Quarantine Prayer Request

Just recently there has been a widespread outbreak of the swine-flu influenza in Western Ukraine where we are on outreach. The implications of this are fairly serious. At the moment Ukraine has been internationally quarantined which essentially means that no-one is permitted to enter or leave the country without special government permission. Currently all school or unnecessary public meetings have been cancelled for at least the next three weeks and the president of Ukraine has been encouraging citizens to avoid public places and transportation as much as possible (including grocery stores, churches, buses, trains etc.) This has some possible negative connotations for our team. Firstly there is the possibility that the government may hinder our travel to eastern Ukraine where the rest of our teaching engagements are scheduled to take place. Also because of the risk of public gatherings, churchgoers may be more reluctant to attend seminars et cetera. So we could use your prayers that God would first of all contain and stop the spread of the flu, and secondly permit us to continue teaching to as many people as possible. Thanks again,

Joshua

Ternopil: Bible Overview

Ternopil: Bible Overview from Joshua Walker on Vimeo.

Puzzle Pieces…

Imagine for one moment that you are confronted with completing an extensive one-thousand-piece puzzle. This challenge alone would be considered a formidable undertaking by many. However, here is the catch. You are not permitted to see even a glimpse of what the end product will look like, you are to complete the puzzle ‘blind’. No cover. No picture. Go. It is peculiar how similar this is to the average Christian’s experience studying the bible.  Our hands are overflowing with puzzle pieces; theology, doctrine, bible passages, books, stories, and advice. Priceless pieces of information that we have next-to-no clue how to make sense of, and no ‘big picture’  with which to group together all of these small oddly shaped pieces of knowledge. Most of us have fists full of pieces but no puzzle. This is why an overview of the bible, an overview of God’s redemptive plan showing the ‘Big Picture’ of what the bible and history is all about is so necessary.  Lets be honest. Is it possible to put together a one-thousand-piece puzzle without the picture? Yes. Will it take a long time? Yes. Do most Christians have that time? Probably not. This is what brought us to Ternopil, a middle sized city in western Ukraine where we taught a week long ‘Bible Overview’ lecture series in a local Discipleship Training School. We took the students through the bible and history from the Old Testament all the way into the New, even delving  into Church history and the second coming of Christ.   Taking the puzzle pieces that they did have and helping to order them in such a way as to show the intention of the artist. It was a very effective and productive week, the students learned and so did the teachers. We are still recovering the after-effects of jet-lag and teaching back-to-back for six days. Not a good combination I can assure you… We’ll be catching a train to Uzgarad, a small hungarian gypsy community eight hours west of Ternopil and are hoping to put together more puzzles… Until next time,

Joshua

(Check out the ‘Video’ Category, or find the videos in the ‘Blog’ page – I will have a summary video up from our time in Ternopil shortly)

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Strictly from a travellers perspective the three days of travel involved in getting to Ukraine could aptly be sumrised in a single word. “Nightmare”. The sheer length of the journey would be enough to unsettle all but the most seasoned travellers, however this is not the deciding factor in my less than fond memory. As many of you know, because I decided to accompany the team to Ukraine late, I was required to fly separately. This conveniently coincided with my need to quickly return to England and pick up some winter clothes I left there. The chaos truly began with missing my pre-paid National Express bus from London Heathrow to Coventry and catching the next best thing which was a bus going to Birmingham (Thirty minutes away). This really was a problem because I had pre-arranged for friends to pick me up in Coventry that morning, and what made matters worse – I had no way of contacting them. So while I was on the bus to Birmingham, my friends waited in confusion at the Coventry bus station. Once I arrived in Birmingham I was given directions to the train station – thinking that that was the best way to arrive in Nuneaton the quickest. The bus station was a mile or so away, up hill. So I dragged my massive suitcase, camera, and laptop uphill over cobblestone streets for the next fifteen to twenty minutes, caught an expensive last-minute train and once it arrived paid for an even more pricy taxi. Thankfully I had a great time catching up with friends at the Kings Lodge (a YWAM Base in England) and visiting our favorite local pub. In the morning however, we had a slow start and were seriously worried about missing my bus back to London, but made it in the end. Now this is where the real drama begins. When I arrived in London I had less than two hours to check in, pass through security, and board the plane. Which is one hour less than is advised for international travel. So I get into the terminal and start looking for a sign that will tell me where the Ukrainian International Airline planes check in. So I find a sign and look it over. No Ukrainian Airlines. I check again, still no Ukrainian Airlines. I ask at the information center and lo and behold he tells me that Ukrainian Airlines flies out of Gatwick Airport over one hour bus ride away! So I rush back to the bus station and try to book a ticket on the next bus to Gatwick through their self-serve computers. It won’t take my credit card. I now have less than ten minutes to get a ticket to get on the next bus, and they leave every half hour. If I don’t get on the next bus, I will miss my flight. There is a long line for the ticket counter, so I join anyway. The clock is ticking. Five minutes left. Beginning to panic, I start explaining my situation to others in the cue and requesting to jump ahead of them. Finally, I make it to the front and purchase my ticket three minutes before the bus leaves. I charge out to the platform and make the bus exactly when it was scheduled to leave. I then spend the next hour and fifteen minutes praying and trying not to panic.  In any case, I make it to Gatwick with fifty minutes till my flight leaves, check-in, spend a ridiculous amount of time paying for a little overweight luggage, go through security and board my plane. This story is slightly humiliating to admit for someone who has travelled as much as I. It seems I’ve become overconfident when it comes to traveling… It has now been four planes, three shuttles, two trains, three buses, and one taxi later and I am finally in Ukraine. Upon arrival the team spent a few days in Kiev and taught the DTS and YWAM staff there an Overview of the Old Testament and we are currently teaching a week long Bible Overview series in the Ternopyl DTS. I am more than happy to be avoiding any plane’s, trains, and automobiles for the moment. Cheers,

Joshua

A Day in Kiev

A Day in Kiev from Joshua Walker on Vimeo.