Why I Care About Ukraine by Elysia

Yesterday at the MN State Capitol at a rally to support Ukraine

Today as I was driving home from work, I was listening to the BBC world news report on the radio and thinking about Ukraine.  I began to cry again as I have done on and off over the past couple weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine about eleven days ago.  I have felt disbelief, anger, worry, and even a sense of “getting used” to the now present reality of a Russian war against Ukraine.  We have prayed a lot since we heard these reports and admittedly I have been obsessed with news from Ukraine.  We have tried to contact various friends and have talked with friends here in the U.S. who also worked in Ukraine.  For my friends who do not know me well or have only met me recently, I care about Ukraine because we made Ukraine our home for two years beginning in 2004.  Two years is a short time to live in a place, but we truly love the land and the people of Ukraine.

Though we experienced hardships when we lived in Ukraine, we remember our time there with much pleasure.  We worked with a missionary team from Calvary Chapel at a church plant in Pryluki, a couple of hours East of Kyiv.  We have so many memories of the beautiful friends we met there.  The brothers and sisters in Christ we shared our lives with at the church helped to strengthen our faith in Christ and were beautiful joy-filled Christians.  Many came from darkness into light when they met Jesus through the missionaries.  We shared meals, Bible studies, and prayer meetings together.  We sang together.  We worshipped the Lord together.  When our daughter, Elizabeth, was born while we were living in Ukraine, the ladies from church loved to hold and rock her.  They loved her.  I thank God for our friends in Ukraine.

We also loved the land of Ukraine.  We bought a house because we were unable to find a place to rent.  Our house was a special place that I will remember for my whole life long.  It had so many fruit and nut trees, a very large backyard garden, and a small Summer house and root cellars behind.  We made some improvements to the house by adding an indoor toilet, a new heating system, carpeting, paint, and a door to the bathroom.  We also upgraded the electrical wiring, brought in cabinets, and added security bars over the windows.  Many of these improvements were a team effort through the help of our fellow missionaries, especially Danny.  Our neighbor ladies on both sides were such hardworking souls.  They labored over their gardens and kept months of potatoes and cabbages and other root vegetables in their cellars for the winter.  Once our neighbor lady, Maria, gave us a Pippi Longstocking doll that her granddaughter had bought on a trip to Sweden.  The other neighbor once came over warning us that our two-year-old son was climbing the fire escape stairs to the attic above the house!  We talked about vegetables and weeding gardens, and we talked about why we came to Ukraine - God.  We felt their love.

Love is powerful.  Love binds people together.  I will always love the people and the land of Ukraine.  I pray now for their peace, freedom, and especially the opportunity to worship God for all their days.  I will continue to pray for Ukraine and check the news often to read about the war.  Lord, have mercy on Ukraine.

On to Asia

When we set out to train pastors, Asia was always in my mind.  One night long before Ethan was working overseas as a trainer, a dream captured my attention.  A young Asian woman travelled miles through a hot desert past obstacles.  Hot and thirsty, she pressed on and into the mountains.  She became so weary, her shirt was torn and her back sun-scorched.  Collapsing on a wooden chair next to a small desk, the youth arrived in a classroom full of church leaders listening intently to God's word as it was carefully expounded and instructed by my husband.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled."  Matthew 6:6

Through years of uncertainty, waiting, working, studying, and, yes, faithfully training church leaders overseas, God has finally brought Ethan to a place full of young believers in Asia hungry for doctrine.  These church leaders will travel from the capital city and also from remote areas to study the redemptive history within Scripture.  Ethan along with two other teachers will teach TLI's non-formal curriculum for Biblical Theology (a personal favorite class of his).  The trip within this sparsely populated country will last twelve days.  The students are first generation believers and ready to receive all that God's word would bless them with these days.  PRAY!

Newletter Time!

Ethan is leaving this afternoon on a long airplane ride to Northern Romania.  He will begin a three year relationship with the pastors in that region teaching them and training them in Bible, theology and preaching.  As I am sitting down to write a newsletter, I realized there are several friends, relatives, and acquaintances who may not receive our email prayer requests.  We send these out every time Ethan travels and periodically throughout the year.

I invite you to sign up today with your most current email address  Please click this link and complete the simple form to sign up for our prayer newsletters.  Thank you!

Romania Monastery Building, 2015

Hitherto Hath The Lord Helped Us Part I

Why are missionaries leaving their posts in other countries? Which of these reasons are preventable? How can we care for missionaries so that Christ's commission to "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel" may be accomplished?  I hope to explore some of these questions in a couple of short blog posts, with great help from the research project conducted by WEC titled "ReMap" meaning 'Reducing Missionary Attrition Project' conducted in 1994 and later in 2003 ReMap II focusing on the U.S. as a sending country.  William David Taylor compiled a book titled "Too Valuable to Lose: Exploring the Causes and Cures of Missionary Attrition" copyright 1997 by the William Carey Library.  Google books has a lot of this book available to read for free online.  The ReMAP research project accomplished much by not only researching agencies from the Old Sending Countries (i.e. USA, UK, Germany, etc.) but also researching agencies from the New Sending Countries such as Brazil, Korea, Nigeria, and the Philippines, to name a few.  Amongst the New Sending Countries, the number one and two reasons given for leaving the mission field were:

1. Lack of Home Support (the financial and prayer network)
2. Lack of Call (a clear call to missions from God)

This is in contrast to missionaries sent from Old Sending Countries which named these top reasons for attrition:

1. Normal Retirement
2. Children  (e.g. education, adjustment issues, etc.)

[Too Valuable to Lose, pg.92-93]

Though the financial support question for missionaries from the Majority World is an obvious danger, missionaries from the U.S. can struggle, too, with making ends meet and providing the necessary support system to accomplish their work for the Kingdom.  Missionaries may struggle whether to go to the doctor or not for serious health issues because they do not have the money necessary to go.  They may have trouble with finding adequate transportation because of needed car repairs or lack of a car altogether. Others struggle with how to educate their children without the funds necessary to do so.  I see two important solutions to these problems:

1. Despite our perceived lack, we put our hope and trust in God, who will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5) A deep abiding trust is needed to keep going in our call to serve.  We can learn much from Hudson Taylor, missionary to China in the 19th Century, on this topic of trust.

Clearly, the highest value for Taylor was that of trust in God, who can always be counted on. Ebenezer ("Hitherto hath the Lord helped us") and Jehovah jireh ("The Lord will provide") became his watchwords.

Through his entire ministry, Taylor's trust was tested in regard to financial support. Inspired by George Muller, he decided to avoid debt like the plague, and to make no appeal for funds except to God Himself. He was not averse to describing a need, but he resolutely let God inspire the giving and saw the blessing, with unexpected finances coming when most needed. "Money wrongly placed and money given from wrong motives are both to be greatly dreaded," he said. "Depend upon it, God's work done in God's way will never lack God's sup plies." One time he noted, "We have twenty-five cents and all the promises of God."

[Ed Gallagher, article "Hudson Taylor: the man God shaped for China," Ministry Journal, November 2005]  We have seen this over and over again in our years of ministry.  God will never forsake the righteous.  He is always faithful.

2. Every effort must be made by the Church to send missionaries well-equipped and continue to support them in private and corporate prayer, through adequately funding their efforts, and by providing as much missionary care as possible.  We must look beyond ourselves and look to God whose economy is not ours and from Whom all blessings flow, see where He is working, and become a part of obeying Christ's commission to "Go."  As John Piper has so famously spoken, "Go, send, or disobey." May we store up treasures in heaven by supporting the teachers and preachers of the Gospel both here in our home country and abroad to preach the Gospel where Christ has never been named.

Sowing Seeds 2014

I encourage you to watch this video. You will see where our ministry of teaching God's Word has taken Ethan this past year. We praise God for the privilege to work in His Kingdom.

A Beautiful Snow

The beautiful snow-covered trees in our town.

This winter has been lovely in Minnesota.  We have had light snow and pretty cold temps.  A couple of nights ago we had heavy snow that amounted to about eight inches on the ground and the canceling of school yesterday. Because I love the Psalms so much and think about the Bible often, these verses come to mind whenever it snows:

 He sends out His command to the earth;His word runs very swiftly.¹⁶ He gives snow like wool;He scatters the frost like ashes;¹⁷ He casts out His hail like morsels;Who can stand before His cold?¹⁸ He sends out His word and melts them;He causes His wind to blow, and the waters flow. Psalm 147:15-18

I am picturing the Almighty God commanding the weather.  Whatever He says it happens.  His word is powerful and very effective.

I think also about the word of God that is going out throughout the world even today. I think about all my friends who are sharing the Good News about Jesus: Tracy and Zhenya in Kyrgyzstan, Pastor Vlad and his family in Priluki, the faithful missionaries I visited in Chad last year, the McNamees in Chernihiv, and my faithful friends at ICS Bangkok where I taught art classes for two years in the 1990s. I think about the Bible that is being translated into other languages.  My brother-in-law, Marcos, is still working on the Gospel of Luke to be used in the Bilala language version of the Jesus Film and in other materials.  I am thinking about the faithful servants who are using their intellect and physical strength to pour over words and meanings in order to communicate the Bible in the heart language of native peoples.  I love these missionaries, and I praise God for the word that is going forth.

I am also thinking about those who are suffering because of their faith in Jesus and for believing the precious promises of God's word.  Our friend, Saeed in prison in Iran, who loves his family, the people of Iran, and most of all, Jesus.  He is paying a severe price for his love.  In another place, my dearest friend, Tracy, is laying in a hospital tonight in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan for appendicitis.  They performed surgery to remove the appendix, and she is doing okay right now.  But we pray that no infection will come because the hospitals are not known to be very reliable and sanitary. I thank God for her and for all the workers there, who faithfully proclaim God's word, despite persecution and physical problems.

I believe that God's word will accomplish all that He desires for it.  He says it, and it happens.  God is faithful and true, and faith is being formed in hearts through the proclamation of this word and the power of the Father who draws people unto Jesus, by His grace and for His glory.

May the Word of God dwell richly
In my heart from hour to hour,
So that all may see I triumph
Only through His power.

Spread The Joy

Hearing children's author Sally Lloyd-Jones this past Friday in Minneapolis gave me an appreciation once again for the power of a good story.  Ms. Lloyd-Jones wove the events of her childhood growing up in Uganda, then at a boarding school in England, into a tale of wonder and interest.  Stories from the Bible became imaginative, heart affecting masterpieces that drew tears to my eyes as she read excerpts from her award-winning book The Jesus Storybook Bible.  Ms. Lloyd-Jones is not only an amazing author, but a vivid storyteller.  This line from her book captured my attention and my emotions:  The One who made us has come to live with us.

These are some of her convictions as she taught us how to tell good stories to children:

Always start with a story.
Life is a great adventure.
Give the gift of faith.
Nothing but excellence will do with children.
Quality must be high.
Write up to children, not down.
The power of the story is the story, not the lesson.
A story invites imagination.
Listen to what is left out.
Be concise.
A story uses rich language; language is the power of the story.
A story tells the truth.
A story reaches the heart.
Leave room for mystery.
A story wakes you up.
The moral code always leaves us in despair. We do not need a moral code, we need a Rescuer.
Hope isn't glossing over things; it is telling the truth.
Hope is a direction. Children don't need an escape, they need a direction.
A story is a performance.

After hearing about it for two years now, I finally bought a copy of The Jesus Storybook Bible for my children.  I had it autographed by the author last Friday.  I now can share in the joys of these stories along with some orphans in Ukraine who also own a copy of their own, thanks to In Lumine and the donations of many who believe in this project.  A few years ago some missionary friends of ours in Ukraine began the long, expensive process of translating, publishing, and printing The Jesus Storybook Bible into both Russian and Ukrainian.  They now have a ministry where they are giving away copies to orphans throughout the country of Ukraine.  This project is called Bibles for Orphans, and you can be a part of giving to these needy orphans by donating at their website: biblesfororphans.com.  A gift of only $3 will provide one of these storybook Bibles to an orphan child in Ukraine.

Keep On Praying...Ministry Prayer Requests

Iasi, Romania       September 30 - October 8

Wanted to share a quick update on what's happening in our ministry and family. Romania Bound I have been meeting with my Romania teaching team this month and am impressed at the great men I get to teach with. Take a minute to meet them on our website!  We will be in Romania Sept 29th to Oct 8th. We begin in a church in Brasov the first Sunday, then teach classes Monday to Friday in Iasi (say: “Yahsh”). Iasi is in the NE part of the country and is the second largest city in Romania. The city and surrounding area is strongly Orthodox, and Evangelicals are an even smaller minority here than in the rest of the country. We will be teaching pastors mostly from the Baptist Union. These students have already gone through a few TLI classes so we are excited to be teaching a Biblical Theology course and help them see the whole scope and story of scripture. We will be teaching in churches in Iasi the following weekend. Please pray for me as I prepare, and for our team as we travel and serve these pastors, and for the strengthening of churches in Romania.  TLI Staff Meeting TLI has one of our three anual staff meetings the week before I leave for Romania. I am blessed to work with a great group of brothers, and look forward to being together. We have lots of work to do, and there is a TLI board meeting as well, so it will be a busy time. Its an especially important week as the TLI board will be deciding on a future location for TLI headquarters. We are adding a number of staff in the next year, and our teaching opportunities are multiplying quickly, so this is a big decision for all involved. Please pray for the Lord's wisdom, guidance and blessing for TLI Board and Staff. Support Raising The summer has been a slower time for support raising, but God has been faithful, and brought us a number of new supporters this month! Praise the Lord with us! I will be traveling and sharing about TLI in the Midwest and out to Boise in October and November. Please pray for our continued Support Raising efforts, and praise God for the team He is building! Family School is back in session, and our kids are at a home-school coop two days a week and home with Elysia for three. Busy times, but good to be back in the saddle after a fun and active summer! We would love to hear from you and what you are up to! Drop us a line or find us on Facebook! Grace Mercy and Peace!  The Ethan Larson Family

Ministry News by Elysia

Our road to serving God through Training Leaders International is moving forward. Ethan is preparing to serve in Athens, Greece in June 2012. He will be teaching along with a team of other teachers the subject of Biblical Theology to pastors and church leaders congregating in Athens. This short-term trip will be about ten days long.

In order to prepare for these teaching trips, Ethan is currently support raising for his yearly salary and mission trip costs for TLI. So far this spring, Ethan has traveled by car to Idaho (twice), Arizona, and Colorado to meet with friends and relatives sharing the vision God has given us to teach and minister to church leaders around the world.  In fact, today he will be returning from Idaho where he spent a week meeting with friends there to share about our mission work.

Are you interested in joining us in our team of prayer and financial supporters?  If so, please contact Ethan or visit the Training Leaders International support page in order to receive more information about supporting us.  Please let Ethan know if you would like him to meet with you to talk about TLI and our vision for teaching and training Biblical, Christ-centered leaders throughout the world.

Praise and Prayer Requests

1. PRAISE: We are already building a team of supporters who are interested in seeing the Gospel taught and leaders built up to advance the ministry of Jesus Christ throughout the world.
2. PRAISE: Ethan will be joining a team of teachers in June to Athens, Greece!
3. PRAYER NEED: Ethan's studies as he prepares to teach Biblical Theology.
4. PRAYER NEED: Spirit-filled and Gospel-centered teaching that glorifies God and builds up the Church throughout the world.
5. PRAYER NEED: Financial provision and prayer support.
6. PRAYER NEED: A long-term base for the Larsons to work from. Strength and provision for family life. Spiritual growth and fellowship for the Larsons.

"That Your way may be known on earth, 

Your salvation among all nations." Psalm 67:2

Refreshing

Being with friends who love Jesus and the ministry is always refreshing. Kirk and Mindy Crager, along with their four children, Eva, Sam, Ben, and Annaliese, have begun traveling throughout America to get the word out about their ministry in England. These wonderful servants of Christ have been serving as missionaries in Europe for ten years now. What a blessing they are to the Church and to the world.

We spent two days with the Cragers as they are on their way from Idaho to Chicago. My sister, Anna, is also friends with them so I have a few pictures of Anna included in these photos. Please pray for these dear friends as they will be traveling for a few weeks with four kids. It will be a great blessing, but is always challenging along the way.

Mindy Crager, Anna Everett, and Elysia

Bridgeway Church in Stockport, England (a bureau in Manchester).

More information on the Cragers: http://thecragers.com/

Support Kirk and Mindy Crager and the costs of running a ministry in England at Great Commission Ministries. Type in "Kirk Crager" to be directed to their giving site.

http://www.gcmweb.org/getinvolved/Give.aspx