"I want to pray for you. Well, I will as soon as I learn how to pray."

This is what a man said to me after I had a chance to speak at his church. Surprised by this, I walked away as the man went back to looking at a Bible with a friend of mine. I talked to my friend later, and he told me that this man accepted Christ that day!

That was one of many blessings God gave me in my hectic yet very good speaking schedule. I've had opportunities to speak to men, women, youth, and seniors. I've spoken in Sunday schools, a missions conference, a luncheon, an evening service, and I've preached the Sunday morning sermon. So, my prayer to learn by getting opportunities to preach and teach was more than answered! I've been particularly amazed by God often yielding greater results when I'm less prepared and when things seem to not go as well. I won't stop preparing, but it just shows that it's God who makes the seeds grow, and sometimes He does it despite a poor job of watering!

My speaking schedule is now done for the year. December will be a time of recharging and preparing for future ministry. I plan to spend December 21-28 with my parents in Chicago, and in January, I have a meeting with a church mission board and a trip out to Denver for my Phase II of training with CBI.

A More Steady Job

Now, I have grown a lot in my "itinerant preaching" ministry, but as many of you know, I really love having chances to teach regularly. And yes, God has given me that chance! I am now volunteering for my former college fellowship group, the Princeton Evangelical Fellowship. I'm teaching two "personal hours" weekly with college students named Hide (pronounced Heeday) and Moto. We've been studying basic issues of the Christian faith in Romans and doing a survey of Genesis, looking for connections between the Old and New Testament. It's been great to see them work through difficult issues of the faith and grow in their love and devotion to Christ.

Prayer Requests:

The incumbent, Leonid Kuchma, won the Ukrainian presidential election. Please pray for him and his government, that religious freedom would continue in that strategic country

Pray for the two Princeton students I meet with, Hide and Moto, that they would grow in their walk with Christ

Pray that the Lord would raise up the remaining prayer and financial support needed so that I could leave for the Russian speaking world next summer

Pray that God would recharge me in December, that I could prepare for new opportunities to speak and minister in the coming year

Options, Options, Options...

If you'd like to receive my weekly /bi-weekly e-mail prayer updates (usually a couple of paragraphs in length), please send me an e-mail (listed above)

If you are already praying for me daily or weekly, but haven't let me know, please tell me! It would really encourage me and help me to know where to send prayer requests

If you're into the internet, you can look at my new website: http://www.blarg.net/~maruchck/jw/jw.html

Finally, I wanted to thank you again for your prayers and interest in my ministry. I hope that you have a wonderful Christmas, growing in awe and love for our Lord who came down to be with us so that we could one day be with Him.

In His love,

John

Support Update:

* CBI has confirmed 30% of monthly support.

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