Winter 2009-2010

he winter of 2009-2010 was one of the most beautiful winters we've had

since moving to Ukraine and it was also the longest one yet. We had snow on the ground from mid December until mid March and for most of that time there was more than a foot of snow. Needless to say Danny spent a lot of time shovel-ing snow. Because there was always snow the winter was amazingly beautiful and the snow often kept the temperature from dropping ridiculously low (no -30° days). But the city had a hard time keep-ing up with so many snowy days and the roads got very icy and dangerous. In spite of all the snow, life kept its usual pace. Danny spent much of his time studying as he was teaching 3 to 4 bible studies a week, editing and adapting a course for premarital counseling from Tim Keller's church, and designing book covers for In Lumine. Liese worked dili-gently on our remodel and we were able to complete our bedroom and our bath-room over the winter. All in all it was a long, busy, and productive winter.

ur church continues to be involved in various community ministries. We dis-

tribute humanitarian aid to needy families, make weekly trips to orphanages, have a weekly kids’ club, and an English club for kids. Once a month we continue to have a special evening for the senior citizens of Kaharlyk where we cook them a hot meal, provide entertainment, and get to know them and share with them about God. Our church was able to purchase the land around our church building that we had previously been leasing from the city, which was a miracle as it is almost the last empty parcel of land in the downtown area of Kaharlyk. This will allow us to landscape and better use the land surrounding our building as well as have more stability as we won't have to renew our land-lease agreement each year. Since two of our worship leaders had babies in the fall Liese has been leading the wor-ship ministry and Danny plays guitar every other week. Throughout the winter we decided to spend some of the song time talking about why we have a time of music in our church service. Danny would prepare few words about different aspects of worship or singing with the goal of reminding and teaching people about worship. We've also been taking steps to integrate the songs with the sermon with the goal of having the songs not only prepare us for the sermon but also be a response to God's word.

he winter months are usually the best time for bible study with the guys in the

rehab center as there is not much going on out in the village because of the cold. This year however with all the snow and the ice build-up on the roads there were quite a few weeks where I couldn't make the drive out to the village in my little hatchback. On the weeks when I could make the drive they were often busy with their pig farm or work-ing for the huge piggery in the village. But even with sporadic bible studies we man-aged to go through the epistle to the Colos-sians and most of the way through Galatians. It is always a joy to see the guys grow in their ability to think deeply about the scripture, in their knowledge of the bible, and in their physical health. Please keep these men in prayer that God would ground them in His word and keep them strong in the face of constant temptations when they return home. Pray also for Kyril the leader of the center that God would continue to give him the grace, strength and wisdom to run the rehab center.

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his winter we finally were able to print up four short biographies by John

Piper that we had translated and ready for a year now. We also got the rights to Mark Driscoll's "A book You'll Actually Read" series. Both the biographies and the Driscoll books are being funded by book sales which is a big step in fulfilling the vision of In Lumine. In December we launched the website pastorjohnpiper.ru with the goal of having a portal of all of John Piper's resources in the Russian language. Since its launch we've had 10,000 page views from all over the world. Our projects for the next six months include translating and preparing Randy Alcorn's book "Heaven" for print, translating children's sunday school curriculum from Desiring God, working with a missionary in Russia to print a course for pastoral training, redoing In Lumine's web-site, and completing the process of registering In Lumine as a non-profit organization in the US and in Ukraine.

hroughout the summer and fall we prayed about doing a bible study with the married couples in our church. Due to a busy church schedule we were finally able to start the

group in January. The group met for six weeks and Danny taught about the biblical funda-mentals of marriage. We had hoped that most of the married couples in our church would come and were surprised when they all came! We had 10 couples nearly every week. Every-one enjoyed the teaching and fellowship and we are thinking about getting together for fel-lowship every six weeks or so.

n February our church held a special event to distribute shoebox gifts from Samaritan's Purse. This is the second year we have been a part of the Samaritan's Purse program and

we were able to distribute more than 150 shoeboxes to needy families in Kaharlyk. We de-cided, like last year, that rather than just hand out the gifts to kids we would have a special event with a puppet show, songs, games, and cake. Through the puppet show we told not only the Christmas story but also shared the gospel with the children. The kids really en-joyed the event and a few of them have been coming to church on Sundays as well as to Kids’ Club. Last year when we did a similar event Danny helped to organize and plan the event but this year the only thing he did was play guitar for the songs. Our children's minis-try team worked together with various people in the church to plan and execute the whole event.

email: [email protected]: calvarychapelkaharlyk.orgblog: footesinukraine.blogspot.comtwitter: twitter.com/dannyfooteukraine mailing address: prov. Pershoho Travnya #13 Kaharlyk, 09200 Ukraineusa mailing address: 1136 Noyes Road Arroyo Grande, CA 93420support address: Calvary SLO Church 4029 S. Higuera St SLO, CA 93401 *please attach a note saying “for Daniel and Annaliese Foote”