December, 2003

For International Partnerships — staff December has always been a month of all Christmas events and thorough preparation for them. It made this month rather busy and full of team meetings, discussions and new ideas. This year December has been busy from the beginning to the end. December 3-5 there has been a Family conference for IP staff that took place in Kiev. Dr.Barney and Karen Davis and Colleen Harden facilitated this conference. During two days our couples were participating in the seminars on Raising children and How to handle stress in the ministry. They also had opportunity to meet with Barney and Karen individually for personal counseling.

After the conference our American partners visited three cities: Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk and Kharkov. In every city they met with the teams and with team members individually, in Kharkov they also held another Family conference in Kharkov church. It became an evangelistic outreach of Kharkov church since most of the people who participated in the conference were non-believers.

Starting December 20th Christmas celebrations for churches, people from groups and new people took place in all IP cities. That was a great opportunity to build better relationships with people and celebrate our Best Friend’s Birthday. Every such event is full of joy and songs, drama and gifts. This big holiday opens people’s hearts and helps us to share with them the importance of Savior’s birth into this world and the importance of our close relationship with Him.

Pray:

• for all groups and churches of “International Partnerships”
• for starting new groups
• for the staff conference in February
• for regional Leadership Development conferences