Sunday - Honduras orphanage trip

Sunday, Heather and I met with a couple interested in the Honduras trip in July. Jimmy Hughes came through last fall to speak to us about the work in Honduras. He described a child boiled in water in a witchcraft ritual. With three degree burns, the child was brought to his family. They held and prayed over the child. The child actually received new skin supernaturally. Some children were left over from gang massacres. Others were abused sexually. The children's home is definitely a safe haven and place to grow in a home environment.

How did I become involved. I simply asked our short term missions pastor, where did the church need help during July and first of August. She asked me to co-lead a team to Honduras. of course my first response is "No comprendo." So many speak Spanish, but the Spirit lead me to this opportunity. Sveta and I will go and see how God can use us on this trip.

Jimmy Hughes Ministry - Free the Oppressed
http://www.freetheoppressed.org

The Thorn - Passion play and international students

I had not planned to go to the Thorn this year. About three weeks ago I was prompted to pray for three souls. I could see the tension of these three about their relationship to God. I assumed they were not Christian due to the nature of what I see in the Spirit. I do not know who they are and still do not. I saw the Thorn at church ans was prompted to take three with me. However, I received an email from Dean who leads International Students, Inc. They planned to take international students. So I sponsored 3 students. That day we met at Walter's home, had lunch and Dean explained the story. My general assessment of the group is that 40% of the students are Christians and 60% are not. Then we went to the Thorn. I estiamte about 15 international students- I did not actually count at the time. Afterwards we met at Steve and Linda's for refreshments and ice cream and Dean asked for comments from the group. The overall comments were positive, but folks might have been to shy to share specifics in front of a group.
   I had a personal word from the Spirit, but best to put in the next post.

God's leading

     In the aftermath of my re-tooling of my life to align with the Holy Spirit (Note the previous series on "Life Change") , I am finding some interesting outcomes. Sunday, I went to church to observe the cafe. That will be a project that I was asked by one of the directors of the Outreach department and I hope will help the church. The tips go to help outreach both local and global. Various teams help in the cafe. I met some folks and observed the cafe operate. I am gathering information to help the cafe improve operations.
     Then I went to "Outreach Sunday School". I actually answered the question of the week from the previous week's speaker. The five fold approach to prayer-Open doors, open hearts, open minds, open heavens. I needed help with the fifth one and someone held up hands and I was able to say - Open hands.
     I went to service and afterwards the Holy Spirit spoke to me to stay and wait for someone to come up to me. Now that would be strange in such a large church, because people file out right after service. I connect with many people; but I almost always take the initiative. Not bad for an extreme introvert...God can change us. So I am sitting in the middle of a section, the only person. In my own mind, I thought, "Well, I can pray and wait for the parking lot to clear out." A guy comes up and I recognized him from our first sectional potluck. We chatted and went over to meet his wife. She was talking to a lady from Latvia. I talked with her in Russian. So I told her when my wife comes back from Russia. God had a plan and only by faith can we find out the outcomes.

Praying for orphans

My how time flies. It has been a week since my last post. I am processes how to pray for orphans. I like praying for nations. I have a cycle that runs through the month that starts with Belarus moving to Kyrgystan to Moldova, Bulgaria, up to Slovenia, jumping to the Czech Republic up to Estonia. 28 countries in all. Now I am pondering how to pray for the orphans. Since I focus on adult orphans-usually over 16, I ponder how I would pray for them. Obviously one can pray by name, another would be for specific orphanages that have "graduated" orphans still in school or helping others. I could pray by nation and pull out the statistics from the UN database. I still need to process this with the Holy Spirit and as the scriptures say "pray without ceasing". Since I pray multiple times throughout the day, it may be a middle of the night focus.

Experiences from adopting - part 3

The author mentions the rise of adoptions from Russia and the Ukraine from the scandals that came out of Romania. Now that Russia stopped adoptions from Russia to the US, there is a short rise in adoptions from the Ukraine. I am still trying to get over the drop of adoptions since 2009. It is quite a dramatic change. That means my research in models of developing successful leaders is even more important. Trying to balance this work with my professional obligations is a challenge. I am realizing it takes a lot of time and energy to invest in this issue. However, I am reminded that we wait on the Lord and his power will come at the right time to accomplish His purposes.

A wild and crazy day

Ever have one of those days when change goes viral? As I reflect over the events of March 5, 2015, it seems to me, the Holy Spirit is guiding our lives more than we realize.

After getting home the previous night at 11 PM, we got up at 2 AM to take my father-in-law to the Denver airport to fly back to Russia. Due to inclement weather in New York, he ended up in Detroit and missed his flight to Moscow. Not speaking English, someone gave him a cell phone and he called Sveta. He thought he was in NYC, but we found out from the cell phone owner that the plane was diverted to Detroit. He ended up spending the night in the NY airport, and flew on another airlines the next day.

I met with a good friend to evaluate priorities for God's calling and my professional work. The two complement and diverge from each other. That dialog helped me to keep focused on what is important to balance the two.

Then I met with the team lead for a mission trip with my church to Honduras this summer. When we chatted, I had not planned to take my wife, but it seemed to me this should happen.

I came home and my wife terminated her employer. A series of events made it clear that God had other plans. I am very happy with this move as it took quite a toll on Svetlana. The work environment was quite poisonous and although we are the salt of the world, it was not happening. I know from a conversation from one of her customers that the clients really loved her. The staff is quite broken.

Upon her final return from work (and praising God), I mentioned coming the upcoming mission trips. Turns out that her passport expires in March. So we bought a ticket to send her to Russia for a month to update her internal and external passports ( note: unhappy husband).

In one day my father-in-law had a unique experience in flying, my wife transitioned from her employment, my priorities are clear (for the time being) and Sveta and I are going on two mission trips together this summer. This scripture comes to mind: "In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps" (Proverbs 16:9). 

Experiences from adopting - part 2

Curry-Lourenco discusses the percentage of orphans adopted by the United States. As of 2010, 16% (1,733) of children come from Eastern Europe. A large number came form Russia. Now that Russia has ceased adoption to the United States, those numbers have dropped significantly. Then I did some research and noticed adoptions have really dropped off in the US since 2008.
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/adoptionstatsintl.html
Perhaps the recession had some impact, but still mostly staying low.
According to the United Nations, the number of orphans continues to rise. So now the question is what happens to these orphans?