Short-term Team Arrival

Dear Friends,

Tim and Daniel left tonight on the overnight train to Kyiv. Tomorrow morning at 9:00 our short-term team of 6 arrives from Ranier View Christian Church in Tacoma, WA. After spending the day in Kyiv, everyone will board the Kyiv-Lviv train to head back this direction for two days of camp preparation and a bit of sightseeing in Lviv.

Friday night we will all board the train to Odessa for our evangelistic youth camp in support of our new church plant. We have a full camp and had to turn away about 40 people due to lack of space at the campground. Interest for these camps remains high among young people, and we are praying for a fruitful time of building relationships with folks seeking to become followers of Christ.

Our team of 6 from the States (Bruce, Chris, Ethan, Grace, Trish, and Leah) will be helping with our English classes in the morning and giving their testimonies at the evening sessions. We are also excited to be joined by two more helpers from abroad. Anya (my disciple from Kyiv) has been studying for her PhD at OSU in Corvallis, OR, but has returned to Ukraine for the summer with her fiance, Jeff. Anya will be translating for the Americans as they give their testimonies in the evenings and both of them will also be helping with the English classes in the morning. As well, Jeff has agreed to offer karate instruction to interested campers (he is a private instructor in the U.S.) and we believe this will be a great contribution to our camp.

All in all, we are expecting our God to do great things for His kingdom and trust that we will be effective vessels for His work.

Here is how you can pray:

1) A safe trip and good health for everyone. After a long flight and two train trips, we will also have a 2 1/2 hour bus ride before we reach camp. We ask that the Lord would safeguard everyone's health and we would be able and ready to serve our Ukrainian guests at the camp.

2) We are asking the Holy Spirit to even now be opening the hearts of our guests as they encounter Christianity at a whole new level. We pray that all of us as hosts would be conduits for the love and light of Jesus to His children.

3) We are believing God to provide us with opportunity to build relationships with many new folks and that they would respond to His invitation to follow Him.

4) Please lift up Ruslan, the preaching pastor of this camp. This will be Ruslan's first time preaching for an entire camp and he is also responsible for following up any new believers when we all return to L'viv. Please pray for his stamina and discernment as he preaches the Word of Truth each night.

5) Safety on the beach. The beaches on the Black Sea have no lifeguards on duty, and thankfully, we have had uneventful camps year after year. That said, we would still pray for the Lord's protection for all of our campers as they play in the surf and bask in the sun.

Thank you for your prayers and we look forward to updating you upon our return in a couple of weeks. Camp runs through August 12th and we say good-bye to the last of our short-termers on August 17th.

God bless,

Heather for the Miller 8