Monday, February 7, 2005

Missions Report - February 2005


Dear Friends,

We have been praying for months about moving to Ukraine to be missionaries, as many of you know. Thank you for praying for us! We applied to be on staff with Great Commission Ministries (GCM) back in September.
Timmy Powers, my long-time
old guy friend and missionary
Pastor Andre, one of the leaders
I will be serving
We have currently been accepted by GCM as associate staff and all that remains is for us to raise our financial support. We are excited, trusting God and working hard to see this happen! We are also fixing up our house to sell. Danelle, Grace, Merry and I will attend a three week class in Colorado to prepare us for the cultural transition.

Danelle and I will also attend an additional two week language preparation class to that will enable us to learn Russian more quickly. An old guy like me needs all the help he can get learning Russian! GCM requires all it’s employees to attend these classes so they can be effective in their ministry.

I have been working in Ukraine for ten years preaching the gospel and now my dream of training national leaders and planting churches will become more of a reality. This is an enormous step of faith for Danelle, the girls and myself. We are leaving our family, friends, country and home. It is very difficult! But, we sense God’s calling over the past ten years, and especially the past 7 months. Danelle and I have been committed to world evangelism through church planting before we were married almost 30 years ago and we are honored to go.

We need your help to make this ministry in Ukraine possible! We would like each of you to be on our team!. How? By praying and giving you will send us to reach Ukrainians with the gospel of Christ! Many of you have supported us in the past and for that we are most grateful! We need people to support us monthly with special gifts. Some of you may even be able to increase your commitment. We have been raising our monthly support still need to raise an additional $2,500 per month. Anything you are able to do to help us reach that goal as soon as possible is greatly appreciated and helps us to plan our departure to Kiev. We would like to go in August so that Merry and Grace can begin school on time. For this to happen, we will also need to raise one-time gifts of $15,000 to cover the tuition for the classes in Colorado and to pay for our flights to Colorado and to Ukraine along with our moving expenses. Please ask God if you can help with these immediate needs. Thank you very much!

Yours in our Savior’s love,



Steve and Danelle