It has already started getting cold in Ukraine, and we couldn’t be more excited about the work that is being done on the house. Misha (Dusya’s brother) has been doing some much necessary work to the inside of our house. Misha grew up in the Pravdinska Orphanage with his sister and graduated from there 10 years ago. The project of the house and the work being done has been a blessing in many ways this fall already… For us, it is nice to have someone we know and trust doing the work. We probably otherwise wouldn’t have been able to continue progress on the house while we were in the States. Our sweet Dusya has also been helping at our house and basically keeping everything on track and in order. We’re so blessed by them both and the work they’re doing!
It has also been nice to have them there as our house and the project of working there has become a safe place for Dusya. She loves a project and has loved sending us updates and pictures as she makes progress in different places. It’s also been perfect for Misha because he is in need of extra work to support his family.
We’ve also been blessed by the restoration of our relationship with Misha. Years ago, he seemed to have a heart to follow God, but has had a lot of struggles since graduating and has lost some of what he had as a young teen. While we were close with him during his time in the orphanage, somewhere along the way, he became uncomfortable with us and we lost the connection with him. When he started prep work in the summer, we were able to reconnect with him and restore some of the relationship that used to be. Sasha even has been able to share with him about God and we’ve been praying for continued opportunities to help bring him back to God.
And if all of those blessings weren’t enough, the work getting done on our house is wonderful! Misha is fixing and drywalling all our walls (they had chunks missing and practically no square corners). He’s also taken out our “pechka” (sort of a brick oven to heat the house) and building us a fireplace instead. Dusya has been cleaning and clearing the parts of our yard that we didn’t get to this summer, and cleaning up after Misha progresses around the house (anyone who has remodelled or repaired in a home knows the dust and dirt that ends up everywhere). We are so excited to get back there in a couple weeks and see the changes they’ve made and be able to continue ministry in a much more livable space! A huge thank you to those of you who have donated to help us fix up our almost-100-year-old house/ministry base! We can’t wait to give you more updates as we keep working on it and sharing ministry moments we have because of it.
