Kremenchuk, Ukraine Newsletter

Doug Berry, Missionary    Volume No. 6 Issue No. 1A    Date September 15, 2007

Late Greetings Part 1

This newsletter is long overdo and I apologize for the delay.  I do have a great deal to catch you up on since I last wrote to you. I decided to make this the first of 2 installments.  This first installment will deal with the 2 camps that we had this summer. I do thank you for patience and continued support of this work.  I am sure that I must have the best supporters of any missionary ever as you have faithful stayed with this work over the last 5 years! Thank you very much!

5 Years

September 13^th was the completion date of my 5^th year anniversary of my being apart of the Lord’s work in Kremenchuk, Ukraine.  So much has happened over these last 5 years, most of it very good!  Of course there have been trials!  That is to be expected.  Our enemy, the prince of this world, Satan, is alive and well.  However he is not near as strong or powerful as our great God!  “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Romans 8:31.  It has been said that we are either coming out of a trial, getting ready to go into a trial or in a trial. God is not so much interested in our happiness as He is in interested in our holiness.  If we are being recreated in His image. Ephesians 4:24 says “...put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” It has been our desire and plan to fulfill this mission of Christ in the hearts and lives of the people of Ukraine over the last 5 years.

June VBS Day Camp

      We decided to do something different with teaching our younger age kids (4^th-7^th grades) this year.  I wrote about what we planned to do in the June Newsletter. Basically it went as planned – can you believe that!?  It’s true! James Vaughan directed this camp and did a very good job with it.

     We advertised it mostly in the schools where we are already working, plus a few others where we have some contacts.  We averaged 15 kids over the 4 weeks of this camp.  Our main costs of this camp was feeding 20+ people (workers and teachers, too) a day and our Friday excursions.  We had several parents go with us on our excursions, which was a real plus in getting to know more parents.

     I am going to share several pictures with you from this camp and let the pictures tell some of the stories that went along with camp.

Kelli Himebaugh teaching one of our early Bible

Classes to the 5^th and 6^th graders.

A discussion group with ages mixed from the

6^th grade to the 9^th grade with me.

We went on an excursion to a historic site of a

Kasak village and the kids had a great time!

Doug’s Contact Information

Cell Phone: 011-380-96-564-4311

Home Phone: 011-380-536-791-737

Internet Number in the USA: 931-442-0937 (you can call it and I will get it in Ukraine!)

Email: doug_berry2001@yahoo.com

USA contact: Steve Jefferson: 931-433-0189

5^th Annual Black Sea

Bible Camp

     Remember what I said about trials earlier?  Camp was a real struggle and trial this year. A week before camp began, I sprained my ankle very badly (it is much better now, but not yet completely well).  At first, the Drs. even thought it was broken and put me in a cast.  That was on a Friday and on Monday, we had the x-rays taken to another Dr. and they confirmed it was only a bad sprain, but they wanted me to keep the cast on to immobilize it.  Drs. and friends in the states said I should take it off so I could ice it, etc.  So we cut it off on Tuesday.  I went to camp without crutches on Friday evening.

     We took 43 people to camp with us this summer to a “brand new camp.”  Well it was brand new and not completely finished and a very dirty place.  We got a real bargain on the price – 600 grievnas or $120 per person for 13 days.  The other cheapest place we could have gone was closer to 1000 grievnas for the same period of time.  Another reason that the place was so cheep was because the food was so little and so poor!  Everyone lost weight – I guess that is good!  Also, the owner/cook of the camp was very much opposed to our Christian teachings and never failed to take the chance to put us and our faith down whenever she could.  We had several confrontations with her that were very difficult, to say the least.  We were told that we would have a lot of room to play games with our kids.  There were some empty fields near by, but they were all filled with thistles and thorns!  Then 2 of our oldest campers, one boy and one girl caused us all kind of problems in not following the rules.

     So what good came from camp?  Really, many things!  We had some great Bible lessons and devotionals!  We grew together because of the trials and difficulties.  We learned that we could depend on others when we had hard times.  We very much enjoyed the Black Sea this year.  The weather was hot and the sea was a great temperature.  We had no baptisms this year at camp, but we have 2 girls that are much more seriously considering this for their lives.  God is good!  We will learn and grow from this camp!  One thing we learned for sure, is that we definitely will not do camp with those same people again!

Our Black Sea Camp!

Room at the end is the dining room. We often pulled the chairs outside for skits, games and devos.  No campfires for us this year – no wood!

Closing Devo where we presented best servant and best camper awards. Best boy and girl servants on the left and on the right best campers.

In a short time, I will send you our upcoming plans for this fall and

long term plans for the future.