 |
Abundant Life Crusades |
|
OPENING SCHOOL NUMBER 16 IN
DONETSK AND THE |
|
We arrived in
Donetsk, Ukraine to open the 16th Basic Bible Training School in minus
15-degree (-26C) weather with snow banked up everywhere. Some students
were being bussed in from 3 nearby cities. Several pastors and many
leaders were amongst them. The bitter cold did not hold them back as
people walked and waited for buses in sub-freezing temperatures. It was
minus 26? C (about -15? F) when we arrived and it did not get much warmer for days. |
|
|
|
The fuel lines froze up
in the vehicle, while we were driving from the airport to the city of
Krasnoarmeisk, and the car stalled. It was around 5 AM with no cars or
people around. The driver adjusted the blanket over the engine and
could do little else, so we prayed and, thankfully, the engine started
again. We got to our destination safely!
The rooms we had were so cold that we had to wear our heavy coats in our rooms. Since the apartment was not ready, we stayed in an orphanage, (where the coal was running out) and our rooms reached only some 55? F (12C) in the daytime. This is where we stayed, ate and slept. It was very cold there and then we found out they were running out of coal. We gave a total of $400 dollars to buy four and half tons of coal for the orphans. This is good for about a month of severe weather. |
|
|
| Our first school in the Donetsk Region got off to a fabulous start. We had a packed out school with students sitting along the walls and even on the platform. We had expected about 120 students but we had almost 200. The facility was packed with very hungry and enthusiastic students, eager to learn and to put into use the vital teaching they were to receive. The building really would handle 150 so you can see we were packed. The response and enthusiasm was so great that we expect this school may be one of the best we have had. Working these past years with Walter Zygarewicz of Global Vision, we have helped train over 2,000 workers and most of them are now in ministry. With the overflowing auditorium it became so very hot. We perspired freely and then had to face the cold when we left. Many of the people walked long distances in the cold. We did have one bus that brought many of the local folks but if I say that the bus was packed like sardines in a can, I am not overstating it. | ||||
|
|
|
|
||
|
The Donetsk province is
one of the few areas of Ukraine in which we had not ministered. We
also had a seminar for the pastors of the Donetsk area. There were
about 50 plus that attended the Pastor?s Seminars. We had a warm
reception from the pastors and leaders of the entire region.
The area suffers from a lack of trained pastors and leaders due to immigration of many to the US and the start of numerous new churches. Many of them had their best workers attending the school. We were also able to pay the remainder of the pledges we had made for the buildings we purchased by faith two months earlier. Praise the Lord! We did buy two more buildings on this mission trip, which are number 98 and 99 buildings this ministry has purchased in the last dozen years in the former USSR. Building number 98 is in the village of Kaminka, Zaporizhia province, which had been a small public school, for $3,500.00. It was ready for the local church to move in to. |
||||
|
|
||||
| Then building number 99 in the village of Oshsovo, Donetsk province, we purchased for the local church, a house, (with a natural gas hook up) garage and summer building for $2,000.00. The pastors were so filled with joy, telling how it would affect their area, having their own building. The people would begin to respect them as a real church congregation. They also were telling how they would do the work to remodel it for their services. The people are so poor; especially in the villages they are so very grateful. | ||||
|
|
|
|||
| Thank you for your prayers and support to help make our ministry possible. There were many good testimonies but one special one was a 45-year-old gospel singer. She was thinking that perhaps she was getting too old to continue to sing. She stated that after she heard Marge speak and sing, the Lord spoke to her that she could be like Marge and that much of her ministry still lies ahead in her life. I thought, as she told this, we are never too young or too old to be used of God. | ||||
|
|
|
|||
| For example, the boy David and the giant and then Moses was 80 years old before he was called to the ministry. Please pray for this school and its students that God will raise many of the 5 fold ministry we read of in Ephesians 4:11 KJV and he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; from among this fresh group of workers. | ||||
|
|
||||
| Donetsk is the most densely populated Oblast (province) of Ukraine with 5.5 Million people. It is a heavy mining and metal industry region next to Russia and has been a big player in recent elections. There is great expectation in this heavily industrialized part of Ukraine. The city was known as Yuzovka in pre-Revolutionary times named after the Welshman, John Hughes, who in 1872 founded an ironworks operation to produce iron rails for the growing Russian rail network. After the October Revolution of 1917, Yuzovka was renamed Stalino and then, in 1961, Donetsk. | ||||
|
Over the years, brothers
and sisters like you that have carried us with their prayers and faith.
Thank you for your support. One day we will share together when we lay
our crowns before the Lord. What a day that will be when my Jesus we
shall see. Yes, what a glorious day that will be!
God bless you is our prayer. Tony and Marge Abram.
Home
|
The Good News
|
Tony's Sermons
|
Some Thoughts
|
The Team
|
About Us
|
Support Us
|
Contact Us
|
||||
