Tuesday

We got up early today to prepare for our second day of teaching. Today the foster families, who are required to get several hours a month of parental teaching,  arrived so our class doubled in size.  We had fun  teaching on how to resolve conflict and then the roles of the husband and wife.  Teaching biblical truth to non believers was interesting.  The amazing thing was that the non believers started off with arms crossed but by the end of the first session they were leaning forward in their seats and listening intently. Wayne presented the gosple very clearly during the session on husbands. Praise the Lord. 

 This is our class.

After dinner we went to a prayer meeting with a group of people who attend the New Testament church. We have known most of them for 12 years , since they were in their early 20's and we were in our 50's.   PW and I both had the opportunity to share the word with them and then we prayed and did some prophetic ministry for each one.  At the end they insisted on praying over us also.   It is always so humbling when those to whom you minister want to bless you in return. God truly met with us tonight and all of us left uplifted and encouraged in the Lord. 
  Wayne praying a blessing over a young man who has Autism. This precious young man sat and smiled the whole evening.  He is used of God to encourage others with his gentle spirit. He does not speak with his mouth, but his countenance says it all. 

 

This is the group we met with in Angelikas little 3 room house filled with love and peace.  Precious time of fellowship in the Lord.



Angelika and Sherry



We finally got home around 10:30. It has been a long day and we are tired but it is a good tired. Thank you for your faithful prayers for us while we are here.  We definitely feel them and have much peace and our energy has been good.  Tomorrow we will begin the parenting seminar.  Please ask God to help us answer the questions with wisdom that these parents have concerning their children. Most have specific issues for which they are wanting answers.  Discipline is a real problem with foster families since they are restricted by the government in many ways.  But God has answers and it is with His words that we want to minster.  God bless you all.

With much love,
PW and Sherry

Monday Update

These adorable children are just a four of the kids attending the English Camp while we teach the adults.







Today we began our Family seminar.  We had 28 in attendance today and the foster families are coming  tomorrow. Todays group had quite a few who had been traveling for 2 days to get here.   We began teaching on Marriage with the basic teaching on Purpose of marriage and then followed it with talking about the sources of conflict.  Two men asked us if we could do more eveing teachings so they would not miss anything. Always good to hear that people are hungry.  The people were very nice and came up to talk to us afterward.  Tomrorow we will see where the Lord leads.

Please pray specifically for us with the foster families. Several of them are non Christians so it will be interesting to see how they respond to the biblical teachings.  Pray for God to open up the eyes of their understanding and that many would come to faith in Christ.  We are excited about this week.

We will post pictures of our whole group after they all arrive.  Those who were not here today will recieve a copy of one of our previous seminars on marriage so they will not miss any of the teachings.  We will also be offering our Marriage DVD this week.

With much love,
PW and Sherry

Sunday

Today we had the privilege of ministering at the City of LIfe Church in Uzghorod. The church is pastored by our friends Edik and Ershika Opelenik. We have been coming to this church for the past 6 years and have become good friends with all of them. Pastor Edik asked us several years ago to mentor he and his wife in Pastoral ministry and it has been our honor. PW preached on the Gospel today. He has been doing a series at our home church and it is alive in him. The response was wonderful and many came up after to talk to us and thank him for the timely word. Pastor said he had felt led to focus on evangelism this fall and so it was a confirmation that PW had the spirits leading when preparing for todays sermon. After service we went to Edik and Ershikas home for a wonderful dinner and time of fellowship. We ended up staying until after 5 talking about everything from doctrine to world politics and a hope of an upcoming trip by them to the United States. We would love for you all to meet them in person and hear Edik preach.

Why we love Uzghorod continued

                                  Churches, city streets and bridge

My friends Valeria and Olya
We spent a lovely day together Sat. walking the streets and seeing
the sites.

Why we love Uzghorod

The Jewish Synagogue

Nehemiah Guest house, our home away from home.


Rooftops and city streets

A lovely park along the river lined with trees

The oldest Orthodox church in Uzghorod

A view of the backside of the castle

 This is how they decorate the cars for newlyweds

Saturday and Friends

We had a wonderful day today.  Wayne stayed at Nehemiah and prepared his sermon for Sunday and I went with two friends, Olya and Valeria,  to visit the castle in Uzghorod which dates from the early 1600's. There are also ruins of an old church on the site.  The Ukranians love to walk so it was not surprising to me that we walked miles on end as we toured the old part of the city and took pictures after our visit to the castle.  The walk justified my eating fried potatoes and a blinski for desert at one of our favorite resturaunts.  All in all it was a beautiful day.

We are praying for all of you that you have a blessed Lords day tomorrow. We will post after our return from our ministry tomorrow.

Much Love,
PW and Sherry 

What do Ukranian mosquitos and Kamakazie pilots have in common?

Both dive bomb innocent victims in the night.... Here is the evidence of what damage they can do. Sherry was the innocent victim.        

This was our lunch today. A pizza with pickles. Yes you read that right.  Actually it was quite tasty.

Today has been quiet and we are starting to feel rested and ready to roll. We have met with a few people today for ministry time and tomorrow will be a study day because Sunday we start full speed ahead for the week.  There will be much on our plate this week. 

We had a delicous Georgian meal with our friends Vasiko and Tanya in the new pavilion at Nehemiah.  Good fellowship and food....a nice end to a day. 

Please pray specifically for our time of teaching the foster families. They have serious issues that they face with the children they are taking care of and are looking for biblical answers on how to help them. 

We will need much wisdom from God to minister to them.  

With much love, 

PW and Sherry

Jet lag

We would like to know how it is possible to sleep from 8:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. the next day and still want to lay back down and go to sleep.  Jet lag is an amazing thing.  Thankfully it only lasts a few days so we look forward to being able to think tomorrow.  :>)))) 
Blessings to you all,
PW and Sherry

We have arrived

We arrived at our home away from home about 2 hours ago.  The trip was very tiring but we are now in a cool room and ready to rest and hopefully feel human again tomorrow.

The drive from the airport in Kosice, Slovakia was wonderful. We had a great driver who was careful and pointed out the sites on the way. Of course he did not speak english so it was fun to play charades and hope we understood each other.  The villages are Sherry's favorites. Each little home has a garden on their plot of land. They grow mainly cabbage, onions, potatoes, beets, carrots and other root vegetables, but always have room for lettuce,radishes, tomatoes and green onions.  I always get inspired when I see these little homes.  Some have chickens or other animals and always lots of flowers and fruit trees. It is lovely and reminds me of my grandma who grew up in Yugoslavia. 

After we arrived we went to get dinner and topped it off with a real ice cream eskimo pie. Remember how they used to taste?  Well they still taste that good over here. Real cream...yummm.. So far today we had real apple streudal like grandma made and real ice cream. A great way to start a ministry time.  Of course the splurging ends tonight and tomorrow we begin to eat healthy again. 

Please pray that the next 3 days we get plenty of rest so we are prepared spiritually for our ministry times.
With Love,
PW and Sherry

The hills are alive with the sound of music

 As we flew into Vienna and I looked out at the fields which were like a giant patchwork quilt and the mountains in the distance that song just resonated in my spirit.  The villages below were filled with clay tiled roofed houses and church spires and all that we love about Europe.

The flight was anything but comfortable but it was a smooth flight and the staff were wonderful.  The food was good also. Both of us slept some but with knees touching the seats in front of us we did not rest. 

We have a 6 hour layover here at Vienna airport (where we just paid $7.00 for a bottle of water, yes you read that right)  and then fly into Kosice,  Slovakia and then have a 2 hour drive to Ukraine.  By the time you read this we will be in the air.  Please pray that our luggage arrives with us and that our driver is on time,  is a safe driver and that we do not have a long wait at the border. Sometimes you can sit still for hours waiting for the border patrol to finish their breaks. It is maddening.  We are so blessed in the United States.  The people over here are very patient since this is a way of life for them for decades.

We will update tomorrow sometime.  Have a blessed week.

With Love,
PW and Sherry

Who has your heart?

That question has been coming to me daily as I go about my business. Our precious Lord is wanting our hearts 100%, not 99.9 but 100%.  If you want to know who has your heart, examine your life and the things you spend your time doing. 

Blessings to you all.
PW and Sherry

July update

Where has the time gone?  Here it is July 1 and we have not posted since May.  As you can see we did not get pictures on the blog either.   For some reason we cannot figure out how to do that from PW's computer.  So sorry. Hopefully by the time we take our August trip we will have the problem fixed and be able to post as usual.
Sherry had the privilege of ministering by doing a workshop at the Christian Home Educators of Ohio conference the 22-23 of June.  She taught on ways to pray scripture for your children. 
We are now preparing for our trip to Uzghorod Ukraine in August where we will be doing a marriage and family seminar for Foster families.  We are also leaning heavily toward accepting an invitation to the Phillipines in January. Our pastor friend Rannie has invited us to come for 4 days.  Please pray for us as we seek God on this trip. 
The bible says " In everything give thanks for this is the will of the God concerning you".  Notice it says IN everything.  We have been given the privilege to practice obeying this particular scripture of late. God is so good to allow us open book tests as we journey through this life. We are learning more and more the truth that God does work all things together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.  The battle has been intense, but in each skirmish God has been directing and training us in righteousness.  Praise His holy name.  Keep pressing in brothers and sisters knowing that the trying of your faith works patience.
Blessings and Much love to you,
PW and Sherry

Almost to the end

We are so sorry we have not updated this week. It has been so busy and there just has not been time.
The week has been great the students have been attentive and have asked very good questions each day. Yesterday, Wed., we met with several students for personal ministry and also met with one of the staff couples in the evening. We have been quite impressed with the base here.  They truly are making disciples who are not afraid to go anywhere the Lord sends them.

Tomorrow is our last day of teaching and then we will leave for Dothan Alabama to show Hanna all the places where Jen grew up.  We will drive through Graceville Florida where PW went to bible school, then to Dothan and then to Cuthbert Georgia where we  pastored our first  church.  That should be fun for her to see all these places.  Our vacation will officially start on Saturday.  We will try to blog our journey and hopefully I will be posting pictures tomorrow or Sat.  Sherry's computer is dying so we have to figure out how to get the pictures from PW's onto the blog.

Blessings to all of you. Please continue to pray for us and for our moms who are at home.

Much Love,
PW and Sherry

Day 1

Monday was our first class. The students are young and full of passion for serving God. YWAM is known for equipping young people for ministry to the nations.  Our observation is that there are not many idle moments. From the time the students get up until they go to bed they are purposefully preparing their hearts and minds.  The day starts with student led worship (which is powerful) at 8:30. Classes start at 9:15.  At this time there are 2 schools taking place.  A School of Frontier Mission, where the students are preparing to go and live in 10/40 window nations and the School of Evangelism, where the students are preparing to become full time staff at this base.  We are teaching at the SOE.  The students are wonderful.  PW has been teaching on Biblical counseling because these students will be working with young people themselves as they lead groups on foreign and domestic outreaches in the future.  After classes they have work assignments and then do outreaches in the area. These students are teaching English to Burmese people who have settled in Jacksonville.  They also do beach ministry during the week. 
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The base is in a motel that is a few hundred feet from the beach.  The location is excellent and in a true harvest field. They rent out several rooms to people who are not believers and the students witness to them not only through servant evangelism, but verbal witness and by the way they live their lives.
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Hanna is taking the class and seems to be enjoying herself.  Of course beach time in the afternoons is a must. Yesterday we went to the beach to see the effects of Beyrl.  The beach was a mess and the waves were huge.  There were even a few surfers out in the water.  The wind was very strong because the storm system has not moved totally out of the area but the sun was out. 
Please pray for us as we connect with the students. We have a few appts. set up for this afternoon and tomorrow. 
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The plan is to post some pictures tomorrow if we can figure out how to download them onto Sherrys PC from PW's phone.
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Much love,
PW, Sherry and Hanna

We have arrived in Jacksonville

We are here just in time for the tropical storm which is sitting off the coast.  9 years ago Sherry was down in Florida helping Waynes mom pack up her house when a hurricane hit. Now here she is again waiting out another one.  Oh well, it will be an exciting memory for Hanna.
We took 3 days to drive down so we did not have to rush. It was a good time of being together and getting ready for our week of ministry. Please keep us in prayer this week. Even though there are only 5 students, they are important to God and are here to prepare themselves for ministry.  Most of them are in their early 20's so it should be a fun week. 
We will update every chance we get. God bless you all.
With much love,
PW, Sherry and Hanna

On the road again

We are scheduled to leave again this Friday for a weeks ministry in Jacksonville Florida at the YWAM base there.  The Castro's, missionaries from our church, are directing the school of ministry there and invited us to come teach their team.  Our topic will be Biblical Counseling which will prove very valuable training for those who will be on staff and working with others. We will also be ministering one on one to a few married couples and other staff members.
Wayne's mom has not been feeling too well so please pray for her and Sherry's mom as they stay at home.  It would be wonderful if they had an uneventful few weeks. 
CCF is being left in the good hands of Pastor Bill and Edie. 
Please pray for Richard and Sue, members of our congregation who are fighting the cancer battle. Richard has been sick since January. We hate to leave them at this time so prayer is so appreciated.
We will try to post daily if possible, not sure what our Internet access will be at the base. 
Thank you so much for all of your prayer coverage. It makes a huge difference to know our backs and the church are being covered. 
Much love,
PW and Sherry

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