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1 Teaching Ministries Internaonal PO Box 904 Melbourne, FL 32902 321-914-0690 [email protected] [email protected] (LaVerne) July 27, 2015 Simferopol Crimea Ukraine/Russia The last two months Dear partners, Blessings upon our faithful partners in ministry! Thank you for your prayers, finances and the occa- sional email of encouragement and appreciaon for our ministry and the team that serves in Crimea. This report will visually carry you through May’s spring cleaning and gardening at the Center to the English Summer School that closed with the celebraon of the Fourth of July. I returned to Florida from Crimea July 15 – along with another suitcase and the last of the artwork that we wanted from our old home in our new home: two framed ‘puzzle pictures’ of Florida jungle life. What made them special was that family and friends contributed to piecing them together in our Simfero- pol apartment. I am working on material for my two fall teaching and preaching trips. In early October, I will teach an over- view of the New Testament at a seminary in Lviv, Western Ukraine. I am working on a date to teach an apologecs seminar in Prague this fall. Someme before the end of the year I will make an adminis- trave visit to Crimea. Teaching Ministries Internaonal was created by LaVerne and me for our inerant teaching minis- try. A board was called to oversee our work and help us maintain financial ac- countability and faithfulness to our stated mission. None of us could foresee that our first short term teaching assignment would connue in Simferopol for so many years, or that I would by default become president of a college beset by problems creat- ed by systemic corrupon. Or that we would establish a stu- dent outreach and ministry equipping center that would in a maer of months find itself in occupied territory and then annexed by Russia. Or that our college building would be raided and taken over by men in camouflage fagues with bal- aclavas and AK-47s. We have had and sll have our struggles, but at our House on the Hill we are touching lives. Most ministries, including many naonal Commonwealth Internaonal University’s Center in Crimea is a Ministry & outreach center Focusing on student ministry and providing academic level Bible courses I have wrien a separate piece for those interested in, “Life in Cri- mea” (based on my visits this year) in which I reference new problems for evangelical churches and the usual bureaucrac hassles for eve- ryone. It will be included when this newsleer is emailed, otherwise available upon request.
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Page 1: Carillet Teaching Ministries Intl newsletter 2015 07-27

1

Teaching Ministries International PO Box 904 Melbourne, FL 32902 321-914-0690

[email protected] [email protected] (LaVerne)

July 27, 2015

S i m f er op ol Cr imea

Ukraine/Russia

The last two months

Dear partners,

Blessings upon our faithful partners in ministry! Thank you for your prayers, finances and the occa-sional email of encouragement and appreciation for our ministry and the team that serves in Crimea.

This report will visually carry you through May’s spring cleaning and gardening at the Center to the English Summer School that closed with the celebration of the Fourth of July.

I returned to Florida from Crimea July 15 – along with another suitcase and the last of the artwork that we wanted from our old home in our new home: two framed ‘puzzle pictures’ of Florida jungle life. What made them special was that family and friends contributed to piecing them together in our Simfero-pol apartment.

I am working on material for my two fall teaching and preaching trips. In early October, I will teach an over-view of the New Testament at a seminary in Lviv, Western Ukraine. I am working on a date to teach an

apologetics seminar in Prague this fall. Sometime before the end of the year I will make an adminis-trative visit to Crimea.

Teaching Ministries International was created by LaVerne and me for our itinerant teaching minis-try. A board was called to oversee our work and

help us maintain financial ac-countability and faithfulness to our stated mission. None of us could foresee that our first short term teaching assignment would continue in Simferopol for so many years, or that I would by default become president of a college beset by problems creat-ed by systemic corruption. Or that we would establish a stu-

dent outreach and ministry equipping center that would in a matter of months find itself in occupied territory and then annexed by Russia. Or that our college building would be raided and taken over by men in camouflage fatigues with bal-aclavas and AK-47s.

We have had and still have our struggles, but at our House on the Hill we are touching lives. Most ministries, including many national

Commonwealth International University’s

Center in Crimea is a

Ministry & outreach center

Focusing on student ministry

and providing academic level Bible courses

I have written a separate piece for those interested in, “Life in Cri-mea” (based on my visits this year) in which I reference new problems for evangelical churches and the usual bureaucratic hassles for eve-ryone. It will be included when this newsletter is emailed, otherwise available upon request.

Page 2: Carillet Teaching Ministries Intl newsletter 2015 07-27

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ministries, have left Crimea. We believe that God provided our House not just for these two years, and maybe not only for what we are doing now, but for sure he will continue to use it for his glory as we seek to be faithful to our mission, which has not changed in more than 20 years, though some of the means have.

Without abandoning our ministry in Cri-mea, our mission has expanded to Kiev and Lviv and points in-between in Ukraine and is spilling over into Western Europe..

Pray for the House on the Hill that our light will so shine that people will see our good works and glorify our father who is in heaven. Pray for my travels and preaching and teaching to build up the body of Christ for ministry.

^ Visitor: former staff member, Katya, who now lives in Lviv (Western Ukraine). v After spring cleaning of the dorm, food!

Staff vision, mis-sion & planning retreat: In May the team retreated for two days to re-examine their min-istry (purpose, effectiveness, teamwork, strate-gy, and ideas for greater outreach under the current conditions.

The marshmallow challenge (teambuilding idea from TED). After sitting & a walk, food!

Staff retreat re-port, by Olga Viktorova, Team Leader.

Our retreat went great. We had a little bit of fun – the Marshmallow Chal-lenge – it's a team building activity I found on TED. We also watched some videos from TED that I found inspirational.

We spent a while thinking about why we exist as a ministry and what motivates us to go to work. We also came up with this belief state-ment [that fits our Center and outreach to unbelievers]:

We believe that students can experience a better life, a differ-ent way of thinking and perceiving the world. We believe that Christianity is a never ending source of wisdom, strength and inspiration. We believe in mentoring students and building a community based on Christian values and biblical truths.

Then we discussed what we achieved thru the year [Milestones] and ideas. Among new ideas worth mentioning: giving motivational speeches based on Biblical values to students during resident’s meetings [where the subject always defaults to maintaining their rooms and common areas!], explore prep courses for English EGE (this is an exam for high-schoolers), and maybe start English for children (if we find a good teacher for kids). It felt like two days were not enough. We could have used another day. We will continue our discussions at the Center.

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Want to see what the dorm

rooms looked like on spot in-

spection? — Not bad when

most of the residents are on

vacation. I posted the pics in

Dropbox.

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The children from the gifted school (housed where orphans once lived that we ministered to). The week-long summer school ended

with traditional Fourth of July games and food. We hope some of these students will be back to take some of our English classes.

Please look at these faces and pray for them. As far as we know, none of them know Christ though one had some Bible knowledge.

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Summer School Report, by Olya Viktorova, Team Leader and Academic Dean

This is our third year to host the English Summer English and our largest enrollment -- 18. This year we had 15 kids ages 11 to 14 from one of the best boarding schools in Simferopol. The kids and their parents were very happy to have this opportunity to talk to native English speakers from the USA. Since Crimea was annexed by Russia, there are fewer and fewer native English speakers in Simferopol. Even the most prestigious schools whose English lan-guage faculty was composed mostly of native speakers now are at a loss and struggle with finding good teachers. Our hope is that when the new school year starts in September we will have plenty of students to teach. We also had a group of faithful students which has been coming to all courses which Dr. Carillet offered the last two years. The group had three people, Dima and two adults -- Vitalik and Iryna. Two of them went with us for an excursion to Karadag, a Jurassic period extinct volcano. Leaving the classroom and going with Eng-lish teachers for a field trip is an experience I am sure they had for the first time.

Dima is a home-schooled 16-year-old boy. Being home-schooled is not very common here. Usually kids who cannot attend regular school are home-schooled by visiting teachers. Dima has Hepatitis C and due to a lot of time being spent in the hospitals he cannot go to a regular school. But every year he finds time to study with us.

This year we had Samantha and Steve Hayner kindly help us with teaching. Steve also helped with maintenance projects. I should also mention the Shveds family who helped with organizing games and teaching as well. I guess it was a new kind of experi-ence for the kids and their parents. Some of the parents were even present at the lessons and the US Independence Day party -- to see not only native speakers as teachers but a family of bilin-gual native speakers who helped Samantha with lessons and the party. [Some may have been making sure that they were not leav-ing their son or daughter with a cult or dangerous Americans. GC]

Kara Dag Hike^ Cape Fiolent Swim v

800 steps down, 800 steps up … for a swim?! That’s a hike!

Now, for the rest of the “Summer School” story!

The Fourth of July picnic was for the younger students; the mountain hike was for the older students, and the beach was for the staff. Most of the team had never been to Cape Fiolent or Feros. Most may never go back to the Cape. There were 800 steps to get down to the beach. “We are not so young anymore,” so one of those not yet 30 remarked with disappointment while we all caught our breath.

It was a long day of driving with two beach stops between Sevastopol and Alupka (Yalta). It was a day of sun with plenty of exercise. It was after 9 pm when we were just a few miles out of Feros on our way back to Simferopol when the Tabitha van died. Something was wrong with the electrical system—the AC suddenly spewed hot air; the engine was stuttering. Stopping to check under the hood stopped the engine.

We rode in the van hauled by a trailer back to the Center arriving at 2:30 AM. To think that the staff wanted to make the trip on Monday when I

needed to catch a 2:25 AM flight! BTW, that is how I celebrated LaVerne’s and my 49th anniversary!

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Pease send donations to TMI, PO Box 904, Melbourne, FL 32902

Make checks payable to TMI.

TMI is a non-profit 501(c)3.

You may write us at:

Georges & LaVerne Carillet 933 Spring Oak Dr, Melbourne, FL 32901

Or call: 321-914-0690

For a collection of our videos, click here.

See TMI/Carillets' Newsletters and Reports

Support is Needed

Prayer support is always needed and especially during difficult times.

Financial support is needed for our four faithful national staff.

If you are not a regular donor, would you prayerfully consider contributing to the ministry by designating your gifts to

staff support, which enables us to reach out to unbelieving students and equip believers for ministry. 100% of your gift

will go to the team so that they can work full time in this student ministry. The income from the dorm rooms pays for

other operating expenses of the ministry.

LaVerne and I are thankful for our faithful supporters which enable me to continue to provide administrative services

and leadership while based in the US, and to make administrative and teaching trips to Crimea and teaching trips to

mainland Ukraine and beyond.

Anyone for a fall visit to Crimea? My dates are not set yet, but probably I will have one trip to Crimea (September or December) besides one to mainland Ukraine (early October) and to Prague (late October?) for teaching. Airfare was 1200 last fall, Orlando-Simferopol and return, via Moscow. There is a cheaper fare if booked early enough. Call me at 321-914-0690.

Not now? Next summer?

Steve at work. This could be you!