picking up in numbers just a little bit but we wish it would pick up a little faster. Other than that eerything is going great besides the water being turned off today so that means no showers for us tonight! haha. Can't wait to be home. We miss everyone!

Love,
Brennan

# Posted @ 3:58 AM on Wednesday, July 13, 2011
5 comments

Day ?

Greetings from Ukraine. We have just finished another productive day in Krasnoarmeysk. It's been a wonderful trip with a lot of opportunities, memories, and funny moments along the way.

This was our 3rd day in the park doing a Vacation Bible School. Our numbers have been very constant with a great turn out. David Burka taught the teen class the story of Moses and the 10 Commandments. While I believe Mrs. Pat taught the younger children. Also during this time Brennan, Melissa, Sissy, and Dasha went to the small town of Dymitrov to do a childrens lesson for the kids there. I hear it was also a great success with more of the ladies planning to go back tomorrow.

At the park we tryed to teach the guys how to play football. It was amazing how a little instrution helped them throw the ball. But also a little difficult since football is not common to them like it is to us. But they all seemed to enjoy it and by the end of the day you could hit them on a dime.

The ladies taught the first ladies class today, with the second one planned for tomorrow. Alos today was our first day at the Shelter. This is similar to a foster home or a type of placement when a child would be placed in DCS custody, or similar situations. It was hard to try and reach out to these kids since some of them have mental or physical disabilites. Yet they all listened to the lesson and durning the craft they all worked hard and creatively to make beautiful sand art. We then played a game of frisbee and began to make more of a connection, so what started out as maybe a little uncomfortable turned into another great outreach.

We had another good turn out and lesson at the gospel meeting tonight. Sasha is a great preacher with a fire for the truth and bringing others to God. Please continue to be prayerful on our behalf. Tomorrow David Burka will study with Anya who is a woman who has been attending church for over a year so please be prayerful on their behalf. We have 2 more days of work and they will be busy but that's the way we like it.

Blessings,
Matt Brown

# Posted @ 2:27 AM on Tuesday, July 12, 2011
8 comments

Ukraine 2011 Day 2 in Krasnoarmeysk

Busy day for us. We headed to the park at 900 for a lesson with the kids and a short game. The lesson was on the ten commandments. Matt taught the teens and Sissy taught the little ones. Sasha and Julia broke us all ice cream cones. The game was a water balloon contest between a team made up of Turtles and a team made up of a Russian cartoon character. The Turtles won today!!! We had voer 30 kids at the park.

After that we headed to the apartment where the church meets. Roman delivered a good message. He has just completed his first year at Bear Valley here in Ukraine. We had 35 people at services and our team is 14 in number. So there was a good turnout. Vera wants PD to come eat some cherries.

After lunch several of us napped, some ran for exercise (I will leave it to you to guess who that was), a couple went to visit a member, and a small team went to Dimitrov. They conducted the same class for 8 children there.

For the evening we went to the cinema for our evening session. We had 6 guests, two teen boys, 3 ladies and one man. In total we had about 30 or so as a number of members came to hear Sasha deliver a lesson on the history of the church. It was a very good lesson and several from the States commented that they had not considered an aspect or two of his lesson. After the lesson we had a time of fellowship and conversation with the members and the guests.

A very good day but a long and tiring one for several of us.

The team sends their greetings to their family members. Erica wanted to make sure that she sent her family a hello. "Hello, Sircy's".

All is well for the team.

Tomorrow we have class and games in the park and a small team will go to Dimitrov. Then 4 of us go with Sasha to Donetsk to check out a potential builder for the church building. At four a team will head to the shelter to teach a lesson. Hopefully we will all meet up at 6 for our meeting in the cinema. Another busy day.

Keep us and the congregation in your prayers.

Buddy

# Posted @ 9:47 PM on Sunday, July 10, 2011
8 comments

Ukraine Mission Trip 7/9/2011

Hello, MJ, This is Buddy. Your Blogger for tonight.

We did arrive in Donetsk yesterday on time and with all our luggage. We believe that Austrian Air held the plane for our luggage to be transferred. Thanks Austrian!!!

We had a meal with Lynn, Victor, Sasha, Lera and Roman in Donetsk. "Table for 19 please". Sun City was our choice and the Pizza was good as always. We were all tired but happy to see Lydia and Tamarra when we got to Kras last night.

Tonight we started with VBS at the park. We had 9 teens and 14 kids ranging in age up to 12.

After the park, we headed to the apartments for lunch and some planning for the rest of the week.

We will be holding VBS at the park each day (Sunday thru Thursday) for the kids in Krasnoarmeysk. We will have classes in Dimitrov daily as well. Our team will divide each morning for separate sessions at each community. In the afternoons we are going to a shelter to teach the Bible to some kids there. That will be on Monday thru Wednesday only.

On Sunday we will have VBS in the park, then go to services with the congregation in Krasnoarmeysk. After that a small team will head to Dimitrov for the afternoon.

Each evening starting on Sunday we will be conducting a campaign at a local auditorium. Sasha have placed some ads in the newspaper and some on TV as well. We don't know how many to expect but we are hoping for many so that many can hear the Word.

After our planning session today we went to the shelter to take a tour and meet the director. The shelter is a home for children in bad situations. They may not have parents or do not have parents that can care for them. It is a charitable organizations supported by a variety of faiths. It breaks your heart to see some of these children and hear their stories. They are all beautiful and need to hear the story of Jesus.

Also we went to look at a piece of property for potential purpose for the construction of a badly needed church building. The church here presently meets in a third floor apartment. They are extremely crowded and have no place to grow in the current location.

The location of the land is very good, just off the main road to town with good access to bus stops. It has some potential.

After walking thru the park and handing out flyers for the campaign we stopped by the church building to get greeted by 10 or so members who came there to meet us. It is thrilling to see those folks again each year.

We have 2 Ukraine rookies from USA and one from Ukraine. Erica and Brennan have been on trips to El Salvador, but never here. I think they both were (as we all are) a little draggy after the 8 hour and 15 over seas flight from Washington to Vienna and the 2 and half hour flight from Vienna to Donetsk and the flight from Nashville added to our fatique.

Our Ukrainan rookie is a young man named Igbor. He is from the same city as Masha and Dasha. They grew up together. He is a great addition to the team.

Our long time translator and friend, Kostya, is back again for a lot of mistreatment, but I think he likes it.

Our internet access is less than ideal. We have to go to Sasha and Julia's apartment and impose on them to write these entries. I am not sure if we will be able to post something every night but we will try.

Well, it is 10 pm here so I better sign out and head back to take a shower and go to bed.

So stay tuned tomorrow night (hopefully) for another update from your Ukraine team 2011.

# Posted @ 11:16 PM on Saturday, July 09, 2011
5 comments

Ukraine 2011

Hello, your Ukraine Team for 2011 is preparing for our departure this week for Krasnoarmeysk, Ukraine. Please keep these teammates in your prayers:
David and Melissa Burka
Matthew Brown
David Fleming
Pat Huddleston
Susan McCulloch
Brennan Page
Buddy and Sissy Pickler
Erica Sircy

# Posted @ 9:19 PM on Tuesday, July 05, 2011
14 comments


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Ukraine 2011 Day 9 We are in Vienna airport at the gate awaiting our return flight home. Yesterday was a great day of sightseeing ad shopping topped off by a Mozart concert dessert. We had a great trip and feel like we did some good in Krasnoarmeysk. I think every team member is ready to get back to MJ. See you soon. Buddy # Posted @ 10:45 AM on Saturday, July 16, 2011 3 comments Parting was sweet sorrow as we left our hostesses and translators this morning. We've been through a lot together the past six days. The work at the shelter ended up touching the lives of nearly twenty young people; the classes at Dimitrov, twelve; and about thirty at the park at Krasnoarmeysk. So there are 62 souls who have been exposed to the Truth. The last night at the gospel meeting we had a total of 41, with three new visitors. Sasha's preaching was powerful and many questions were asked. Please pray for Anya and Kate, two young women who have studied and are considering obeying the gospel soon. We love the people of Ukraine, but we are looking forward to being with all of you on Sunday. As Dorothy said, "There's no place like home!" Love you, David and Melissa # Posted @ 9:48 PM on Thursday, July 14, 2011 5 comments Ukraine 2011 Day 8 Everyone and all luggage arrived in Vienna on time. We are in Hotel Astoria while a thunderstorm rages outside. In for the night and will sightsee tomorrow. Hotel has wifi but not for iphones or ipads. Rats! More later. Buddy Wednesday blog day...6? Hello from Ukraine! We've all had a really good day today. Started the day off with running water... Always a good sign. Mrs. Sissy, Mrs. Pat, and Dasha headed out early to Dimitrov, and had eleven kids. That was the biggest number there all week, and it makes for a total of twelve kids taught the Bible there this week. The rest of us were able to go to the park for VBS, and again had a good number of kids. (I'm not sure of the exact amount.) After VBS, we were able to have a sort of "goodbye lunch" with Sasha and his family and all of the translators. We then had a couple hour window where the ladies did some shopping and the men had another meeting regarding plans for the church building. Please continue to be prayerful about this, because the church is in desperate need of a bigger place to meet here in Krasnoarmeysk. At six o'clock we had our biggest turnout for a Gospel Meeting yet. (Possibly in all the years our group has been coming here to Ukraine I was told.) There were 41 in attendance including our 14. Sasha taught a very powerful lesson on baptism. A few responded with questions afterwards. Continue to pray for Anya as she is still being studied with. Today has been bitter-sweet. We're all excited to see our families back in the states again, but it's always hard to leave new friends behind. Especially all the kids we've been able to grow so close with this week. Tomorrow we head out to Vienna. Please be prayerful for safe travels over the next few days! God bless. -Erica Sircy Ukraine Team. Tuesday Blog Hey everyone back home! I get the honor of writing today's blog from Ukraine. Today was fun and we had great weather! It was windy so it kept us cool. A few things that i can write about are funny but very true. Today we came up with 'awards' for our taxi drivers. To start off with, I have never been in a taxi before so it was an experience. The awards we are talking about are awards for what our taxi drivers put us through while getting us to our destination. One taxi driver got the award for running over the most pot holes and another driver got the award of best looking taxi. One in particular got the award of going the fastest while playing 'chicken' with the other cars. But the most important thing is that the drivers did get us to our destination no matter how they did it. But talking about good news, we had a Bible study today with a woman named Anya and she is thinking about baptism. We had a good day and good week so far but we all miss our families. The team told me to tell all of their family members that they love you and and can not wait to see you. Our classes are picking up in numbers just a little bit but we wish it would pick up a little faster. Other than that eerything is going great besides the water being turned off today so that means no showers for us tonight! haha. Can't wait to be home. We miss everyone! Love, Brennan # Posted @ 3:58 AM on Wednesday, July 13, 2011 5 comments Day ? Greetings from Ukraine. We have just finished another productive day in Krasnoarmeysk. It's been a wonderful trip with a lot of opportunities, memories, and funny moments along the way. This was our 3rd day in the park doing a Vacation Bible School. Our numbers have been very constant with a great turn out. David Burka taught the teen class the story of Moses and the 10 Commandments. While I believe Mrs. Pat taught the younger children. Also during this time Brennan, Melissa, Sissy, and Dasha went to the small town of Dymitrov to do a childrens lesson for the kids there. I hear it was also a great success with more of the ladies planning to go back tomorrow. At the park we tryed to teach the guys how to play football. It was amazing how a little instrution helped them throw the ball. But also a little difficult since football is not common to them like it is to us. But they all seemed to enjoy it and by the end of the day you could hit them on a dime. The ladies taught the first ladies class today, with the second one planned for tomorrow. Alos today was our first day at the Shelter. This is similar to a foster home or a type of placement when a child would be placed in DCS custody, or similar situations. It was hard to try and reach out to these kids since some of them have mental or physical disabilites. Yet they all listened to the lesson and durning the craft they all worked hard and creatively to make beautiful sand art. We then played a game of frisbee and began to make more of a connection, so what started out as maybe a little uncomfortable turned into another great outreach. We had another good turn out and lesson at the gospel meeting tonight. Sasha is a great preacher with a fire for the truth and bringing others to God. Please continue to be prayerful on our behalf. Tomorrow David Burka will study with Anya who is a woman who has been attending church for over a year so please be prayerful on their behalf. We have 2 more days of work and they will be busy but that's the way we like it. Blessings, Matt Brown # Posted @ 2:27 AM on Tuesday, July 12, 2011 8 comments Ukraine 2011 Day 2 in Krasnoarmeysk Busy day for us. We headed to the park at 900 for a lesson with the kids and a short game. The lesson was on the ten commandments. Matt taught the teens and Sissy taught the little ones. Sasha and Julia broke us all ice cream cones. The game was a water balloon contest between a team made up of Turtles and a team made up of a Russian cartoon character. The Turtles won today!!! We had voer 30 kids at the park. After that we headed to the apartment where the church meets. Roman delivered a good message. He has just completed his first year at Bear Valley here in Ukraine. We had 35 people at services and our team is 14 in number. So there was a good turnout. Vera wants PD to come eat some cherries. After lunch several of us napped, some ran for exercise (I will leave it to you to guess who that was), a couple went to visit a member, and a small team went to Dimitrov. They conducted the same class for 8 children there. For the evening we went to the cinema for our evening session. We had 6 guests, two teen boys, 3 ladies and one man. In total we had about 30 or so as a number of members came to hear Sasha deliver a lesson on the history of the church. It was a very good lesson and several from the States commented that they had not considered an aspect or two of his lesson. After the lesson we had a time of fellowship and conversation with the members and the guests. A very good day but a long and tiring one for several of us. The team sends their greetings to their family members. Erica wanted to make sure that she sent her family a hello. "Hello, Sircy's". All is well for the team. Tomorrow we have class and games in the park and a small team will go to Dimitrov. Then 4 of us go with Sasha to Donetsk to check out a potential builder for the church building. At four a team will head to the shelter to teach a lesson. Hopefully we will all meet up at 6 for our meeting in the cinema. Another busy day. Keep us and the congregation in your prayers. Buddy # Posted @ 9:47 PM on Sunday, July 10, 2011 8 comments Ukraine Mission Trip 7/9/2011 Hello, MJ, This is Buddy. Your Blogger for tonight. We did arrive in Donetsk yesterday on time and with all our luggage. We believe that Austrian Air held the plane for our luggage to be transferred. Thanks Austrian!!! We had a meal with Lynn, Victor, Sasha, Lera and Roman in Donetsk. "Table for 19 please". Sun City was our choice and the Pizza was good as always. We were all tired but happy to see Lydia and Tamarra when we got to Kras last night. Tonight we started with VBS at the park. We had 9 teens and 14 kids ranging in age up to 12. After the park, we headed to the apartments for lunch and some planning for the rest of the week. We will be holding VBS at the park each day (Sunday thru Thursday) for the kids in Krasnoarmeysk. We will have classes in Dimitrov daily as well. Our team will divide each morning for separate sessions at each community. In the afternoons we are going to a shelter to teach the Bible to some kids there. That will be on Monday thru Wednesday only. On Sunday we will have VBS in the park, then go to services with the congregation in Krasnoarmeysk. After that a small team will head to Dimitrov for the afternoon. Each evening starting on Sunday we will be conducting a campaign at a local auditorium. Sasha have placed some ads in the newspaper and some on TV as well. We don't know how many to expect but we are hoping for many so that many can hear the Word. After our planning session today we went to the shelter to take a tour and meet the director. The shelter is a home for children in bad situations. They may not have parents or do not have parents that can care for them. It is a charitable organizations supported by a variety of faiths. It breaks your heart to see some of these children and hear their stories. They are all beautiful and need to hear the story of Jesus. Also we went to look at a piece of property for potential purpose for the construction of a badly needed church building. The church here presently meets in a third floor apartment. They are extremely crowded and have no place to grow in the current location. The location of the land is very good, just off the main road to town with good access to bus stops. It has some potential. After walking thru the park and handing out flyers for the campaign we stopped by the church building to get greeted by 10 or so members who came there to meet us. It is thrilling to see those folks again each year. We have 2 Ukraine rookies from USA and one from Ukraine. Erica and Brennan have been on trips to El Salvador, but never here. I think they both were (as we all are) a little draggy after the 8 hour and 15 over seas flight from Washington to Vienna and the 2 and half hour flight from Vienna to Donetsk and the flight from Nashville added to our fatique. Our Ukrainan rookie is a young man named Igbor. He is from the same city as Masha and Dasha. They grew up together. He is a great addition to the team. Our long time translator and friend, Kostya, is back again for a lot of mistreatment, but I think he likes it. Our internet access is less than ideal. We have to go to Sasha and Julia's apartment and impose on them to write these entries. I am not sure if we will be able to post something every night but we will try. Well, it is 10 pm here so I better sign out and head back to take a shower and go to bed. So stay tuned tomorrow night (hopefully) for another update from your Ukraine team 2011. # Posted @ 11:16 PM on Saturday, July 09, 2011 5 comments Ukraine 2011 Hello, your Ukraine Team for 2011 is preparing for our departure this week for Krasnoarmeysk, Ukraine. Please keep these teammates in your prayers: David and Melissa Burka Matthew Brown David Fleming Pat Huddleston Susan McCulloch Brennan Page Buddy and Sissy Pickler Erica Sircy # Posted @ 9:19 PM on Tuesday, July 05, 2011 14 comments	Mt. Juliet Church of Christ Physical Addrees: 1940 N. Mt. Juliet Road Mt. Juliet, TN 37122 Mailing Address: P.O.Box 248 Mt.Juliet, TN 37121-0248 (615)758-2274 Fax:615-754-2351 Email Worship Services: Sunday Early Worship: 8AM Sunday Bible Study: 9:15AM Sunday Late Worship: 10:15AM Night Worship: 6PM Wednesday Bible Study: 7PM Past Archives: August 2006 September 2006 July 2007 August 2007 July 2008 September 2009 October 2009 August 2010 January 2011 July 2011 June 2012