JEANNIE TABB
Wow! We have finished the English club in Ostroh! There were classes from 6:00-9:00 Monday through Friday. Personal meetings with students in the afternoons where we met for coffee and shared our Life Maps – highlights from our lives and how God is working. Today, Saturday, we had our final party: played games and gave certificates and took lots of pictures. This evening we had a celebration dinner with the American team and volunteers where we shared how God answered prayer this week and how He changed us. There have been many good surprises, especially sunny weather every day and students returning to in person classes the day we began. A big surprise for the volunteers was that students were not turned off by meeting in a church. They were so nervous that students wouldn’t come to a church building, but they said the students hardly noticed. Americans and English were a big attraction! They don’t have much opportunity to talk to a native speaker. One student commented that there was a very warm atmosphere in the group. Others said it was an amazing time.
One of the highlights for me was having volunteers join us each morning after our breakfast for the devotional time. We invited an American or a Ukrainian to share their testimony. Someone else shared from the Bible and we prayerd together. I’ve noticed in past English clubs how it seems the war doesn’t exist because we don’t talk about it or experience it during the club. But it was in the testimonies, through tears, that we heard the depth of their pain and the loss maybe of a home or a family member or their dreams for the future. Yet, there is also joy in how God is working and changing them and using them to share the love of God with other students.
Another moving time was meeting the four chaplians the church sends out to minister to soldiers at the front lines. We brought some supplies – tourniquets, headlamps, thermal underwear, and a medical kit and some car parts for their 2011 Ford Expedition that they drive to front every month. They serve communion to the soldiers and share the gospel to men and women who are headed into battle. Many of them won’t return. It is a heavy, but very significant ministry. We were happy to play a small role and hope to do more in the future. I’ve attached some pictures.
Tomorrow morning, Sunday, our van rolls away at 7:00am back to Warsaw. The American team flies home on Monday and I will fly to Budapest on Tuesday to meet the second team that arrives next week. If you read this on Saturday, you can pray that our border crossing will be smooth and fast. It is expected to be longer leaving Ukraine, four hours or more.
God is at work in Ukraine in the midst of great turmoil and suffering. Pray that the war ends soon.
Michael Bryant2026-03-07T16:51:32-05:00