Who is my neighbor?: Networking with Central Asian leaders
 Earlier in the month, I attended a conference for Central Asian church leaders. I wish I could write more, but security is very tight because the majority of the delegates are from Muslim dominated countries. One story worth noting I heard over lunch. A young pastor, who started a youth church, was trying to officially register his new church. The requirement for registration was to get 50 people say it was their church. After putting in the application, the police summoned every person on the list and put pressure on them, asking why they wanted to be part of a cult and to think about how it reflects on their family. In the end, they did not give registration saying ten people decided not to be part of the church. The pastor does not believe any of the believers succumbed to the pressure. Afterward, an officer approached the pastor, secretly telling him that he would give registration, a building for the church, and wages for the pastor, if he would agree to be a spy working for the government among believers. The pastor said, "I will put your face on Instagram". He did not do that, but he has let every other pastor know the story. The conference was encouraging, as I met with several directors of seminaries, with which we can partner with in the future to train youth workers in Central Asia. (Left: I saw ancient Ephesus where Paul walked. Acts 19 really came alive)
English for New Life Club
 God is at work in our neighborhood! We just started our 3rd month of doing a weekly Christian English club for Jarrett's classmates. At first, we had 3-4 girls attending regularly and were really excited about the opportunity to share with them truth from God's Word about who God is, how He made us and the world and wants a relationship with us.We have built relationships at Jarrett and Evy's school (across the street from our apartment building) and in their martial arts class and invited them to our English club. This past week, we had 7 kids, 3 of which are new, for a total of 10 kids (mostly 4th graders)! I am so thankful to be working with my friend Tanya and for her help, advice, and prayers. God has blessed in such a way that we have gotten rave reviews from the kids that are coming and a couple of them have encouraged their friends to come (and get upset with them when they miss a week!). We have a texting group where I post homework and a brief description of what we talked about during our lesson for both the parents and the kids and share pertinent video resources related to English or the Bible truth we discussed that week. It is so fun to interact with these kids over text and I am amazed that the parents have given me access to their children through their phones. Tanya and I are also excited to be able to include our kids in this ministry, her daughter and Jarrett help us lead different parts of the lesson each week and even Evy has been able to get involved.
 I had specifically been praying for one mom, that God would give me opportunities to share Christ with her. A couple of weeks later, she asked for info about our English club and her girls have been attending for the past 2 weeks. She sits in our living room and listens while we study! She told me what an important work we are doing and I was able to openly tell her that my primary motivation is not just to teach the kids English, but so that they will learn about God and that it would make a difference in how the kids interact with their classmates. We also met the 3rd grade English teacher at our school, Lilia. Lilia is the first believer we have met in our 4 years of attending this school! She leads the teen club Jarrett attends at a church down the street from us. Lilia uses the English for New Life curriculum in her private English tutoring and also has permission from our school principal to teach English using the Bible at our school. We plan to be a part of her team to do a day camp teaching English this summer (on the school campus!!!) God has given us the favor of the school principal and favorably disposed parents and kids to us in such a way that we cannot ignore, we are excited to see what doors He might open in the future. Please pray that we would be faithful to share God's Word with these kids and their parents! It is so easy to get caught up in the logistics of teaching English and push sharing the Gospel to the side, forgetting that is the reason for the club's existence!
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This Month's Events:
March 24 - Sam preaching at our church
Mar 25-29 - Sam teaching "Youth Missions" at KTS
April 8-12 - Sam teaching "Small Groups" at KTS
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Prayer and Praises:
- Praise for a season of good physical health for everyone! Aside from a few minor colds, we have all stayed healthy this winter!
- Continue to pray for Jarrett & Melissa's evangelistic English club with his classmates for them to be faithful in sharing the Gospel
- Pray for Jarrett and Evy - next week they say goodbye to their best American friends who are moving back to the States
- Pray for Misha V and Radik in raising their support with CYMU to be full-time trainers in YM. The deadlines are approaching.
- Praise for Melissa, Jarrett, and Evy's great trip to the SHARE conference, where the kids were taught God's Word in English, interacted with other kids like them and Melissa found encouragement and an abundance of resources for parenting and educating our third culture kids.
- Pray for the smooth processing of our documents...we have applied for permanent residency that does not have to be renewed for 10 years!
- Pray for our effort to start youth ministry training in Central Asia, after the conference there are a couple of different ways we could go about doing this, pray for wisdom and God's direction so that we might have maximum impact
- Pray for unity in our teaching team and at our partnering seminaries
- Pray for strength and endurance for our 70+ students studying YM in Ukraine.
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Evy and Melissa celebrating Evy's new braces!
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Spring has finally come and we are enjoying being outdoors again!
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