Odessa Mission
August 2003 Newsletter
John's Update
Hello friends!
Another month is in the history books
for our Odessa Mission and we're thankful to you for making it happen. Two of
our supporting churches from Virginia, Olivet Christian Church in Newport News
and Fairview Church of Christ in Chesapeake, had programs in July and each
raised over $1000 for our work here in Odessa. Special thanks go out to
them for their efforts this month. Way to go guys and gals!!!
As you may know, to work in Odessa as a missionary, I must be registered with a religious organization approved by the Ukrainian government. The two largest and best known organizations are the Russian Orthodox Church and the Baptist Union of Ukraine. The chances of being accepted as a missionary in Odessa by the local Russian Orthodox Church was very slim so after much prayer, I approached the Baptist Union and asked to be associated with them. God opened the door and in July, we were formerly accepted by the Baptist Union of Ukraine. Praise God!!! We are currently awaiting a mandatory letter of invitation from them, and with this letter, we'll be able to obtain the required work visa from the Ukrainian embassy in Moldova. Then we can officially rent a facility, register our church, and get on with the Lord's business of telling everyone about His love and grace. Since so much depends on this process, this is our special prayer request for August.
Since we'll hopefully be under the administrative umbrella of the Baptist Union as far as the Ukrainian authorities go, we've been attending a Baptist church located near the hospital cancer ward where we have been doing much of our outreach. We've even recruited a couple of youth from the church to visit the children with us on some occasions. On July 27, our worship team sang four songs during the morning service at the church. In fact, Ira wrote the music and lyrics to one of the songs and it was sung by both the church's youth choir and our worship team as a collaborative effort. What made the day even more special was that several kids from the cancer unit were allowed to accompany us and attend the service. We even took the kids to a nearby cafe and treated them to ice cream and Pepsi after the service. Although many of the kids from the cancer unit couldn't come to the service because of health reasons, chemo treatments, and weekend visits at home, we still were pleased to have five people come along with us. Hopefully, since the kids were able to see us outside the hospital grounds, they'll feel a bit closer to us as friends rather than just someone who visits them as patients.
We spend considerable time with the kids and their parents and have developed some very strong ties that will hopefully remain after they leave the ward. Many are from out of town, but some of them have even invited us to stay with them for a couple of days when they head home, which shows how the friendships are blossoming. We often pray with several of the parents and children and we are seeing progress from the fruit of our labors. Several of the kids are reading Christian magazines and books that we have brought to them. A special young lady at the cancer ward by the name of Ira (yes, Ira is a common name over here), has become a good friend and she is currently reading at least three books a week. I am pleased to report that the morale in the ward has changed dramatically since our first visit, and the children (and even many of the adults) seem to look forward to our visits. When we first got there, most of the children were depressed and feeling hopeless. Friends, I really wish you could see for yourselves how much that has changed. We also see changes in the physical condition of some of the kids. Ira is definitely the best example. She could barely stand up when we first began visiting her. She rarely ate anything, and even got to the point where she had to be fed through a needle. Now, she's eating normally, joking regularly, devouring Christian literature, is rarely found in her room anymore, and was even strong enough to go to church with us on Sunday morning. The doctors are simply amazed. Furthermore, our worship team members are occasionally visiting the children on their own time, which also shows the spiritual growth they seem to be experiencing. So, obviously, there's lots of good news to share this month and it's all because Jesus Christ is reaching people through you. "This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God . . . And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you" (2 Corinthians 9:12, 14).
Love, John and Ira Murphy - The Odessa Mission
From Al: Just a reminder and to keep things simple, support checks should be made payable to "Northampton Church of Christ", the "For" or "Memo" line should indicate either "Odessa Mission" or "John Murphy", and the checks should be mailed to "Al Kunkel" at my home address (shown on the front of this newsletter) and not to Northampton Church of Christ at their address or to NCC at my home address. Thanks.