"In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps" from Proverb 16:9

I'd like to share with you some answers to the prayers from the last prayer update and to ask you to pray for another important ones. :) Also i'd like to tell you more about the members of our team and volunteers God blessed us with :) 

I'll start from the main part - thank you for praying the Lord would give us wisdom to plan our semester, that we would start doing Sport Community on a weekly level, that God would bring the children and the parents to hear further Gospel and about Christian values, that God would bless us as a team and for the unity in our teamwork. As it turned out, the Lord yet "hasn't opened the doors" for non-believing children to come after our Summer projects. When I called the parents (we got in general positive and thankful reactions but somehow the parents decided that their children would attend other sports activities or English lessons or computer science lessons. We prayed, fasted, advised and understood that the Lord refocused us for now to discipleship - to invest more into our volunteers and to train our Sport Community skills. God "opened another door" of an amazing Christian school "A.C.E." where there are children of believers and nonbelievers study. The Lord gave me personally  His revelation from Psalm 71:17-18:
Since my youth, God, you have taught me,
    and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds.
¹⁸ Even when I am old and gray,
    do not forsake me, my God,
till I declare your power to the next generation,
    your mighty acts to all who are to come.

Sport Community training parts - work out, drill exercise, devotion time, small tournament. 

  Our volunteer - Anya F. - plays a christian song to the children  - the musical instrument is called  - ukulele:)










As for the devotion part of our Sport Community practices which we called "SuperPower", i.e. besides teaching soccer skills, the children are taught about the important for Life SuperSkills without which just soccer skills can't help. These SuperSkills are given from the Lord. For example, SuperSkill - Friendship, Obedience, Forgiveness, Skill to Help etc.

 I'd like to tell more about our team and the volunteers who you can see on all our photos:) So meet them if you haven't met them yet:)

 Here's our team - Athletes in Action, Ukraine. Andrey and Yuliia Shepelenko (in the middle) - a blessed family (they have two sons) which served as the Director of Campus team in Dniepro (on the east of Ukraine) for about 7 years. They were at the start of the students ministry there and now they are at the start of Athletes in Action Ukraine in Kiev and other cities. We pray for the wisdom and for the blessings for their family. 

 You know me:) Sports ministry always played a big part in my lift. The Lord called me to leave my job (where I worked for about more 10 years) and to do this ministry not just at my free time but full time. The Lord is teaching me a lot, sometimes I go through storms of course :), but I see that He uses my skills, experience from the past and leads me with His Spirit and teaches new things:-) We pray the Lord would give me wisdom so that I'd serve Christ in our team.

Dima Doroshenko. God found him in 2011 through the soccer practices in the team "Rock" in Dniepro - the ministry that Andrey Shepelenko launched (and Yulia helped and encouraged). Dima devoted himself afterwards to his teammates to serve. A year ago the Lord called him to serve in Athletes in Action Ukraine full time. He loves children and is passionate about sharing Gospel and about discipleship. We pray the Lord would continue work in Dima to grow him into a real leader from Him. 

Our volunteer - Anya Fartushna (on the left). After the summer project Sport Family where she amazingly helped us and me especially as an interpreter, she left her native place Smela and moved to Kiev to help in the ministry and also to work in the above mentioned school A.C.E. She has her work visa open to Poland but she preferred to "suffer with the nation of God" in Ukraine:) She fell in love with the ministry with children through sports and we fell in love with her. She loves God and people, sincere minister and the heart of our team. I have discipleship meetings with her - we study the course about how "to make disciples". We pray about her joy in the Lord always, about searching for a place to retn and the possibility to see her family in America.

 Our volunteer - Yura Kvashuk. We met Yura at our Summer Project. He is a break dance teacher. He teaches in the dance school and also witnesses to his students. Also he practices in the soccer team with nonbelievers where he also shares Gospel. Yura is a great blessings for our Sport Community as a coach and as a helper to our team. Yura also left his business and obeyed God's call to serve Christ through sports full time. We pray about his walk with God and his family - about the financial provision from the Lord.

Our volunteer - Todd Carlson. Todd moved to Kiev from Minessota state to serve children and teenagers approxim.a year ago. We met him at out Sport Community conference - the opening of Athletes in Action Ukraine in May this year. He was with us at the Sport Projects and he taught and teaches children English soccer words which they immediately practice at the field :) As he said: "I'm committed to minister Athletes in Action until I have money left" He is a joyful and an open to help minister. We pray about his spiritual growth, about the Lord would bless him financially and would confirm him in His calling.

Please pray:
1) We are going to the conference to the Netherlands which is called Sport Community Week where our Dutch friends from Athletes in Action will teach and show us how they do this ministry which is blessed and succesful there.  Pray about the unity in the team, about the roads as we go by minivan, about financial blessings for the members of the team for this trip, about spiritual lessons for each one of us as a coach and as a minister;
2) We plan upon the return to do the advertisement in the neighbourhood of the church and also to arrange the soccer field at the parking of the church.  Pray that the Lord would bring those children who He sees (this will be for free, and it can be for children who grew without fathers - whoever God would bring to us etc), also please pray would be able to realize the soccer field project financially, physically and spiritually ;
3) I started to attend the basketball practices with nonbelieving ladies (they call themselves - "Pretty ladies 30+" :-) They plan to participate in the disctrict competitions from October till April. Pray please for a wisdom in our friendship, that the Lord would open their hearts (some of them know already I'm a believer), that in future He would give a possibility to do basketball sports community and to invite them (their children) as coaches and participants;

  4) For the repentance of the students of my disciple and friend - Katya P. - the basketball coach in Berdychev (another city in Ukraine) and also for the repentance of my friend and basketballer - Anya R.;

5) for the repentance and for the deliberation of my sister Irina, for the repentance of my brother Valera and of my nephew Vova.

Thank you very much! I'm looking foward to hear what the Lord is doing in your life?:-)

“the Beginning of the start” :-)

So I’d like to thank you for your prayers and support with this letter and to tell how the Lord answered and was in control of all circumstances and volunteers of these projects which are for us also "the beginning of the start":-)

At the end of July – in the beginning of August we had two projects in a row – Sport Community called Sport Family. The main goals were:
- to activate the youth of the churches and to have a practical training how to minister kids, teenagers and their parents;

- to build “a bridge” between the church and the neighborhood where the church is located for futher Sport Community ministry on a weekly basis in order to preach Gospel among youth and children and their parents (grandparents);

- to strengthen volunteers of the church in their skills of sharing Gospel (volunteers can be also the children who grew up in Christian families) for futher commitment to this ministry.
The projects took places in two churches: Kyiv, the church “Revival” and Dniepro , the church” Arc” About 30 volunteers took part in them. God brought big amount of children to the fields – approximately 150 people total.
Every day of the sport community (SK) started with the meeting with volunteers: team building, short Bible passage sharing, worship time, lunch together, discussion and coordination of the responsibilities for the upcoming sport community at the field and then only we went to our fields for 3 hours sport community with children. SK didn’t consist just of some practical drills and competitions. We had also spiritual breaks or devotion break time during which we had possibilities to build relationships with children, to communicate and to share Gospel. In the evening we again gathered with our volunteers team and made the analysis of the SK done and of what to improve for the next day – its my favorite part in SK.

At the end of the projects we invited children, teenagers and their parents for the sum ups and for the celebration. The Gospel was also proclaimed there. The Lord just miraculously brought us through difficulties, miscommunications, changes in the weather conditions, lack of human resources, through the prohibitions to talk about God from the side of some parents and of the schools’ management who gave us soccer fields. And the Lord miraculously brought children, teenagers and even their parents (and grandparents) to the churches – almost all of them were in the protestant evangelical church for the first time and no one got scared that it could be a sect. (By the way – to have its own building for a church congregation is a huge blessing!)

Let me share with you two small stories from these projects though I’d love to tell you all of them.

The first story – it took place at the soccer field of Kiev in the neighborhood of the church “Revival” An old man (we called him grandpa), obviously of a soviet mentality, was jealously against us and considered us a sect and that we were people who came to brainwash children while their parents were at work. So once we came to our due sport community, he started to yell at us that we were nothing and nobody and that if we would start what we did, he would call the “militsia” (the police). We just suggested that we wanted to play with children and the older teenagers agreed, so we just started to play. The younger children started to complain that they couldn’t play as it was on the previous days (as we mixed older and younger kids in the teams before). Then later our team of organizators prayed right there on the field – I asked our Dutch coach to pray (I translated for him). Step by step the grandpa had to move aside under the “pressure” of the children and we started our sport community. Following days the grandpa came but his attitude toward us became softer. And I call this situation – the case when the actions talk louder than the words, i.e. our name is justified – “Athletes in Action’ :-)

 Sharing testimony with the teenagers at the field

 During the devotion break

Team photo of AIA Ukraine, AIA Netherlands and the volunteers from the church “Revival"

Parents in the church on the last row of chairs:-)\

The second story – at the soccer field in the neighborhood of the church “Arc” in Dniepro.

During our sport communities while children waited for their turn to play we also talked to them offside the field as well as with their parents who came to video or to take photos of their children or to just hang out. This way I noticed one old lady (grandma) who was sitting on the bench. I came up to her and introduced myself. She told me she lived alone, her son and her husband died. Her granddaughter with her grand granddaughter went outside of the city “but it they would’ve known that such an event would take place, they wouldn’t have left”, - she said. We spoke about family, about sin, about living alone, about financial difficulties, about death. She is 78 and she had never read the Bible. Eventually I shared Gospel with Maria (her name) and told her that there’s Father in Heaven, that there’s Jesus Christ who can reconcile and join to His family. I invited her to the church – praise God that the church is right over the corner – that’s where our soccer field was. When she came to the church I also talked to her more and gave her the brochure “Four spiritual Laws” and the passages from the Gospel of John. She started to read and another old lady a bit younger who also came to the church because of her child who was invited also looked at the brochure. This another lady had a suspicious not content look. When I came up to her and asked her if she wanted the brochure as well, she immediately answered positively. I gave her my last brochure I happened to have in my backpack. The lady’s name was Liudmila. Her look changed after all this to a well wishing one. The Lord again taught me that we shouldn’t look at the faces and we should let Him act as He sees what is inside and what will happen further. I pray for these ladies so that they would continue coming to the church and would join the family of Christ above all.  

Team photo of AIA Ukraine, AIA Netherlands and the volunteers from the church “Arc

More photos and videos can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/SportFamilyUa/photos/?ref=page_internal

Please pray for:
1) the hearts of the children and of the teenagers and of their parents who heard Gospel (so that God would open the importance of accepting Christ and of following Him););
2) the follow up of the Sport Community on a weekly basis in Kiev and in Dniepro – so that the volunteers would arrange properly and plan further actions as they were trained by us, and would be commited to this ministry; so that our team of AIA could help them to plan furtherwards;

3) on August 25^th we will plan our semester – so that the Lord would give wisdom and a mutual understanding how to plan according to His will;

4) Thanks for the possibility to have rest with my disciple and my friend – basketball coach, Katya P. and also to see my friends – believers and non believers in Odessa;

5) for my health (neck spine especially);
6) Repentance of my friend, ex basketball player, Anya, and for the study of the biblical course “Sports and life” – she agreed to do it under my mentorship! J;

7) For the repentance of my relatives – sister, brother and my nephew – so that they would truly reconcile with God through Christ.

Thank you for your support and prayers! Would love to hear how God is working in your life :)

With love in Christ, 
Anya

 

The Lord continues to do His work through “Athletes in Action”, and we need to move forward with Him slowly but faithfully!

So the Lord has led and keeps leading through the period of the ministry partners search. He taught me a lot during this period, He blessed and even showed few miracles from some of which I feel “goosebumps”:-)

Parallely to this there were many other events. I’ll tell you about two the brightest ones. 

On June 17, the whole day, we had a soccer tournament of Christian Champions League which was held in the partnership with other Christian sports ministries. 12 teams took part in this tournament – the teams from different cities of Ukraine – Kiev, Dniepro, Odessa, Smela, Vinitsa, Mariupol, Zhytomir etc. There were more than 100 young men – majority of them are non-believers who play soccer in the teams in their cities, and either the coach of the team is a believer or they have some other members of the team who are believers.

In spite of the forecast, God gave great weather conditions. The opening was with the Scripture from the book of James about the inner purity and the tongue. In the middle of the tournament all teams were gathered right in the middle of the soccer field and heard the testimony of our long time known friend from the States who shared how God saved him from drugs and brought him to Christ etc. The Great News was heard. We prayed and we continue to pray that “the seeds which were sawn would grow in the hearts of these young men and would bring the fruits of faith for the glory of Christ in the future in those teams where these young men play”. We continue to partner and to communicate with the believers from these teams.

This was the 2^nd year tournament. We hope next year it will be two days of this tournament III. 

(I was the online broadcasting assistant :-)

 

More pictures and the video can be found here

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Christianchampions/

Throughout last few weeks we had meetings with the team of volunteers from the church “Revival” where we plan to have the first sport community project “Sport Family” on July 24-28. Also from July 31 till August 4 we plan to have the same project for the church in Dniepro “The Arc”.

We know that majority of children and teenagers don’t live in healthy families. The goal of the project is to describe for them through the Word and to show through our own example the value of family the way God foreseen it to be. Healthy family has the following things which reign: 1) Love and joy (God loves you) 2) Mistakes acknowledgement and sincere forgiveness (Man is sinful) 3) Stimulation of each other to develop and to grow in learning the truth (The truth is in Jesus) 4) Decisions to be in family and to follow Him (The necessity to take a decision to follow Christ). 

 

 

Please pray for:
1) The hearts of the athletes from the Christian Champions League would continue to change in their teams, and that sports communities would be created there;
2) God would bless what He had a vision for us and, as we believe, what He gave us to plan: for the combined work of the team of volunteers from the churches in Kiev and in Dniepro, the arrival and the stay of our Dutch partners - coaches from Athletes in Action; for the advertising and the registration of children and teenagers from the neighborhoods of the churches  "Revival" and "Ark" for the project, for the hearts of children, teenagers, their parents would be opened and  would “return to God's family "; for our team of AIA (coaches, interpreter, spiritual mentors etc.)
3) Thanks to God for leading me in the difficult period of gathering support and please keep praying for my health (neck spine especially);
4) Repentance of my friend, a former basketball player, Anya, if God wills;
5) For the repentance of my relatives - my sister, brother, nephew - that they are reconciled truly with God through Christ.

Thank you for your support and prayers! Would love to hear how God is working in your life :)

With love in Christ,

Anya