Praise the Lord for the times of grace and peace here in Ukraine and in the area where I've been called to serve for a while. I want to share briefly about the ministry in Patrauti de Sus and other places where I ministered. After the caroling time, we had the joy to have two new people attend our church. We felt encouraged and very glad. They haven't missed any church service and I hope they'll receive Christ as their Savior. They are sisters that mostly speak Ukrainian. They also started attending the ladies' meeting. Pray that God will have mercy on them and on their family. Another great thing is that there are two young people who have been attending the church for two weeks. They were invited by their relative who is a member of our church. We usually read two chapters from the Bible during the Sunday and Wednesday services. This is a way to involve all the people from the church. We did the same last Sunday and all the people read a few verses including these two young people. We pray that God will open their hearts.

There is another young family that came to church one Sunday. I went to talk to them after the service and they said they would be thinking about what to do next. Pray that God will make the seed of the Word in their hearts fruitful.

We had a meeting with the church members and talked about church attendance and tithing. I spent several hours explaining the importance of fellowship and tithing. I was happy to see that they under-stood the concept and necessity of tithing and started to practice it. Before having this meeting, I had talked to several people about tithing too. I am happy to work with a young and flexible church where there are not many traditions.

I would like to take the necessary steps to start some social projects in our village. These will be a means to preach the gospel and bring people to Christ. Even though the priests called us heretics, I have the feeling that some people made their minds up about us after we had helped them in a few ways.  Despite the opposition, we praise the Lord that His gospel is being preached!

We continue to have the evangelistic nighs on Wednesdays twice a month. We always have guests from Romania. When we have these events, we invite people from the village to come.  We even give them rides. We usually have no more than 5 unbelievers but we are confident that God's Word is never void, but bears fruit.

I do my best to emphasize the importance of Bible study and motivate the members to love the Scripture and to seek to have an abundant life. It used to be more difficult at the beginning but things have started to go well now. Brother Vladimir G. usually helps me on Sundays. But we continue to pray that God will raise up ministers, preachers and dedicated people. It's been pretty hard for me so far not to have anyone who could help me with preaching. Please pray for this need.

My wife continues to teach piano lessons in Patrauti de Jos. She has recently started to work with a little girl from Patrauti de Sus. With somebody from Romania, she is also in charge with the choir from Patrauti de Jos.

This month I managed to visit the church from Budinet, Pataruti de Jos and Robcea, Storojnet. On the 12th of the month, I participated in a conference with Christian brothers from Ukraine. The topic was on the role of the pastor.

We also had a meeting with some of the HeartCry missionaries and talked about the ministry and the needs we face. We also talked about Martin Lloyd Jones' book, Joy Unspeakable.

On February 16, Ion G., Vasea P., and I went to the area of Transcarpathia to attend a wake service. A missionary family, Chidesa, was involved in a car crash. The wife died and he was in the hospital. I was surprised to see and hear him giving us comfort and talking about the ministry in spite of his grief.
On our way back home we spent three days in the Republic of Moldova. We visited three churches in the Romanian villages of Dmitrivca, Prioziornoie, and Glubcoe. God blessed us here too.

Please continue to pray for us and the ministry here!