A very merry update!!!

Since the last time we blogged, many things have happened…the crunch of leaves has turned into the crunch of snow under our shoes, Christmas carols can now be heard almost everywhere you go, and Egg Nog has made its way into many tummies. A lot of things have been happening for Dave and me as we’ve been preparing for our upcoming trip to Krivoy Rog, Ukraine.

In our last letter we asked for prayer about some specific things that need to happen before we would be able to leave for Ukraine. Well, I am very happy to let you know that God has already provided for many of these particular needs. Thank you so much for your prayers! Because of how things are coming together, we have set a tentative departure date of February 14, 2007.

Within the first week of fund raising, 25% of our financial needs were provided for. As of today we have raised 77% of what we need for the two years. We have been very humbled to see God provide for us.

Not long after our first letter was sent out, we heard about a family who was immigrating to Canada from Morocco. A little over a week ago we moved out of our house so that they could move in. We are very excited to have this new brother and sister of ours (in Christ!) and their children living in our home and using our stuff while we are away. As we prepared our house for its new tenants, we realized that very shortly we would be relying on believers overseas in a very similar way to help us get settled in Ukraine. God is so good as he weaves our lives together with others and simultaneously meets our needs. Dave’s parents have been very kind in opening their home to us, letting us live with them, and drink their egg nog! Dave is in his glory, reliving his childhood Christmas memories!

We had also asked prayer for someone to purchase our car. (Well) That too is already taken care of. The dealership who sold us the car has already voiced their willingness to buy our car back for more than we owe on it. So, as soon as we don’t need it anymore, we will bring it to them! (The manager of the dealership was born and raised in Ukraine, so it seems he is sympathetic to our cause!) I shake my head in light of how God has orchestrated details like this. We are so humbled.

Along with the many individuals who have already partnered with us financially, we have also had many people commit to praying for us regularly. We are praying that we would have at least 24 people who are committed to praying for us regularly and throughout our time in Ukraine. No matter how well our finances come together, without prayer fueling us and the ministry we will be participating in, we will be absolutely ineffective. For, “from [God] and through [God] and to [God] are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:36). If you think of it, please pray for us. We continue looking to God to:

-be our strength, joy and foundation as we prepare
-keep us united and strong in our marriage
-give us wisdom in the next two months for how to prepare spiritually, mentally, and physically
-provide for our remaining financial needs, visas, and travel details

I hope you’ve enjoyed our update! Please let us know if you have any questions or would like to just get together and chat. millers.ukraine@yahoo.ca. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

We are moving out! Moroccans are moving in!

Wow! A lot of very exciting things have been happening for us lately! We have sent out letters and emails to tell friends and family about our plans to go to Krivoy Rog and we have gotten an incredible response! In one week we raised 23% of what we need! We have 24 other people who have shown interest but are thinking about how much they’d like to give! Also, many people have committed to praying for us and keeping us accountable with how we spend our time.

In light of this encouraging response, we feel good about stepping forward and making February 1st our take off date, provided we have the funds in place. We hope to contact our friends and family who have shown interest in supporting us financially to see if they had a certain amount in mind. This will help us very much with our planning. If our potential supporters still feel good about helping us out, and the timing is good for them, we hope that they will be able to respond in the next couple of weeks so we can start working on our visas and travel details.

We also want to find out if people on our mailing list would be interested in receiving email updates. Please let us know if you would like to be added to our list by emailing us at millers.ukraine@yahoo.ca

You are probably wondering about the Blog title "We are moving out! Moroccans are moving in!” Well, this is an incredible story of God's sovereignty and I hope I can do it justice in telling it. For the past 6 months, Bethany and I have been praying that when we leave, God would use our house and our stuff to bless someone who could use it. We always hoped that it would be a family from overseas, like missionaries or a refugee family from a Muslim country. We really didn't tell anyone about this prayer and a couple weeks ago, God gave us almost exactly what we were asking for! Through a contact at work, we have a family of 4 from Morocco coming to live at our house and use all our stuff starting on Dec. 1st! I wish I could give more details but I don’t know how much I can say about it on the internet. Sorry for the mystery... =)

Dad Miller tying our box spring to his minivan

There have also been some incredible developments happening over in Krivoy Rog! It looks like we might have a place to live, and the people in Ukraine are very excited about us getting there soon to help out. There is an amazing Canadian family there who has been so helpful to us. We hope to help them out with their ministry which has a lot to do with helping orphans. They are the nice people who will hopefully rent us a place to live. If you'd like to learn more about these great people, you can check out their website. http://www.halonen.ca/

I have been working on a recording arts curriculum and some ideas about how to use music and recording as a way to build relationships and help people make better choices in their lives. (The best choice we hope to offer is to invite the youth to make Jesus their king and greatest treasure!)

Well… that’s not all the news, but it will have to do for now. =)

-Dave of Dave and Bethany Miller

We're going to Ukraine, Lord willing

Hello everybody, we are excited to post this news to all our friends and we hope that this method will be effective. In the near future we hope to have some more detailed information, but for now, here is a picture and links to FLN and Shelter plus.