Again I’m behind on writing my newsletters and keeping in touch with my friends… I’m sorry. This one might be a bit long. We will see.
ENGAGEMENT
I will start without delay from the most exciting news of mine – I’m getting married!) I proposed to a lovely girl and she said YES. Her name is Ulyana. She is a graphic designer, but she only does it part time. Her real passion is missions. She is full time in King’s Kids ministry here in Kyrgyzstan (whereas I’m only volunteering). We met at a Christian conference this summer. We prayed a lot, we spent a lot of time together and we are very serious about our decision.
It has been a bit more than a month since we are engaged, and we are more than excited. I’m glad that God gave me Ulyana. I was praying for a Godly wife for almost two years, and now when I see her, I can tell that God was at work every single day in these almost two years. We will get married in March and it puts a bit of pressure on us. As a good friend of mine says: We are not poor, we just don’t have much money :D Nevertheless, we prayed about this, and God was very specific about the day of our wedding, so we believe He will provide on time for all our needs. I’m also excited that I will finally an older sister after the wedding (was kinda my dream for awhile) and another mother, who is a great person which is important when you choose yourself a wife ;)
Please, for us in the next few month as we prepare for our wedding. Please pray for:
- For us to get to know each other even better and strengthen our relationships
- For us to keep our relationships clean before God and fight temptations
- For God to show us which church we should choose when we are married (we go to two different churches)
- For us to find a place to live (right now I’m renting with friends, so we need to look for a new place)
- For finances for our wedding and, if God is willing, for our honeymoon
Please, for us in the next few month as we prepare for our wedding. Please pray for:
- For us to get to know each other even better and strengthen our relationships
- For us to keep our relationships clean before God and fight temptations
- For God to show us which church we should choose when we are married (we go to two different churches)
- For us to find a place to live (right now I’m renting with friends, so we need to look for a new place)
- For finances for our wedding and, if God is willing, for our honeymoon
LIGHTHOUSE
Work has been exciting as well in the last month! In the end of October me and Ieva finished the preparations and launched the program on October 27th with our first official presentation targeted to recruit our first volunteers to become mentors. We held this presentation at my church after the Sunday service. It was short, but next week we had an extended one for people who got interested. Finally, we had our group and started the training for candidates to be mentors. Training was almost entirely the result of our years at LCC. How to present, how to talk, how to create group work and workshops, how to search and structure the info – all of that we’ve learned at LCC. We are also very grateful to Roman Gaiduk who shared his experience in doing trainings and got us started with fundamental understanding of what we want to accomplish. The people with whom we worked were also a huge blessing to us. They were committed and dedicated two of their weekends to this training without a single complain. During the period of training I felt a tremendous pressure all around. Many things happened to prevent us from starting it. One of the most devastating happened with my mom who also wanted to participate in the training. At the morning of the first day of training she spilled a mug of boiling water on herself and seriously burned her skin on the belly and one of the legs. (She is alright now; almost healed.) I’m really grateful to all of you who’ve prayed at this moment for us.
Regardless, of all the “tricks” that devil played on us, with God’s grace we’ve finished the training, and next week seven children each will meet their own mentor. Children are teenagers that live in the Rehabilitation Center for Street Children in Bishkek. It was also amazing to see who specifically God prepared each mentor for each child. Ieva and I were in awe when we compared the personalities and needs of our kids with personalities and abilities of our mentors. Again and again we see how it is God’s work, God’s plan, God’s organization, and we are just happen to be there to witness His miraculous work. Right now Ieva is working with psychologist and social workers of the rehab center, as well as with our future mentees in order to gather more info about them and better prepare our mentors. Meanwhile, I’m working on our organization more – marketing, HR, fundraising etc. Now, when we saw how it all works together, we need to gather funds and start hiring people, and slowly grow the number of our mentors and mentees. We’ve just hired a part time accountant to help us to cope with all state regulations and documents. Also, before we can start training more people for mentors, we need to hire a coordinator to guide them later. Finally, it would be nice to have a salary for me and Ieva since our saving are depleting))) So, as you can see, we have many thing to work on, but we are looking forward to more of God’s miracles.
Yes, almost forgot, we have a website now where you can read more about our program and news. It is www.mentorkg.org
Also, God gave us a wonderful office for a very good price. Thank you for your prayers
Please, pray for the Lighthouse KG. Specifically, pray for:
- Our first mentors and mentees to have good relationships
- We need more employees. Especially, a coordinator
- We need some creative volunteers to help us with poster, videos and thing alike
- There is an interest in the program in Kyzyl-Kija – small town on the South of Kyrgyzstan. We need to know what can we do to help them
- Finances to cover our expenses
Regardless, of all the “tricks” that devil played on us, with God’s grace we’ve finished the training, and next week seven children each will meet their own mentor. Children are teenagers that live in the Rehabilitation Center for Street Children in Bishkek. It was also amazing to see who specifically God prepared each mentor for each child. Ieva and I were in awe when we compared the personalities and needs of our kids with personalities and abilities of our mentors. Again and again we see how it is God’s work, God’s plan, God’s organization, and we are just happen to be there to witness His miraculous work. Right now Ieva is working with psychologist and social workers of the rehab center, as well as with our future mentees in order to gather more info about them and better prepare our mentors. Meanwhile, I’m working on our organization more – marketing, HR, fundraising etc. Now, when we saw how it all works together, we need to gather funds and start hiring people, and slowly grow the number of our mentors and mentees. We’ve just hired a part time accountant to help us to cope with all state regulations and documents. Also, before we can start training more people for mentors, we need to hire a coordinator to guide them later. Finally, it would be nice to have a salary for me and Ieva since our saving are depleting))) So, as you can see, we have many thing to work on, but we are looking forward to more of God’s miracles.
Yes, almost forgot, we have a website now where you can read more about our program and news. It is www.mentorkg.org
Also, God gave us a wonderful office for a very good price. Thank you for your prayers
Please, pray for the Lighthouse KG. Specifically, pray for:
- Our first mentors and mentees to have good relationships
- We need more employees. Especially, a coordinator
- We need some creative volunteers to help us with poster, videos and thing alike
- There is an interest in the program in Kyzyl-Kija – small town on the South of Kyrgyzstan. We need to know what can we do to help them
- Finances to cover our expenses
MINISTRY
King’s Kids
I’m more than excited about what is going on at our King’s Kids gathering. We started to talk about foundations of our Faith with our teenagers, and we see how God is moving hearts every time. We talked about God the Father in our lives, about Jesus Christ and what he has done for us, the Holy Spirit and His role. Now we will be talking about us – why we were created, the calling and other things. Also, we will be covering different spiritual disciplines (Thank you Jane Holslag for introducing me to them). During these gatherings we see how our teenagers open up their hearts. It is important time for them since for many it is the time to move from the “faith of their parents” to their own believes. And many of them struggle with that. I’m really happy to see how they also take initiative in different things. For example, they were leading worship couple times already, and it was great! Also, it is funny to realize that we have twice as many guys as girls which is rare in any Christian gathering. We also learn a lot from our teenagers and from each other.
Art of Being a Man
This ministry is becoming more and more important to me because I see more and more impact. Every Sunday we gather with these young men and talk about how to be a better men, how to be Godly men. Every time I’m amazed about what God is doing. The questions that these guys ask, the answers that they give, how open we can be among each other – all of that just deepens my conviction that young men can be very powerful in the hands of God.
In the begging of November we had one Sunday when we talked about being grateful. For one of the activities, I was inspired by this video:
I’m more than excited about what is going on at our King’s Kids gathering. We started to talk about foundations of our Faith with our teenagers, and we see how God is moving hearts every time. We talked about God the Father in our lives, about Jesus Christ and what he has done for us, the Holy Spirit and His role. Now we will be talking about us – why we were created, the calling and other things. Also, we will be covering different spiritual disciplines (Thank you Jane Holslag for introducing me to them). During these gatherings we see how our teenagers open up their hearts. It is important time for them since for many it is the time to move from the “faith of their parents” to their own believes. And many of them struggle with that. I’m really happy to see how they also take initiative in different things. For example, they were leading worship couple times already, and it was great! Also, it is funny to realize that we have twice as many guys as girls which is rare in any Christian gathering. We also learn a lot from our teenagers and from each other.
Art of Being a Man
This ministry is becoming more and more important to me because I see more and more impact. Every Sunday we gather with these young men and talk about how to be a better men, how to be Godly men. Every time I’m amazed about what God is doing. The questions that these guys ask, the answers that they give, how open we can be among each other – all of that just deepens my conviction that young men can be very powerful in the hands of God.
In the begging of November we had one Sunday when we talked about being grateful. For one of the activities, I was inspired by this video:
Without showing them the video, I had them to do the same exercise. They wrote a letter to someone they were particularly grateful to, and then I told them to call that person and read it. It was so awesome to see these guy to pick up the phone and call their mothers, football coaches, friends, and go all emotional when reading their letters… Then, it was my little brother’s turn. He unfolds his letter and starts reading about me. It was my turn to get emotional :) I really didn’t think about some things that he was grateful for. Wow. It felt so good. Try to this, folks. Write a letter, make a call.
When we were having trainings at Lighthouse, I couldn’t meet with my men for two weekends. Instead, I tried to meet with some of them one on one. That was even greater. I realized that all my past experiences, all my dirt, sin and struggles can be so helpful and important to others. I encourage you, my friends, never to hide your past if it can teach other. Be open about your past mistakes and teach others how they can avoid them. It is truly amazing.
This Sunday we will start the series of favorite and important topics for young men. We will be talking about sex, girls, relationships, marriage. Please, pray God to give me wisdom to lead this group through these things.
Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage
Finally, we started the video seminar at our church for the married (and engaged) couples Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage. I’m glad that we finally are doing this. There are 24 people who participate, and we hope to have bigger event next time. Please pray for people who can lead this ministry at our church.
When we were having trainings at Lighthouse, I couldn’t meet with my men for two weekends. Instead, I tried to meet with some of them one on one. That was even greater. I realized that all my past experiences, all my dirt, sin and struggles can be so helpful and important to others. I encourage you, my friends, never to hide your past if it can teach other. Be open about your past mistakes and teach others how they can avoid them. It is truly amazing.
This Sunday we will start the series of favorite and important topics for young men. We will be talking about sex, girls, relationships, marriage. Please, pray God to give me wisdom to lead this group through these things.
Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage
Finally, we started the video seminar at our church for the married (and engaged) couples Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage. I’m glad that we finally are doing this. There are 24 people who participate, and we hope to have bigger event next time. Please pray for people who can lead this ministry at our church.
THE DISCIPLINE OF "SLOWING DOWN"
What is that all about? Well, as you can imagine, my life has been busy lately. At some point I started to feel too much pressure to accomplish things. Once I open a book on my kindle (Life you always wanted) and read the name of the chapter – The Discipline of “Slowing Down”. And that was just on time. I realized that I need to slow down more often. Trust God more. Trust that if I take a day off to spend it with God, He will take care of my business. I started to practice to slow down. The best thing about it is that I was able to accomplish more. Spending time with God made my tasks easier. I gain wisdom from God, He eliminates particular obstacles, I feel less stressed, sleep enough… It is really great. I recommend you to read the book!
I still struggle of course how to balance my life, but I’m getting there. As I said last month, I still have smaller stories to share, and I hope to post more smaller posts here. One of the things that I’m looking forward to is to post some “Christian challenges” for ya. Have some things in mind already…. First challenge will follow soon.
Once again, thank you for your support and prayers! Please, write me an email, FB, SMS, something where you can tell how are you doing.
Peace,
Anton
I still struggle of course how to balance my life, but I’m getting there. As I said last month, I still have smaller stories to share, and I hope to post more smaller posts here. One of the things that I’m looking forward to is to post some “Christian challenges” for ya. Have some things in mind already…. First challenge will follow soon.
Once again, thank you for your support and prayers! Please, write me an email, FB, SMS, something where you can tell how are you doing.
Peace,
Anton