A few weeks ago, Chris Fowler & I spent a week in the Ukraine with our church's good friend Paul Lozynsky, his wife and two little girls, and his new church plant called "God's Design".  It was really cool to be able to see what God is up over there and how he's using Paul and his church community to make a difference for Christ.

A number of you have asked for a bit of an update on our trip.  Well this morning Paul sent out an email to a bunch of people from Southridge with a bit of a summary of our time there.  I thought I'd share it with you, along with a few pics.

Enjoy!

Jeff

Hello dear friends at Southridge!

It’s been couple of weeks since Jeff Jantzi and Chris Fowler visited our church in Lviv.

Looking back - I want to share with you my thoughts and feelings about their visit.    I’ll start describing it with one word – it was great!!!   I feel really good about what we were able to do with them during such a short time.  I hope guys already shared with some of you their insight on that trip and what and how they saw our church and ministry. Here I will share what their visit meant for us  and for me personally.

So, because of all those flights delays they arrived a day later then they should of, and basically right from the airport (dropping the luggage at the hotel) we went to English Club where guys participated as a “native speakers” helping Dustin and Karilyn to teach English to those 40 or so students. For those of you that don’t know – “English Club” is our church’s’ outreach effort where we offer free English lessons (led by American missionaries Dustin and Karilyn Mulenix) and as a part of it also a Bible study. So second part of the night usually is that Bible discussion where we break into groups of 5-6, but that night all of a sudden lights went out in that area and they closed the school and asked us to leave. But Dustin lives just around the corner so we invited students over to his apartment, and it turned out into a great evening of spontaneous discussion about faith, Bible, and biblical views at life. …Well, Chris said that it was probably his favorite evening here, even though he couldn’t understand a word :)

Next day we met with our leadership team discussing church growth, small groups, long term strategies, etc. Then we had a  lunch at my home and good conversations with my family. At the evening that followed with another meeting with 8 -10 people from our church discussing how to reach out to the people that are uncomfortable for us. Like alcoholics and other addicts, gays, homeless and so on… Also we talked about social ministry (to the marginalized and poor)  and how church should serve practically to the world, not just by words… Jeff and Chris shared their and Southridges’ experience in that area and really challenged us to think and step out of our comfort zone… At this point as a church we’re focused on reaching out only to students and that conversations challenged us to think about and reach out to other groups of people. 

First half of the day  Friday we spent just walking around downtown of Lviv and guys seemed to really like and enjoy that. Lviv has a over 750 years of history and there are lots of old buildings and other architecture to observe.  At the evening we had first part of SDI training, following with full day Saturday session.  Jeff did a great job at facilitating and explaining the workshop to us.  16 people from our church were able to go through it and it really helped us to see how we can use our differences for our common good, and how unique and valuable each person is. We had very good discussion during the workshop and afterwards (and I plan to have even more) about how important  each person contribution is to a church life, especially after we were able to see how everyone is wired and what strengths each person has.  So SDI was a big blessing to us. Once again thanks Jeff for doing it for us.

Sunday we had only one church meeting  (usually we have two), because almost everyone took SDI, and we already met for two last days. So we met at 10 AM as we usually do, but it went on for 3, 5 hours + 30-40 min afterwards for coffee and chat. We started with worship and prayer and then Chris and Jeff  shared with us fresh look on story of prodigal son and how this story is much more about extravagant love of God than anything else. Chris sang two songs during it and Jeff share some personal stories. Probably because of translation that doubled the time it went for so long, but it didn’t feel like this at all. Everyone in the room was moved and inspired and people didn’t even noticed the time!

At the evening I just hung out with guys sharing our own journeys with God and in ministry. As I shred my own successes and struggles I received a lot of encouragement and practical advices from them. I really needed that and it was very timely.   And Monday morning with some sadness I drove them to airport…

I’m very thankful for their visit and friendship - it was a big blessing for me personally and for “God’s Design” church. Everyone from our church expressed that opinion and we look forward to next visit from Southridge team. We already entertained a possibility that a team of young adults/students can come for our summer outreach camp to teach English and share Christ with our students. Also we’re open to any other idea and forms of serving the Lord together.  I also hope that it was a blessing, learning and inspiration to Jeff and Chris as they saw firsthand what God is doing in our midst, and they can pass that to others in Southridge.

I think those trips are well worth it (despite the financial cost), because they  can help us to see how God works in different areas of the world, and as we share our journey we can inspire and challenge one another to grow in our love to God and to other people (to Church, and to the lost world)  So, as I already said – we’re looking forward to more visits!

At the end – I wish all of you a Joyful Christmas and Happy New Year!  May God continues to lead and protect you as a church, families and individuals so you will be able to achieve His goals for your own life and for the broken world. 

I love you all!!!

Sincerely,

Pavlo Lozynsky