"Tie your shoes and pray for the Hughes" |
Dear
Friends,
Greetings
from far-off Moldova! Recently I have
been thinking of Paul’s statement in II Corinthians of God’s grace being
sufficient for him. It has reminded me
that God’s grace is already available to me.
Our hope is that our Savior will give you glimpses of His grace to
encourage you on your earthly way.
We
were pleased with our family evening activities, even though they were
different than planned. We had good
weather and were able to hold them three of the four Friday evenings in
June. Our hope was that families would
participate in the activities together.
The way it worked out, very few complete families came by. However, several kids and a few adults
stopped by to play the games, do the crafts or eat the snacks. We were able to introduce ourselves to more
individuals in the city, give out some Bibles and literature about the family
and learn how better to run this type of activity in the future.
Crafts at our family activity |
The
Lord gave us two good weeks of VBS. The
first week we met at our coworkers’ home and invited children from their
neighborhood. We averaged 16 kids a day
with 25 different kids coming throughout the week. The kids listened so well during the Bible
lessons. The second week we met at our
rental location in the city. With having
fewer contacts and it being our first VBS in the city, we really didn’t know
how many would show up. That week we
averaged 12 kids a day, which included 20 different children. The second week had a different dynamic as we
had kids who knew only Russian or Romanian.
It was a blessing to see a couple of kids show up that we had met during
our family activity, and to see one of the kids memorize the books of the
Bible.
Games at VBS in Zăstîncă |
Sword drills at VBS in Soroca |
Next
week our team will seclude ourselves and talk over plans for the upcoming
twelve months. Would you take a moment
right now to pray for the Lord’s guidance as we make plans? We are considering starting an ongoing
children’s ministry to, in part, follow up with the kids who came to VBS. On a
personal note, our construction permit is in hand, and a builder is ready to
start on the foundation, but we have discovered a problem. The city water main runs directly through our
property, right where the house is to be.
Would you pray for resolution to this problem so that we could at least
get the foundation done this fall?
In His
service,
Jacob
and Viola Hughes
For
Prayer:
1.
Viola and Sarah studying Romanian
2.
Ministry planning for upcoming months
3.
Resolution of problem with the water main
For
Praise:
1.
Good results from our family evenings in the park
2. Two
good weeks of Vacation Bible School
3. A
helper for the month of July- Deanna, our coworker Sarah’s friend