A GREAT BIG DAY

There always seems to be a lack of words to express what happens on a full day of ministry among God’s people. Today was no different!

Hylboka - Light of God’s Love, pastored by Dema and Natasha Nemchenko was my first assignment today. It required a 9:15 departure and I found my way back at 3:00. Between those times I shared the Word in a village about 30 minutes outside Chernivtsi. It is a simple village but there are found there people who love God.

Because the only building available for Church services is not heated during the winter the Church does not hold Sunday services from sometime between November and Easter, only prayer meetings in the living room of one family. So today was the first service for the coming months. The pastor had put out advertisements regarding the appearance of a pastor from the United States who would be praying for the sick. (I was fortunate – he told me on Wednesday.)

As you can expect when you cannot have Sunday services for several months, it is very hard to maintain any pattern of growth. So counting all of us, there were 19 present. So I preached the Word and laid hands on the sick.

Then came dinner. It was in the home of the same family who holds the prayer meeting. There were nine of us setting around a small wooden table approximately 2x3 feet. And the table was covered with dishes and eating ware. Oh yes – and delicious food. The room was 8x10 feet or at the most 9x12 feet and will all the furniture there wasn’t much room left for the table and chairs around one side while the other side was in front of the couch.

We had hardly completed eating when I was notified that we were to go to the home of a lady who had said that she wanted a pastor from America to come and lay hands on her for her healing. Since I was the first and probably only American preacher who would be in town – at least at this time – I followed my hosts to the car and across town, upstairs and into the room where this lady lay. I am not going to tell you that she got up and walked, but I do know that if she will activate her faith, the presence of God was there to heal her.

I did get 45 minutes to stretch out and allow my legs to rest along with my back. Then it was up and out to the car and across Chernivtsi to Word of Life with Pastor Vitaliy and Ira Pavlenko along with Light of God’s Love with Pastor Dema and Natasha Nemchenko (these pastors are working together in Chernivtsi). The crowd was larger, probably 100 - 110 counting children who were in another room.

The Lord had laid on my heart a challenging message - It Is Time To Break Out!. I knew he wanted me to challenge them to stop allowing the past to control their future for it was time for a new beginning personally and collectively. I completed my assignment with the Word and began to speak to them the prophetic word God was giving to me for specific people who were “boxed in” and needed to “break-out.” From there it became a healing service and ten people testified to a healing during that time.

As Pastor Pavlenko was closing the service, he was interrupted by his mother (just like a mother) but it was because she wanted to testify about the healing of her sister. On Friday evening at the prayer meeting we had anointed a cloth and sent it by her to be placed on the sister and the prayer of faith to be prayed. The sister was bed-fast on Friday and on Saturday they visited her and prayed for her. Today, they checked on her and she was sitting outside in the sun.

Sitting next to the pastor’s mother was even a more elderly lady for whom we had prayed on Friday. She could not raise her arm above her shoulder. I looked again in that direction when I heard the pastor’s mother then say, “Look at (the name I did not get).” There was the lady smiling and raising both hands above her head as easily as a ten-year old boy who had just received a new game-boy.

Tanya, the former assistant pastor of the “former church” and her husband along with Tolik and Oksana and I were sitting at a restaurant and Tanya testified that she had been healed and now could walk without any pain in her back. She along with Vika came forward in response to a specific area of the back in which the Holy Spirit led me to designate with my hand on my back. I had them to take turns and lay hands on each other at the specific spot on their backs. Vika told me before she left that she had been healed and now Tanya. Jesus is still the best Doctor! (Last names will not help you and some I can’t get straight.)

I came home rejoicing because many of those for whom I had great concern since my last visit had now taken giant steps forward and had moved beyond their personal pain from a devastating situation into which they were thrown. God is still restoring broken hearts and lives.

Now it is time to wrap up all the loose ends here by completing the CD’s of the messages; editing the college course for DVD reproduction; placing into the hands of my Ukrainian secretary, Oksana, the material that needs to be translated into Russian; and to prepare the final assignment for the students in Armyansk on the course: Kings and Priests.

Of course I must pack and be ready for the trip to Khmelnitsky and the train to Kiev tomorrow (Monday). So this is enough for now.

God bless,

Dr D