Time is running out.

This coming week is the last full week of classes here at Faith Academy. The following week I will have one more class and then I am proctoring final exams, a few various banquets and ceremonies, and then watching my seniors walk the line (as these early grads did in December).

After that, I will have just under two months of relative peace and quiet here in the Philippines. During that time, I will be working on ironing out all the wrinkles in the lessons I have taught here at Faith so that it will be as easy and understandable as possible for my successor to pick it up and run with it. I also will begin preparing for the classes I will be teaching in Kyiv. I will have 3 history class (6-7th grade geography, 9-10th grade world history, 11-12th grade civics&econ) as well as an 11-12th grade Bible class. Also, for some classes, they are still without a local teacher, so I will be a room monitor while students are doing online distance classes. Please pray for more people to answer the call to come teach in Kyiv. When it comes to things like math or language classes, I am of no help whatsoever.

At the end of July I will be headed to Poland. Thanks to some of your generous giving, that plane ticket has already been bought, but hotel for a couple of days there and the eventual ten hour train ride from there to Kyiv still need to be purchased. I am hoping to spend a few days here first because a couple that was part of my house church in Gaziantep, Turkiye, are now living in this area and it will be a beautiful time to catch up.

Finally, at the beginning of August, I will be arriving in Kyiv and beginning that next chapter in God’s story. Between now and then, there are many things I desperately need your prayers for:

1. Visa – I can enter for up to 90 days, but if my long term work passport is not finalized before August, it would require me leaving the country again and reentering for it to go into effect. Both for financial and administrative reasons, it is much better if this is all taken care of beforehand. Please pray that there will be nothing holding up that process.

2. Support – Praise God, if everyone currently supporting me at Faith continues to do so, then I am looking at just under $1,000 a month raised at this point. That is about two thirds of the way towards the minimum goal of $1,500. Please pray that God will continue to call people who would be willing to partner with me in what God is doing in Ukraine. With that, there will also be some one time additional expenses included with moving that are not yet fully funded.

3. Transitions – The hardest part of going to KCA is leaving behind the school and students that I have grown to love here at Faith. Help me to finish well and in a God-honoring way. Help me also to do everything I can to make the job of the new teacher coming in as easy as possible. Please pray an annointing on that new teacher so that he ends up doing a far better job than I ever could have if I stayed.

4. Moving – My life possessions, once again, need to be paired down to what I can bring on the plane with me. Help me to use wisdom in knowing what I should bring and what I should sell or give away before getting on that plane. Also for safe flights and train rides for me and for anything I might decide to ship over there ahead of me.

5. Pray for peace – A couple of weeks ago, the school I will be teaching at was interviewed for a news article you can easily google: “Air Raids and ABCs” That quick read can give you a bit more understanding of what I will be walking into. No matter where we stand on the politics of the issue, no matter what we might think of Trump, Zelensky, and Putin, this war needs to end. We all can be and should be praying for an end to hostilities and that a long term just peace can somehow be worked out.