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I have just arrived back from a very busy but
fruitful time in a very cold Odessa, Ukraine - checking
on the orphanages there, the centre for the Homeless
Street Orphans, and a lot of very intense ministry in
churches. It was a very long day, getting up at 2.00am
in Brighton UK in order to catch the 3.00am bus to Heathrow
airport, checking in for the 8.00am flight to Kiev and
arriving in Kiev at 1.30pm. Then I had to rush through
snow on the ground to change terminals to get the flight
to Odessa. I arrived in Odessa at 4.30pm to be rushed
into an unscheduled Friday evening deliverance meeting
attended by about 600 people with desperate needs. God’s
presence was very tangible for these needy people and
we saw many touched by God’s power and set free.
The Saturday
was filled with a ministry breakfast in a very smoky
café – that’s Eastern
Europe for you. The four hour seminar on “Healing
the Home, Marriage and Relationships” was so well
attended and was wonderfully received even with all the
guidelines and challenges I shared. The people carried
so many regrets they had not known these things from
God’s word to put into action for their marriages
and families that I had to emphasize that there was no
condemnation at all attached to these messages. The responses
were immediate and quite amazing. The questions they
submitted for public answers took a long time to deal
with but it was worth it.
Sunday was a very busy day starting
with two morning services for some 1,600 people, one
at 8.30am and the other at 11.30am. The results were
wonderful. They flooded forward as you can see in the
photos, to yield there lives to Christ. I then had a
three hour lunch with the local bishop (he’s also
the pastor of the church) and a director of the charity,
under whose banner we are bringing the Homeless Orphans’’ Center
as a separate entity. Then we went straight into a three
hour healing meeting where I had to share from God’s
word how to prepare one’s heart to receive healing
and deal with barriers mentioned in the Bible that would
preclude a person from healing. Again the response was
huge. We would have had all 700 and children stampede
to the front of the large church if we didn’t organize
them into groups to come forward in order. God was so
kind to these people and the testimonies afterwards indicated
how many had been deeply touched or where they perceived
the release of healing in progress.
Just before the “Healing
the Home” seminar
I visited the Homeless Orphans’ Center to check
on the  renovations and make sure that everything was
on track. I’d appreciate your prayers very much
in this respect. The City Council of Odessa has really
been “dragging their feet” with the sale
process, we think it’s because they think that
there is something valuable in this old facility that
they haven’t seen, now that some one wants to buy
it. So we think they are wanting the price to go up during
the delay. I’d really like to get the deal through
and be able to renovate the facility fully for the 70
homeless children we want to help with accommodation
and care. I wasn’t able to get to the meeting with
the City Council on the Monday as British Airways was
experiencing a strike from their cabin staff starting
on the Tuesday. So I had to leave Ukraine on the Monday
to avoid being delayed in Ukraine for days and thus miss
my Qantas flight to Australia later in the week. I was
told by the bishop and the charity director that my presence
could have worked adversely. If the beaurocrats were
to see a “foreign investor” they would almost
automatically put the price up to get more money. Please
pray with us through this transaction, and for the extra
funds we may need to finalize this deal.
On the Saturday
morning I went to collect a 17 year old young man named
Viktor who was one of the Homeless Street Orphans. Two
years ago we had paid $350 for him to have treatment
for his heart to avoid open heart surgery. At that time
when he knew what I had done he offered to be one of
my drivers and interpreters. The treatment was very successful
and averted the operation. Viktor took us to his dingy
apartment which his deceased mother had owned. This was
one room in very bad repair in a larger apartment (one
can buy rooms like this) and a small space designated
to her in a large kitchen. You can see in the photos,
it has no windows and needs renovation. When she died
all the ownership papers were  lost. It took Viktor two
years while living in a drain under the city of Odessa
to locate the ownership deeds in the city registry (an
almost impossible task in Eastern Europe. Viktor has
since really committed his life to Jesus and came into
the local Slavic Evangelical Church and was baptized,
showing his commitment to be definite. Slavic people
take this very seriously.
I would like to renovate
this room for Viktor. It will cost around $1,500 US and
we could get it completed in a week. Please stand with
me in prayer for this project.
Love
and blessings,
Dave & Margurita
Post script:
“Thank you for all your time in Odessa. It was
awesome. We are hearing many testimonies of healings
that took place. God is still being glorified. May God
bless you and keep on filled with Holly Spirit and use
you for His glory.” Oleg Vaslichuk.
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