Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Creator and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Historic moment

October 29th was an historic and exciting day for the United Methodist Churches in Ukraine. Since the Ukraine district of the former Russia Annual Conference was organized in Ukraine, we have looked forward to the day when the United Methodist Church could be registered under Ukrainian law as a denomination. This day finally arrived. On October 29th, 2002, ten locally registered United Methodist churches voted to organize the "Spiritual Administration of the United Methodist Church of Ukraine." This lengthy title is the official name of the United Methodist denomination in Ukraine. Helen and Bill couldn't resist voting as well even though as non-Ukrainian citizens, their vote would not count.

We are waiting now for our application to become an official denomination in Ukraine to be processed by the Ministry of Religion in Ukraine. We should receive the official papers sometime after the New Year, which will also be a time of celebration.

Four of the churches which voted with us were four churches from the Uzhgorod region located in Western Ukraine and currently belonging to the Hungary Annual Conference. These churches have had a history in Ukraine from the 1920's and except for the period from the Stalin administration to the early sixties, the United Methodist church has been active in Uzhgorod. Ivan Vasiliovich Vuxsta, one of the co-founders and pastor of the revived Uzhgorod Methodist church after the Stalinist period, now retired, said "We joined the Hungary Annual Conference with the understanding that when a Ukrainian United Methodist church could be formed in Ukraine, we would join that conference. Now the time has come."

The evening before the vote, Ivan Vasiliovich treated a gathering of the Ukrainian pastors at our apartment to a history of the Uzhgorod churches from the 1920's up to the early 1960's. It was amazing to hear of the stories and the tremendous difficulties under which the congregations labored during the Soviet period just to have the simple freedom to worship which we all enjoy today. We thank God for the faithfulness of the Vuxta family and their contributions to the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and United Methodism in Ukraine. Ivan Vasiliovich's son is pastor now of the Kaminitza (a village outside Uzhgorod) UMC and his grandson-in-law is pastor of the Uzhgorod UMC.

Conference News

As reported in our Spring Newsletter, the Russia Annual Conference was due to vote to split into four Annual Conferences. The vote was successful at our September annual conference and now we are a member of the Southern Russia, Ukraine and Moldova Annual Conference. Immediately after the vote to divide, each new annual conference then held its own "mini-meeting" and elected officers. Using a structure borrowed mainly from the Norwegian Annual Conference (Central Conferences outside the United States have the right to modify the Book of Discipline in order to fit their own particular cultural situations), Bill was elected Chairperson of the Annual Conference. Because of the overall "youth" of the four new annual conferences: no church has been in existence for more than 11 years, the functions of the Board of Ordained Ministry, church development and theological education will be centralized in a body between the annual conference and the central conference called the Russia United Methodist Church Centralized Religious Organization. In part, this new structure also fulfills some roles demanded by the particulars of the religious laws of the Russian Federation. As Chairperson of our annual conference, Bill will serve on the executive committee of this new body. Everything is clear now, right?

District news

In addition to Bill's District Superintendent duties, this year he was appointed to two churches. One of the churches is in Kiev, formerly pastured by a missionary couple from Switzerland, Ruth and Andreas Froesch. After 7 years of continuous service in Ukraine, they have gone home to Switzerland for rest and recuperation and hope to be back in Ukraine by next annual conference (May 2003). Ruth and Andreas were also participants in our street children ministry and to the Froeschs' surprise, a group of them came to see Ruth and Andreas off as they left by train to Switzerland. It was the first time most of the children had been out of their local Kiev region and the first time they had seen the train station!

The second church Bill pastors is in Bila Tserkva, a city 100 kilometers south of Kiev. The city name means White Church and was given because of the prominence of a white Orthodox church near the center of town. The lay leader of the church is Vladimir Krishinovsky, director of a school for children with cerebral palsy and other special needs. Vladimir was a guest delegate to the July 2001 Annual Conference to investigate the possibility of organizing a United Methodist Church A group started meeting regularly in April 2002 with Bill and Helen visiting the group as time allowed. Now Bill has an official appointment and leads services twice per month.

The Bila Tserkva church is unique in that it concentrates its ministry in serving disabled people. On any given Sunday, about half of the congregation are in wheelchairs. Four of the regular attendees have been in accidents leaving them paraplegics. All have expressed their appreciation in having a worship environment where they don't feel so "different". The center is located in an old kindergarten which was given to the Children's Cerebral Palsy Center by the city of Bila Tserkva. Please pray for the church and its ministry.

Street Children Ministry

On a warm day in August, Philip stands before Svetlana, the daily program director of the Kiev UMC Street Children program who is taking his picture for the benefit of donors in the far off, imaginary sounding Norway. Friends say, all kids have homes there. He sways slightly, his eyes half closed, being heavily under the narcotic influence of the glue he has been constantly sniffing this day. Philip looks 11, but is actually 15, close to his 16th birthday. He doesn't know where his parents are, he has an aunt who lives "somewhere" in Kiev. Now his home is a crawl space under a suburban train platform. A large bandage wraps his bone-thin forearm because of a deep cut near his wrist, which he says was NOT self-inflicted, but cut by accident. No one had asked what happened. The accident happened weeks ago, but it is not healing, partly because of glue sniffing, partly because of poor nutrition. Philip complains of a constant pain right between the eyes. . A Bible story was told earlier in the day, but can Philip, awareness dulled by a glue damaged brain, emotions damaged by abuse and 3 years of homelessness, in the words of John Wesley, truly hear the gospel "recognize, confess and heartily regret (his) sins, despising them and also, so far as possible, allowing the wrong that (he) has committed to be put to right and turn faithfully toward God," then to be justified, "saved from the guilt of sin," and finally sanctified ,"saved from the power and root of sin and restored to the image of God?"

If the Gospel is merely mental ascent to doctrinal formulations, then no, there does not seem to be much hope for Philip. But the Gospel includes not only doctrine, it is the grace of Jesus Christ, penetrating to our soul and spirit, it is love lived out in action to others. As the last part of I John 4:20 relates: "…for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen." Through the grace and love of God in our lives, we endeavor to love these children who have hardly ever received love.

As overall director of the Kiev street children's ministry and responsible for social programs in our district, Helen continues to thank God for the continued success of the program, but as you might guess, it takes a lot of time and patience to work with these children. They are not easy to work with as they have had no adult supervision, no education and their mental capabilities are being damaged daily by glue sniffing. Even a 6 year old who has started to come to the program sniffs glue and smokes cigarettes. They are street smart, having had to do anything to survive. These children have severe emotional problems having been abused at home, on the street and exploited by, sadly, pimps and pornographers. They do not trust adults as most adults exploit them.

But love does remarkable things. Svetlana, our Ukrainian director of the program who works 6 days a week with the children, sometimes had her 13-son, Volodya, help her in the ministry this past summer. One day during the program, Helen thanked Volodya for volunteering to come and work. Svetlana hugged him with one arm and said, "Yes, he's a good boy." Sasha, a tough 17-year old who has lived on the streets since he was 12, ducked under her other arm and said, " I'm your son too, aren't I?, I am a good boy too, aren't I?"

These kids are desperate for love, attention and love changes them. They are not "too far gone.", even seemingly impossible cases like Philip, mentioned above. The grace of Christ does reach them When God's love is shown to these children, transformation begins. Svetlana reports how more and more the 25-30 children who come to the program everyday tell her how they talk to God about problems in their lives, pray for each other and rely upon the grace of God. She is surprised, because it seems they barely pay attention to the short Bible lessons. "We mostly spend time with them, play with them, love them" she says. Sharing the Gospel includes words and is more than words.

Our biggest need right now is an inside location, especially as winter approaches. We located a place in August and since that time have been negotiating with local regional authorities in Kiev to actually take possession and use the building. Helen received news from Svetlana that this week that we have received the final signature necessary to rent the half basement of a building. Presently, we still hold the program outside near a local football (soccer) stadium. We have been blessed with an unusually warm October and November, but winter weather is coming.

But after we take possession of the space, we have many needs. We need to repair the interior ourselves. The walls, floors and ceilings are bare concrete. We have no kitchen, bathroom or shower, only the water and electricity connections. Church members, our workers and the kids themselves will participate in the repair. We will build interior walls, buy furniture, put in the kitchen, shower and toilet. We hope to buy a washing machine so the kids can wash their clothes. In the summer the kids "wash" their clothes in a river. Now in winter, they just dry their clothes on a hot pipes in a basement where they live after they have gotten wet from being out in the rain.

Thanks to you, Helen and Bill have this wonderful opportunity and privilege to serve in Ukraine. We appreciate your support both materially and in prayer. If you would like additional opportunities to give than other than just our missionary support, here are the Advance Special numbers needed to make sure donations are 100% given to the intended project:

Bibles and Discipleship Resources: Advance Special number 014052-6. This fund is used to buy Bibles, Sunday School Literature and other Christian literature for use in our churches.

New Church Start-up and Ministries Advance Special number 014053-7. This fund is to help in the planting of new churches and evangelism ministries in Ukraine.

Street Children Ministry Advance Special #014054-8

God bless you as God blesses us through you.

Helen and Bill Lovelace.

Kiev-150 a/c 225 03150 Kiev, UKRAINE

+380 44 202 1591 +380 44 227 4885 fax US 1-404-918-0434 (mobile)