Catching Up

Posted on August 29, 2026 by Nathan

It's hard to believe that so much time has passed since our last update! I apologise for the radio silence and hopefully I'll be able to do a better job getting updates out in the future. However, the silence hasn't been for lack of things to write about. Time to get caught up!

Last October, our team made a UGO (Ukraine Gospel Outreach) trip to eastern Ukraine. We held meetings in 12 villages and 1 city, most of which had been previously occupied by the Russians. About 1,000 people received a package of humanitarian aid, evangelistic literature (including a Good and Evil), and heard the Gospel. We were encouraged by how well things went and are planning to make a similar trip this coming October. To learn more about UGO, click here. To see pictures from the 2025 UGO trip, click here.

Sharing the Gospel in a small village in eastern Ukraine.

As soon as I returned from our trip, it was time to switch into moving mode. After living exclusively in apartments while in Ukraine, we had finally found a house with a yard in a town just outside Lviv. The first several months in our new house were hard. The house was old, neglected, and janky, it was farther away from friends, the winter was extra cold, and Russian attacks on Ukraine's electrical infrastructure meant that we were often without power for up to 12 hours per day. (Many thanks to our friends at North Belt for helping us purchase a generator!) But spring came, like it always does. The weather warmed up, the power situation stabilized, the fruit trees in the yard bloomed, and our investment began to pay dividends. The kids can go outside whenever they want to play, create, climb trees, or just blow off steam. In the words of Lydia, "Moving out here was the best decision you and Mom have made in years!"

Our family (minus Kiera) in front of our new house on the day we moved in.

You might remember that we had a batch of about 11,000 Good and Evil books being printed before our trip east. Some of the books were drop-shipped to various locations for the trip, and the remainder (about 10,000) were shipped to Lviv after the trip. We will distribute some of the books ourselves, but the vast majority will be distributed by a network of distributors. It's been encouraging to see the reports that are coming in; here is an excerpt from one of them: "These books were a wonderful gift for children of parents who are alcoholics. The books help to brighten up the time, and let the children know about a better life with God and forgiveness. They help them to not lose hope that things will get better, and understand that they have a better Friend and a better Father in heaven."

Lydia and Josh carry boxes of Good and Evil books from our basement and load them in the Steele's van for shipping.

As the war drags on, the number of men from our church that are serving in the military continues to grow. This has resulted in opportunities to serve in our local church. Katelin stepped up earlier in the year and joined the music ministry as a singer. I (and the kids) run sound when the main sound tech is out of town, and I recently found myself in charge of the music ministry for the month of August while the Steele family is in the States for the wedding of their oldest daughter, Abigail.

Katelin and I sing together along with the rest of the music team.

We are happy to report that Lydia recently made the decision to get baptised! We are excited to see her following the Lord, and pray that she would continue to do so.

Our pastor, Mykhailo, and I prepare to baptise Lydia.

I'll close with a couple other items/prayer requests:

I broke my finger a couple months ago, so I would appreciate your prayers for a full recovery.
As I continue to work with a functional practitioner, I'm making (slow) headway on my general health. There's still more progress to me made, though.
Our ministry needs a new bank account. As the treasurer, that's something that I've been working on, and it's proving to me much harder and more complicated that I expected.

Be sure to pop over to the About Us page to snag a copy of our newest prayer card!