Michael and Joanne Hope

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Prayer Letter/Ministry Update

October 23, 2009

Dear friends, thank you for your prayers. We are settling in well. This week I was amazed again at the care and support people back home give us despite tremDear friends ,

The longer we are here in Sevastopol the more we are excited about the possibilities here. The Ukraine allows for greater personal and religious freedom than Russia and the results are that opportunities for ministry also increase greatly. Here is what is going on:

Praises

-The Inkerman church plant continues to gather momentum. A Canadian church has decided to partner with this project starting in January which will provide a helpful foundation to the church planting effort.

-Four of our key leaders are involved in master’s degree programs. Thank you for giving to our work special that allowed us to help three of them to continue their studies.

-We are getting to know the church people (many are surprised that we speak Russian) and are developing relationships with the church leaders. We have taught a few studies on family finance which have gone well. You’re giving to our work specials allowed us to put on a leaders retreat at the beginning of the month.

-The Power to Change outreach was a success. More than 5000 people responded for information and are in the process of going through the material they asked for. Pray that many will continue on their spiritual journey to Christ. Our church is following up 350 of those people.

-There are now 14 people enrolled in the Rehabilitation Center Program. That is their current maximum. Pray that all 14 will find freedom from their drug addiction and find Christ as well.

-We are incredibly thankful for the $3000 dollars given to our car fund this month.

Prayer Requests

-Visa Trip-tomorrow (Oct. 23rd) we fly to Moscow. The following week we will turn in our visa request to the Ukrainian embassy there. Our invitation is for five years. Pray that the embassy will give a visa for those five years. It would help us greatly not to do unnecessary travel. Pray that there will be no snags in the approval process.

-We are working with one Rehabilitation Center called Estochnik and possibly with another across the river. Pray that we will know how to be effectively involved with these two groups.

-The Inkerman church plant is doing a camp for youth during their fall break Oct. 27-29. Pray that the camp goes well. Your giving to our work specials is helping fund this program. Following the camp the team wants to begin a weekly youth meeting to help teens not only to hear the gospel but to have an alternative to the alcohol and drugs which are so readily available. At the end of November the church will be helping with an AIDS awareness program to help teens understand and avoid this devastating disease. Finally the team is following up 30 people who have responded to the Power to Change Outreach, pray that they would be further interested in Christ and spiritual change.

-The church is asking us to run an English program as an Evangelistic tool. In November we will start with a small group (8-10 people) in our apartment and see how things develop. If all goes well through the winter we would then expand the program in the spring.

Rehabilitation Center Construction Teams

We have been working with Andre who is the director of the program to try to get the new building completed. Andre was able to set up a work project manager who can be on site when the teams are here. That means the need for trained workers is greatly lessoned and teams without experience can easily help with the project. If interested please contact me at hope4russia@hotmail.com. If we could get two or three teams lined up for this summer it would be a huge help.

How are the Hope’s

-We are doing well. Amazed that Mike’s mom is now online. (nanahope@hotmail.com)

-We still need to raise $2000-3000 for our car fund so that we can purchase a vehicle.

-Pray for Trevor as he is in the middle of a long semester at BFA. The class work especially for Math Analysis and German 2 is especially hard. Pray that he will finish the semester well.

-Pray for Alyssa as she keeps busy at Simpson University. She is doing well. Her bane in studies right now is Psychology .

Closing thoughts- Ministering in Beauty

Sevastopol is a beautiful city, the clothing people wear is beautiful, stores in the downtown section are full of beautiful jewelry, clothes and perfumes. Yet all this beauty hides many hurts, many sins and hides the cries of many tears. People need Christ wherever they are. If anything the outward pressure to be beautiful only makes the inward struggles greater because it is seen as weakness or wrong to admit that the hurts, sins and tears exist. Pray that we can break down the walls of beauty that keep people from Christ.

Thanks you again for your love and prayers, Mike and Joanne

Michael Hope
Bolshaya Morskaya 15-3
Sevastopol Ukraine 99011,
ph. 38-0692-45-62-16,
skype: Joanne Hope 4

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