Praying About India

Dear friends, for the last few months my husband, Oles, and I have been praying about moving to India. God has been slowly answering our prayers for wisdom about what decision to make. However, God has begun to answer my prayers about comfort and peace in my soul about making such a move and transition in our lives.

Ever since I became a Christian, God put in my heart the desire to chase after Him as fast as possible, and doing this has taken me through many adventures and hardships. God has used all my circumstances to help me grow tremendously in my faith in His goodness and sovereignty. I still have so much growth to go. As Paul says it: "I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things (spiritual maturity) or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us." Philippians 3:12-14 NLT

About a month ago I realized that I had some rising fear in my heart about moving to India. The fear is related to my thoughts about how uncomfortable and hard life will be in a third world, non-Christian, non-western country. I have sometimes cried out to God in agony, asking him to take this fear from my heart and give me a heart of courage, and the desire to pursue spreading the gospel to the most unreached, most dangerous places on the earth. I'll admit it, I was very scared to even start to pray this prayer. I was afraid that if God gave me this desire, then surely I would follow it and go live in a crazy place. 

 
Well, I've gotten over this lie in my head and realized that "God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." 2 Corinthians 9:8 NIV

And...
"my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:19

Once I realized that if God gives me this desire, He will also equip me with all strength, courage and faith that I need to persevere even in the hardest circumstances.  It was a break through moment for me, when I realized this, and God has helped my faith and confidence in His promises of grace to grow abundantly over the last few months.

For now we believe that Oles will continue working in business and I will continue teaching english and doing english clubs, and we pray that we will grow spiritually and in God's grace, so that He will prepare us for the right time to move to India to be missionaries. We believe that the work God will prepare for us in India will be by working with orphans, studying Hindi, and preaching the gospel.

There's several reasons why we believe that God is preparing our hearts to go to Delhi:
1. Our hearts are broken for the lost people, and god has directed our hearts to have a special desire to focus on the people of India.  We desire to see as many people saved as possible before the coming of the King Jesus, at His return.
2. Delhi is a corridor for us to eventually go to even more unreached parts of India.

3. It will give us the opportunity to share the gospel by speaking english until we learn Hindi.
4. We will be able to obtain a visa by entering India as students to learn Hindi at a University in Delhi.

5. It will give us access to hospitals to start our family, and continue to care for my severe back pain.


So the prayer requests that we have now are:
1. For God to reveal to us when we should go to Delhi, India

2. For God to supply for our needs (especially financially)

3. For God to help us prepare spiritually for this great step in faith to fulfill the Great Commission.

Here's a video we found a few months ago that pictures some typical scenes from India. Watching it gets me excited!

"Think about it" India 2012

Do Not Lose Heart

The chiropractor I went to yesterday says I have "grade 2" Scoliosis.  Scoliosis is so painful because when the spine is out of alignment it doesn't work properly, which causes everything else around it to not work properly, especially causing muscle pain, nerve pain, etc...

My back is not this noticeably bad, but you can understand by the picture what's happening

I still can't figure out what that means for me in the future, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was true considering how bad my back pain has become over the last 5 years.  Every day for me is a battle, and daily things like cooking and cleaning and travelling on the buses are difficult for me because they cause my back so much pain.  I've been to chiropractors in the past, and no one has told me I have Scoliosis until now.  They told me "You just have a small curve in the thoracic vertebrae"  I almost never have any relief from pain unless I take medicine or seriously rest my back by laying down for a long time.

At this point in my life, I'm so used to this pain that it's normal for me.  I have accepted this pain from the Lord, and I even thank Him for it because I know how much it pushes me to cry out to God for help in the worst times.  The bible teaches that in this life there will be suffering, especially for the children of God.  So I have accepted this from the Lord as part of my suffering, and as a way that He constantly humbles me and tells me "you can't do this without me."

When I came to Ukraine I was pretty concerned about my back health.  In America I was going to the chiropractor once or twice a month to manage my pain and keep my spine in alignment.  Well, until yesterday I haven't seen a chiropractor or doctor in 6 months, and thank God my back hasn't gotten that much worse.  There's been some times when the pain was unbearable and I had to stop and rest or take medicine, but the Lord has given me the strength I prayed for to carry on with life and His mission for me.

As I meditated about all this yesterday I resolved not to worry or lose heart, knowing that apostle Paul was a man ridden with horrible health problems, yet his faith was a shining example of what it means to be a true disciple of Christ.  In 2 Corinthians 4:16 Paul says from personal experience, and to encourage the believers "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

The psalmist also said it like this: Psalm 73:26 "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

So I will not lose heart despite my circumstances and how horrible I feel, because I know in my heart that all this is just temporary and in a short time I will be relieved of all pain and all troubles and be with the Lord Jesus Christ in eternity.

Please pray for my husband and I not to lose heart or faith in God through all our pain and struggles.  (My husband also has some undiagnosed back problems and pretty bad pain).  Thank you friends, may the Lord Jesus Christ bless you and sanctify you.

Thinking about the Future

Since it's the new year, my husband and I began to think about what our goals are for 2013.  Firstly we pray that we will see Jesus soon, but that doesn't mean we will wait around idly for him to return.  There's plenty of souls that need to hear the gospel before Jesus returns, so we've decided to put more efforts than ever into our own spiritual growth and evangelism.

Some of our goals this year are:

1. Share the gospel with 100 individuals - write down who, when and what we talked about with the person.  This is a big goal for me since English speakers are pretty rare here in Ukraine.  Oles's goal is to share the gospel with 200 individuals and with 50 people in a crowd at one time.
2. Grow spiritually and make a victory against sin in our lives.
1. For me this means making steps to challenge the idol of comfort that I can sometimes put up in my life.  This is probably a result of being born into a middle class american family, where the culture revolves around comfort in every sphere of life.  This is maybe the biggest reason, I believe, that Christianity is so weak in America, in general.  I want to grow in my satisfaction and trust in God and be joyful with the life and circumstances that God gives me.
2. For Oles this means growing in humbleness and fighting pride.  This is a sin many men struggle with, and for some reason it's been especially difficult for him to deal with in the past.  From this sin come other sins, and he wants to be free from slavery to this sin.
3. We want to use 2013 to prepare our hearts, our spirits and our bodies for becoming missionaries in another country.  We are thinking about India and Nepal now, because Oles loves this area of the world, and we have connections in this part of the world, that so desperately needs the gospel.  We plan to do this by:
1. Growing in knowledge and ability to disciple young believers
2. Grow in strength and courage in sharing the gospel with non-believers
3. Strengthening our bodies to handle harder living circumstances 
4. Pray for hearts that are ready to suffer greatly for the sake of the gospel and making Jesus's name famous in the world and magnifying the glory of God.

Please pray for us this year as we grow spiritually and prepare for the future.  please prays for our hearts to trust God, to conquer sin, and to have a passion for sharing the gospel with the lost people.

- Jessica and Oles