February 19, 2013

Dear friends and brothers and sisters in Christ. I greet you in the name of Jesus Christ on behalf of the staff and volunteers of Izmail Life Care Center.

Let me tell you about our life and service to the Lord here in Izmail, Ukraine. We have started a New Year with the celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus together with the volunteers and former clients of the LCC. We planned and conducted several events devoted to this date. In the eastern orthodox culture we celebrate Christmas on the 7th of January that is why on the 6th we got together for the festive celebration of our Lord’s birthday.  The students of our Sunday school, children of 4-7 years old, took part in the play, telling us the story of Jesus’ birth. We sang Christmas carols, played games and prayed for our needs.  
We were also glad to celebrate Christmas with our volunteers. During this gathering we tried our hand at serving each other in the form of a game. We tried to be simple and open like little children, and made angels as presents for our relatives. After that we had games and contests, which both young girls and experienced mothers participated in. This merry and fruitful Christmas event inspired us to once again serve God by bearing the good fruit of mercy, peace, kindness, and love.

During the party the volunteers showed the interest of counseling Crisis pregnancy and next week we have started a series of training lessons for them. Every Thursday we get together and learn to counsel women who face the unplanned pregnancy. We hope by having more trained people available we would be able to start our project in the women’s clinic where we would set up a monitor and show women the pro-life movies.

We have also started a new group of clients in the School for moms. Two women and one with the husband are going through two months course together. It has been a pleasure to see a rear case of devotion and care in the relationship between husband and his wife.
Bob and Andrea Burnham, MTW missionaries from Odessa, visited us on the 25-27 of January. With their help we conducted two meetings with the parents of girls and boys. Bob and Andrea talked to the parents about the nuances of the upbringing of the girls and their sexual education in the family. Next week Sergei Betin helped us to hold another meeting with parents of boys where we talked about the leadership, parental authority and sexual education as well.

Bob and Andrea and two volunteers of the Life Care Center also met with the group of young adults who do not have parents and grew up in the local orphanage and now study in one of the technical schools. After they graduate from school they will have to find work, the place to live and the place for themselves in this difficult world. For this very reason they more than others have to know what threats are there for them in this life and to be aware of them. They have to learn to make wise decisions for their life. This is what they were able to talk about with Bob and Andrea. God allowed us to meet with them again last week and to talk about sexual threats in their lives and consequences of unwise decisions.

At the end of January Olya, one of the volunteers and our church member had a baby boy. Thank you so much for the prayer for  Anatoly, the baby, who went through a lot of distress during the labor and survived only by God’s grace. Olya and the baby are doing well now. They spent 8 days in the hospital and are home now. The baby is gaining weight well and Olya is recuperating after the surgery.

Prayer needs:
· We placed the advertisement about free pregnancy test in every local newspaper. Please pray that God will use that and bring more clients for counseling.
· Pray for the health of the mother Alena and her unborn baby who goes through the classes in school for moms together with her husband Alexander. Also pray for their salvation.
· For the students and teachers of local schools who hear our abstinence programs. For changing their hearts towards life.
· For the health of my father and his salvation.
· For Anya and Andre the parents of а girl who comes to the Sunday school. The father and the mother started attending the church. Please pray for their salvation and the church becoming their welcoming family.

To see the pictures please follow the link              
http://lcc-izmail.org/nl/newsletter-febr-2013.htm