Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Conference in L’viv, Ukraine

P1090787At the end of April went to a conference in the beautiful city of L’viv, Ukraine.  MTW occasionally sponsors a conference for team leaders and their wives and we were blessed to be able to attend this year.  The conference included times of worship and prayer, and lots of great fellowship with fellow missionaries from all over Europe. 

We were able to connect with couples whom we haven’t seen for a long time.  The EnglishP1090700 worship was very much appreciated.  The times when we prayed for each other were a huge blessing.  One part of the conference focused on the introduction of a new vision for MTW in Europe and a new leadership structure.  We also heard a very interesting report from the MTW team in L’viv about how their work got started and some of the ways that God has led them in the past several years.

After the conference ended, we stayed in L’viv for a few extra days to visit with Vitaliy and Marissa Voytenko, Jenni De Jong, and Adam Garner – all of them friends we met during our days of training and support raising with MTW.  The weather was perfect – warm, sunny days, and cool evenings.  L’viv is a gorgeous place with a long, widely varied history.  Some of the pictures we took are included in the post.

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Thursday, May 10, 2012

Team Retreat

P1100018Last weekend we enjoyed our last team retreat with the Deutschmanns and Andersons.  Both of these couples are retiring and returning to the US within the next month.  Liz and Paul Meiners, member care coordinators for Europe, joined us in the city of Olomouc.  Although our time together was brief, it was sweet.  We enjoyed a time of singing (in English!) and Paul spoke to us from Ecclesiastes.  We will miss our friends and partners inP1100063 ministry who have helped us so much over the past two years.  Please pray for them as they make the transition back to the United States.  We have heard that returning to your native culture after living abroad is actually a more difficult adjustment than moving into a foreign culture.     

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