Dear friends,
We wanted to ask you to pray for our Lviv pastor (Pastor Bendus) and his wife. We learned that Pastor Bendus suffered a major heart attack this week. We talked to some people from our Ukrainian church yesterday and we also talked to Pastor’s wife today and it sounds like it was really serious. She said that yesterday he was in really bad condition. Today he seemed to be doing better. Doctors think that he should be able to get out of this without any major complications but of course they cannot tell for sure. So please pray for Pastor Bendus and his wife during this difficult time.
And we also wanted to ask you to pray for us. If Pastor Bendus does not recover enough to be able to take back all his responsibilities at the church, to some people Tomasz might seem to be the logical replacement. As you know we came to Ukraine to be mainly ministering to young people and to be investing in them to be the future leaders. But at the same time we want to be flexible to whatever God might want us to do. But we also have to remember that we still have seven more months of language study ahead of us because we had to take a break with all the health problems Miriam has been having. So please pray for guidance and wisdom for us.
And THANK YOU SO MUCH for praying for Pavlik, Mrs. Tanya, her daughter Lyuda and our massage therapist Serhiy. This Sunday Pavlik was in church again after a long time. He said he had not been coming because his father (with whom he is living now) wanted him to go to soccer games every Sunday instead of church. But recently his father broke his leg so there will be no more soccer for a while and Pavlik said that he would again like to come to church. Please continue praying for Pavlik! We still do not have his home phone number and when we call his cell phone it says it has been disconnected.
As for us, we have very much enjoyed being here in Minnesota for the AFLBS (Association Free Lutheran Bible School) alumni reunion weekend. Too bad Miriam was not healthy enough to play basketball for the girls alumni team :) But it was fun to see many of our former Bible School classmates and we were very much blessed by the celebration service and Pastor Haugen’s message on the word “Behold.” It was funny that during the sermon we both wrote down a note saying that we need to look up the word “behold” in Ukrainian. Yes, Ukraine is on our minds a lot even when we are not there.
In our last update we asked you to pray about when we should go back to Ukraine. Right now our plane tickets are booked for April 28. We were not able to leave this week because Miriam is still not doing well enough and our doctor here felt like it was not a good idea for us to leave just yet. And actually we were surprised to have a lot of our Ukrainian friends tell us to stay longer and not come back to Lviv until Miriam is 100% well.
Since we are staying a month longer than we expected, we would like to invite all of you to these two opportunities to be with us:
Sunday, April 20th at 5:30 pm – A special meeting for all of you who would like to see us, who would like to hear more about our life in Ukraine and also an opportunity for you to meet a Ukrainian pastor – Pastor Alexander Gross. Pastor Gross is in charge of youth ministry in the German Lutheran church in Ukraine and he is also the person who stood behind us coming to live and work in Ukraine. Where? Chapel building (basement) -- Association Free Lutheran Bible School (3120 E. Medicine Lake Blvd., Plymouth, MN). Coffee and desert will be served. RSVP would be greatly appreciated. We will try to send one more invitation to you this coming week.
Friday, April 25th at 6:00 pm – East European Missions Network banquet. Where? Heritage Hall -- Association Free Lutheran Bible School (3134 E. Medicine Lake Blvd., Plymouth, MN)
Thank you again for praying for us and we hope to see many of you soon.
Tomasz and Miriam
