Slavic Services 2006

OPENING SCHOOL NUMBER 16 IN DONETSK AND THE
PURCHASE OF BUILDINGS Number 98 AND 99 FOR CHURCHES!
Volume XXXXIII No.5

We arrived in Donetsk, Ukraine to open the 16th Basic Bible Training School in minus 15-degree (-26C) weather with snow banked up everywhere. Some students were being bussed in from 3 nearby cities. Several pastors and many leaders were amongst them. The bitter cold did not hold them back as people walked and waited for buses in sub-freezing temperatures. It was minus 26? C
(about -15? F) when we arrived and it did not get much warmer for days.

Almost 200 students pray earnestly at opening of the 16th School

The fuel lines froze up in the vehicle, while we were driving from the airport to the city of Krasnoarmeisk, and the car stalled. It was around 5 AM with no cars or people around. The driver adjusted the blanket over the engine and could do little else, so we prayed and, thankfully, the engine started again. We got to our destination safely! The rooms we had were so cold that we had to wear our heavy coats in our rooms. Since the apartment was not ready, we stayed in an orphanage, (where the coal was running out) and our rooms reached only some 55? F (12C) in the daytime. This is where we stayed, ate and slept. It was very cold there and then we found out they were running out of coal. We gave a total of $400 dollars to buy four and half tons of coal for the orphans. This is good for about a month of severe weather.

<-- Side view of building in village of Kaminka Dniprovska we purchased for $3,500.00.
The other side view of building in Kaminka Dniprovska -->

Our first school in the Donetsk Region got off to a fabulous start. We had a packed out school with students sitting along the walls and even on the platform. We had expected about 120 students but we had almost 200. The facility was packed with very hungry and enthusiastic students, eager to learn and to put into use the vital teaching they were to receive. The building really would handle 150 so you can see we were packed. The response and enthusiasm was so great that we expect this school may be one of the best we have had. Working these past years with Walter Zygarewicz of Global Vision, we have helped train over 2,000 workers and most of them are now in ministry. With the overflowing auditorium it became so very hot. We perspired freely and then had to face the cold when we left. Many of the people walked long distances in the cold. We did have one bus that brought many of the local folks but if I say that the bus was packed like sardines in a can, I am not overstating it.
Tony Abram with the 2 pastors of the villages where we purchased the 2 buildings for local churches.	Walter Zygarewicz was very happy over the school!		Tony Abram teaches the Word
The Donetsk province is one of the few areas of Ukraine in which we had not ministered. We also had a seminar for the pastors of the Donetsk area. There were about 50 plus that attended the Pastor?s Seminars. We had a warm reception from the pastors and leaders of the entire region. The area suffers from a lack of trained pastors and leaders due to immigration of many to the US and the start of numerous new churches. Many of them had their best workers attending the school. We were also able to pay the remainder of the pledges we had made for the buildings we purchased by faith two months earlier. Praise the Lord! We did buy two more buildings on this mission trip, which are number 98 and 99 buildings this ministry has purchased in the last dozen years in the former USSR. Building number 98 is in the village of Kaminka, Zaporizhia province, which had been a small public school, for $3,500.00. It was ready for the local church to move in to.
Purchased building for $2,000.00 in the village of Osikovo, Donetsk. It also came with a garage and summer cook house.
Then building number 99 in the village of Oshsovo, Donetsk province, we purchased for the local church, a house, (with a natural gas hook up) garage and summer building for $2,000.00. The pastors were so filled with joy, telling how it would affect their area, having their own building. The people would begin to respect them as a real church congregation. They also were telling how they would do the work to remodel it for their services. The people are so poor; especially in the villages they are so very grateful.
Tony Abram teaching class. Note students sitting on the platform				The Lord spoke to her to keep singing after being inspired hearing Marge.
Thank you for your prayers and support to help make our ministry possible. There were many good testimonies but one special one was a 45-year-old gospel singer. She was thinking that perhaps she was getting too old to continue to sing. She stated that after she heard Marge speak and sing, the Lord spoke to her that she could be like Marge and that much of her ministry still lies ahead in her life. I thought, as she told this, we are never too young or too old to be used of God.
Walter wears his winter coat and cap in room to keep warm.		Tony warms his hands over heater in his room.
For example, the boy David and the giant and then Moses was 80 years old before he was called to the ministry. Please pray for this school and its students that God will raise many of the 5 fold ministry we read of in Ephesians 4:11 KJV and he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; from among this fresh group of workers.
Tony teaching the pastors of the province on the Keys to the Harvest of Ukraine!
Donetsk is the most densely populated Oblast (province) of Ukraine with 5.5 Million people. It is a heavy mining and metal industry region next to Russia and has been a big player in recent elections. There is great expectation in this heavily industrialized part of Ukraine. The city was known as Yuzovka in pre-Revolutionary times named after the Welshman, John Hughes, who in 1872 founded an ironworks operation to produce iron rails for the growing Russian rail network. After the October Revolution of 1917, Yuzovka was renamed Stalino and then, in 1961, Donetsk.
Over the years, brothers and sisters like you that have carried us with their prayers and faith. Thank you for your support. One day we will share together when we lay our crowns before the Lord. ?What a day that will be when my Jesus we shall see. Yes, what a glorious day that will be!? God bless you is our prayer. Tony and Marge Abram.