I love 75 cents.

To catch a moto from the corner of the street to the bus stop. I like it best with wet hair. It dries in the ten minute ride. The sun is shining as it always is and if there isn’t any wind we make it ourselves. It is a small town, and I know most all the kids. I always pass someone I know. I love seeing their face light up. Because I love them, and the feeling is mutual. I love the slow and fast of riding over lombadas. The rumble of the cobblestones. The sugar cane. The old cathedral. The Portuguese style houses. The palm trees, the old railroad. The people. Each one is special. Each one has a story. A love, a hate, a fear, a sorrow. It is up one hill and down another, over the brass button bridge and through the feira. Only a popcicle in my hand could make this any better, dripping down my arm. And I catch the bus without looking to see where it is going. Because it is going, and I want to go. Someone is waiting for me on the other end.

*

Today I walked into a different world. It was about 2.5 kilometers away. Far enough to get my feet dusty and my nose rosy red. Patricia and I set out to visit some of the kids from the Living Stones program(Pictures at www.xanga.com/rwinzeler). She said it was far, but I figured if the kids could walk it every day, I could once.

Some of the kids live in better kept houses than the others. We saw Bruna’s house. Her grandmother takes care of them, and you can see it reflected in how they act and care for themselves. Two houses down is Iasmine’s house—an unfinished brick and cement call with two rooms the size of my closet for rooms. They held matrices for sleeping 5. It is Iasmine’s grandmother’s house. Iasmine’s mother abuses her mom, as well as regularly working at a prostitute and bringing home men into this small block building. Then to Marconi’s house, where he hid under the bed that sleeps at least 6 brothers and sisters.

The kids joined us, making a parade towards the city dump, where Karla’s dad works. I looked in and saw the piles of mess around crude constructions of trash that someone calls home. Many families live inside the dump, sorting through trash to find things to recycle. Karla’s house is made of dried compacted mud and sticks. Think of settler’s houses in the wild west. Inside held five girls under the age of six and their pet pigeon. There are nine kids all together. The youngest was born two weeks ago.

Next door is Andreza’s house, where her mom told us that she was going to “take care” of Iasmine’s mom with her knife, because the girls were fighting. Patricia invited everyone to come to the church and talk, without knives.

We walked up one side of a hill/mountain and down the other until we are hot and dusty. The kids didn’t even take off their sandals before jumping into the lake. The water was perfect. I did take off my sandals first though. I dripped my way to their house—there, in the middle of nowhere, their dad decided to build a mud house. They put sticks around it, tied with barbwire to make their own area. The mom and two girls were washing clothes in the creek that runs through their fenced in area, which also served as their source of running water and I hoped not—their bathroom. Chickens and ducks rand around and one kid climbed the palm tree, got a coconut, and slip it open for us. I drank greedily, and then we ate the meat of the coconut. Delicious. Imagine living a mile from anything, your own lake to swim in, but no bathtub. No electricity, except a neighbor’s radio blasting Fergy’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” Eight kids in a mud house the size of my living room. And my living room is small.

I walked into a different world today. And then I walked back. Over dirt trails and around lake Orar. I got home and took a shower, because I’d already been warned that everyone who swims in lago Orar gets worms. And I just finished taking worm medicine for the last time I got them. Then I cut up a fresh pineapple for dinner and watch a bad bootleg copy of New Moon. In Portuguese. It is a different world. And I seem to drift through worlds fluidly. Until I wake up in the middle of the night and wonder where I am. In less than two weeks I will be in a plane somewhere over the Atlantic. The airport is a world of it’s own. And then cold and snow and family and Christmas. That is another world. I like visiting them all. I smile with my sun burnt cheeks and belly full of coconut. It would be an adventure to live in a mud house. To learn to wash clothes in a river before I learned how to read. God bless you, thank you for your prayers and support.

Rachel

The month of May started out with our annual all church meeting.  We are required by law to meet once a year as a church, but the law does not say what we need to discuss. Therefore our once a year meetings are a yearly overview of ministries within the church, as well as a time for the main leaders to give a short report of where they see the Lord leading their individual ministry within the next year.  The Lord had been speaking to me for quite some time in regards to the women’s ministry, so I was not taken by surprise; my main prayer as I spoke before the church, was to be as concrete as possible.  Thanks to your prayers I was able to keep my vision concrete and to the point.  The scripture the Lord had given me regarding women’s ministry was from   2 Cor. 8:10-11 What does that mean to me and in regards to women? It’s been a joy, as well as humbling and a great challenge to teach the women these past two years. I have grown and I know the women have grown as well.   I will continue in the same manner, (teaching the Bible inductively) but added to that the women will do some teaching as well, as we study His character, His great love for us more in depth, and how we can apply these truths to our lives, applying what we have learned to the situations in our lives that He brings about.

Also in the scripture it says that there may be a completion of what you have.  In this the Lord is pressing on my heart to train up a leader from within Borodyanka, from within our church to lead the Women’s study, to not look outside as I have been doing, but from within.  “Completing it out of what you have”(emphasis mine).  I will be doing this more aggressively than I have done last year, training the women more in depth as I give each of them the opportunity to teach, assisting and discipling them in this area.  This all sounds so easy, but I know that there will be trials and a shaking up of the character that He has given me as I teach on these themes, allow the women time to teach, disciple them and press into Him more.  As women, we have finished Psalm 23, coming to a fuller realization of how much the Lord loves us and cares for us.  Just as a shepherd lays his life down for his sheep, so our Lord lay down His life for us.  We had a wonderful time studying Psalm 23 and have now begun the book of Joshua.  We are eagerly looking forward to how the Lord will work in each of us individually as we learn to obediently follow Him and His calling on our life no matter what other people may think. We will learn that victory comes to people who faithfully trust and obey the Lord.  I warned the ladies that just as during Joshua’s time there were wars physically, so during our time of studying this book we can expect wars spiritually.  But, through studying the book of Joshua, we can learn from Joshua and the children of Israel how to have victory in these wars.  The same night that I taught on this subject, the warfare began in my life, I hit my head really hard on the edge of my kitchen cupboard while leaning over to unplug my blender that had just blown up when I was making powdered sugar (the engine of my blender whirred strongly, smoke spew out from the bottom, and then there was a “pop” and all was silent)!  If this is how it is going to start, oh what will happen when we are in the middle of studying the book of Joshua?! Stand Firm!!!

A few days after our all church meeting, I headed south, not for the winter, but to rejoice with friends at their wedding as they began a new life together with Him.  These was a blessed time, as well as tearful, as the parents of the groom, whom are good friends of mine since my days in Kyiv, were preparing to move back to America at the end of May, as well as the Pastor and his family (the church was to be turned over to a Ukrainian Pastor). I knew this may be the last time I might see any of them for a great while, so I extended my stay after the wedding to enjoy some fellowship with friends.

Also, the Lord surprised me, at the wedding were many of my friends from Poltava, we enjoyed a great re-union together, catching up on lives and what the Lord has been doing in Poltava since I had left.  Tears of joy, tears of sorrow-this wedding was both-joy in the couple getting married, sorrow to say “until we meet again” to very good friends and fellow laborers for Christ here in Ukraine.

After the wedding I returned to Borodyanka with enough time to wash clothes, make food, and head off to Kyiv for our annual all church conference.  This is a time when all the Calvary Chapel churches in Ukraine (and this year our new church in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan joined us) gather

together under one tent to fellowship, worship and study the Word together.  This year’s theme was, taken from Philippians chapter 3-4.  We were exhorted to serve others through the love of Christ and that our focus is always to be on Christ and out of that love and serve others. Circumstances, situations will come into our lives, but we must not lose our focus or our joy that comes from Him.  As situations come and go in our lives, we need to continue to trust God with our problems and know that He will provide. As we focus on Him, our needs become less, and we are better able to serve others (putting others and their needs ahead of ours).  These were some of the truths that were shared during the conference, truths that I (we) need to continually come back to each and every day, each and every second, as the enemy will try to rob us of any and all of these. Stand firm in the Lord.

These truths were put to test right away when I returned to Borodyank after the conference. I returned on a Sunday night, and Monday morning early I received a phone call that our worship leader (Tanya Belayshapka’s a good friend here in Borodyanka) twin sister Natasha (also a good friend) was hospitalized, with the doctors saying she only had about two more hours to live.  Natasha for the last two years had been painfully battling cirrhosis of the liver and hepatitis.  On Tuesday morning the battle was lost to this world, but won in Heaven as she went home to be with the Lord.  That day and the days following were and still are a whirlwind of activities surrounding Natasha’s passing and the grief that comes along with it.  Tuesday afternoon was the funeral, and then the dinner afterwards, then according to Ukrainian Orthodox tradition the soul leaves the body after 9 days, and after 40 days the soul goes into the next world.  At each of these “anniversaries” there is to be a meal to remember the deceased.  At the 9^th day anniversary, my Pastor Geoff Smith, was able to share about eternal life to many who attended that day (who are mainly of the Orthodox Religion) explaining that Natasha’s body is dead, empty, but her spirit is alive in Heaven.  The moment that she died, her spirit passed on right away to be with the Lord.    She is not dead, but has passed on, her address has changed, “moved”.  We on earth can be sad because we miss her, but can rejoice that she is in Heaven, a much better place than here on earth.  I will always remember Natasha’s jubilant spirit, her smile and her desire to live.  Her family and I will miss her dearly, yet I rejoice in knowing that she is suffering no more.  Since the phone call came informing me that Natasha was hospitalized, my close friendship with the family has included being Aaron and Hur to them, walking with them and holding them up through their grief.  Pray for this family please; Tanya (Natasha’s twin sister), Sveta (Tanya’s 14 year old daughter – Natasha’s niece), Vika (Natasha’s daughter who just graduated from school), Roman (Natasha’s husband), Tamara (Natasha and Tanya’s mom), and Zhenya (Natasha and Tanya’s father) as they grieve the loss of Natasha. Pray for me that I will be the Aaron and Hur that the Lord desires me to be.  Grief is hard, hard to watch, and hard on the soul as you go through it.

The day after the funeral, as a church we were blessed with hosting a group of college age students from Vanguard University.  We visited the orphanage daily, doing a mini VBS with the children there, and also were able to do a “Mexican Fiesta” in our community complete with bean burritos and a piñata!!!  The children had a blast trying to knock it down each child only being able to whack the piñata once. They were all cheering one for another, each making sure the blindfold was on correctly (no cheating allowed)!  None of them knew that it contained candy until the piñata broke!! WOW, what fun!!! The children enjoyed their time at the festival, and we enjoyed playing games with them and getting to know some of the better.  The following Sunday we had 25 new children in our Sunday School (usually we have 7 or 9).  It seemed to me that perhaps all the children of Borodyanka now know about our church!  As I walk through the town on my daily journeys to the market etc., more children recognize me, greeting me as we pass by.  Some of them have asked when we are going to have another festival!  Praise the Lord!  Unfortunately, now that summer is here, most of the children have left for their summer homes, grandparents, or other parts of the country and won’t return till August when it is time to get ready for school again.  In the meantime, we desire to continue to reach out to our communities to the children that have not left town as well as to the adults.  This will keep all of us busy, but being busy for God is the best kind of busy there is!!

Now that June has come, and the calendar has turned, I pray that this summer we will have much laughter, joy and happiness; and that our tears of sadness will turn to tears of laughter.  This can only be done through the Lord, but I know that our God is mighty and if He can move mountains, He can bring joy! Stand Firm!

Standing Firm in Him

BaHecca (Vanessa)

Gifts for the Stilwells (bring them to the office on or before July 3):

1. Dark chocolate

2. Raisin Bran

3. Sea monkeys and food

4. Yuban coffee

5. Jolly Ranchers

6. Lotion (fruity/vanilla)

7. Work gloves

8. State boards

9. Got to be glued (yellow tube)

10. Edd roll wrappers

Cassie, Steven Kain, and Jonathan Gainer will be leaving July 6th. please pray as they share the gospel, encourage, and have servants’ hearts. pray for traveling mercies, unity, worship, and changed lives.

Rachel here, just back from a family road trip with blow pops. these happen to be flavored pink lemonade.

I have really enjoyed my time back in Indiana. I returned from Brasil right before Christmas, mostly because my Dad’s health was poor, and my sister got married. Or that is what i said. truly, i came back because some things needed to change in me and different situations, and i didn’t know how to do it. But God has done it.

My father had a heart attack during my time at home, but is doing much better with a stint in his heart. My sister celebrated her wedding with a reception that couldn’t have gone better, and things that needed to change have. I am returning to Brasil next week with a new desire and outlook.

While i have loved teaching English at the International school, i am now going to be focusing on working with the Living Stones program–a program to serve the poorest children in the community, working with the church and government. I am going to learn and watch and love and play and learn some more. And then maybe i will know the next step.

I will (Lord willing) be returning this Christmas, and then praying about direction from there. During my stay in Brasil, i will be working with Living stones from 7am-4pm for four days a week, and then teaching English at the school the other day. Evenings from 6-10 i attend class at a local university. Because of this busy schedule, you probably won’t see many posts from me until next year.

I have enjoyed writing/posting for Servant Senders, mostly because it has been a good excuse to get to know the other missionaries. I encourage you to do the same (mostly through facebook).

And one last note…thank you, everyone from Horizon Central. A couple years ago i was in Brasil and received a phone call that our pastor had left our church. While no one was at fault, i felt orphaned. Coming home to the USA without a church wasn’t coming home to the same home at all. My family struggled in the “church search” mode for awhile, and then i received another phone call while in Brasil, saying they found it…they found home. While i was only in the USA a couple months last year, you guys adopted me and accepted me. And i will never forget that. I have enjoyed getting to know you all better this year, and will miss you while i am gone.

I have found, through experience, that you cannot truely leave until you truely belong. now that i have somewhere i really belong, i feel ready and equipped to leave. and that is a great gift: thank you.

God bless you all, and feel free to check out my weblog: www.xanga.com/rwinzeler

Vanessa McElroy, in Ukraine, has some great pictures at these links:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Bahecca106/VanguardUniversityOutreach?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ78_rjdmpXxLg&feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/Bahecca106/JamminSpring09?feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Wcj6dk6T18YORr9aJ_YKFg?authkey=Gv1sRgCOO7kKrqou6lQg&feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/Bahecca106/MillersOutreachChildrenSFestivalJune09?authkey=Gv1sRgCMzPpcPRza7uYA&feat=directlink

Also add her on facebook–she posts different prayer requests and you can write her a quick note of encouragement!