Bryan Shufelt

Just wanted to bring y’all up to speed on what has been going on in my life as of late.  The reason you haven’t seen anything posted on here since I asked for prayer about my visa situation is that, up until earlier today, it was not resolved.  I was very hesitant to post on the world wide web that I didn’t have all of my documents in order.  I was stopped in a border region a week ago (on my 180th day), and had my documents checked, so I was a bit gun-shy.  So, here’s the current info:

Josh called today to let me know that my passport had been shipped back to L’viv, and it should be ready to pick up.  After finishing tracting in 2 villages, Nathan and I went to pick it up.  Thankfully, all went well, and it was there ready to pick up.  After taking a breath, I opened the envelope to see if I had been registered (I had not heard for sure).  Flipping through the pages, I found it!  Took up a whole page but there it was!  Finally, I’ll be able to sleep at night  Thank you to all of you who have been praying about this.  It’s been a bit of a pain, but God’s will was done.

For those of you who don’t know, I’ll be flying out of L’viv on Monday heading to the States for a nearly 3 week trip.  I will be attending a discipleship conference in CO lead by Eric Ludy, and I will be attending Patriot Academy in Austin while in the USA.  It will be a full 19 day trip, but I am really looking forward to it!  Plus, I’ll be in town for my Mom’s birthday (which is why no one has heard about it, it was going to be a surprise, but my bank messed up…).  I will be speaking at Fairpark Baptist Church (6000 Crowley Rd, Fort Worth) on Wednesday, August 12th in the 7pm service.  I invite y’all to stop by (if you’re able) and see how the work over here is going.  There should be a Q&A time, so that will be … interesting

Again, thank you so much for the prayers about my registration!  Please keep my trip back to the States in prayer (I’m flying LOT, and have had problems w/ them in the past…), that my trip will be a fruitful trip, and I will learn the lessons I need to  Also, keep in prayer the CMO team.  The project will be concluding while I’m in the States.

Team info Update (click on their name to check out their web page):  The Steele Family will be heading to the States at the end of August for about 8 months.  Nathan Day will be heading back about a month later to GET MARRIED! (Congratulations )  The happy couple will be returning to Ukraine in January 2010.  The Beal Family (or part of them) is going to be making a quick trip to Poland in the next few weeks to get some passport/visa stuff done.  Denise Hutchison is going through the process of registration right now as well, so I’m sure she’d appreciate your prayers.  And through it all, our Bible Course continues to grow (getting close to 400 student! PTL ) and requests for Good and Evil continue to come in!  God is working here in Ukraine!

God bless, see some of y’all soon, some of y’all later, and (prayerfully) all of you in Heaven!

No one but those overseas knows how much trouble this word is…

Let me fill you in on what is going on over here.  Back in May, the Cabinet of Ministers ordered/decreed/passed a law essentially forcing foreigners to either register or be out of the country for half of the year.  Before this point, you had the option of registering or crossing the border every 90/180 days (depending on the latest law).  Crossing the border was way easier and cheaper, so that is what most people did.  Now with this new law, all that has changed.  Now I’m going to switch to my story.

To register you need a letter of invitation, a government document confirming that you live at a certain address, a copy of your passport, and a passport photo.  We have been having trouble with get the address document.  Thankfully, that was taking care of at the end of last week.  Yesterday, I got the passport photos.  All of my documents were in order (at least we thought so…) for this morning’s trip.  I have just over a week left before my initial 180 days runs out.  We went to the OVIR this morning and found out that my letter of invitation was no good, and I had to get a new one.  Since the organization is in Chicago, that means that it’s going to be 5pm this afternoon at the earliest before we can get a hold of them.  This means that we’ll have to wait till the next receiving day (Thursday) to try to register.  Here are a few specific prayer needs:

1.  That we will be able to get a new letter of invitation before Thursday from my inviting organization.  Also, that it will have all of the necessary information in it.

2.  That we will have all the necessary documents in place when we go back to the OVIR on Thursday morning.

3.  That they will accept and approve my request for registration.

Thank you for your prayer support!  God bless!

Yep, this evening I saw my very first opera live…  Allow me to explain…
Evan Hein leaves on Sunday, and we wanted to go to the Opera House in L’viv before he left.  This evening appeared to be the only time we could, so we finished up passing out CBC invites in today’s village, headed to our respective apartments to change clothes, and met down at the Opera House in Center.

L'viv's Opera House 2006

Ended up being the first opera written in the Ukrainian language, so it is special to the Ukrainian people.  It was interesting.  Had a lot of the Cossack style outfits and even ended with a Ukrainian wedding!  It was an interesting look into Ukrainian culture.  We might be going back next week for a symphony of types, we’ll have to see .  The Opera House here is one of the best buildings in Europe!

Met a lot of English-speaking people there, too!  We were waiting to go in when I saw a few people taking pictures of themselves and I realize they were speaking in English.  I smiled to myself and thought ‘Tourists!’  Shortly after that, one of them turned to me and started to ask me in Ukrainian to take a picture of their whole group!  I interrupted half-way through and said I spoke English.  I took the pic and then talked with them for a few minutes.  They were from Chicago and Philly.  I thought it was great that I blended in well enough to be spoken to first in Ukrainian .  My group (Nathan, Evan, Daniel, and I) went inside and found our seats (due to a smaller audience,we ended up with better seats then we paid for!  Yesss!)

After the first act was finished, a couple came in speaking ain English and sat right next to us.  It was great!  Found out they were from Alberta, Canada.  I talked more with them, and we exchanged the normal info – How long have you been here, Where have you been, do you speak any Ukrainian, etc.  It was neat running into both groups of English speakers.  The husband even gave us some background on the opera (We thought we were going to be at a different one, so we knew little about the one we were watching).  The lights turned down and the second act started…

During the break between the second and final act, the couple went downstairs to get something while we stayed in our seats (after a day of walking, it was preferred ).  The couple a few steps down also stepped out.  I had heard a little of their conversation and thought something was different about it.  Then, right before the walked by, I heard the girl say something in English (along the lines of ‘Do you want to talk to them?).  Aha!  Another English speaking group!  They walked in front of us (we had to stand as it was like theatre seats…), and the girl said ‘Dyakooyou’ (Ukrainian for ‘Thank You’).  I replied ‘Proshoe’ (Ukrainian for ‘You’re welcome), then under my breath (loud enough to be heard) I said ‘You’re Welcome.’  She turned and smiled like she just got caught.  It was kinda funny.  After both couples returned we all talked for a while.  The first couple was married and were going to Kiev the next night and the last couple ended up being cousins.  The girl was from Boston and the guy lived in Ukraine.  She was taking language lessons for the summer.  She was American and her cousin was Ukrainian.  We all had a nice chat about a variety of topics.  It was funny that I met more native English speakers this evening then the entire previous 6 months combined!

On the way home on the bus, I was standing in the back, when all of a sudden one of the passengers falls out of his seat on the floor.  Turns out the guy was way past drunk.  No one on the bus was even phased though…  Shows how much of a problem alcohol is here…

We’ll be celebrating Independence Day out at the Beals on the 3rd (We should be heading to the mountains on the 4th).  Hope y’all have a great 4th and remember why it’s called Independence Day!

Tomorrow we (Josh, Nathan, Evan, Daniel, and I) are heading to the mountains to hike the tallest mountain in our area – Mt. Porashka (I think this is the way to say it, but I could be wrong).  This is the same mountain that several of us hiked back in ’06.  We will be hiking up there Thursday and coming back on Friday. Saturday and Sunday we will be going out to pass out invites for the film showing next Sunday, and we will be showing Fireproof in 2 villages on Sunday. Please pray for safety. Also, please pray for the showings on Sunday. Pray that these village’s priests will not be working against us by telling people to not come. For more info on how CMO is going, click here.  You can also watch my Twitter updates on the right side of this page.  Thank you for your pray support!

Heading out to the Carpathians tomorrow morning… Been really busy.
To keep up with how CMO is going check out: http://www.euroteamoutreach.org/index.php?p=ereport
Have a great day!

Yes, I know, this is way late…  Sorry about that.  Life has been busy, and now that CMO is up and going, it going even faster.  To keep up with what is going on with CMO this summer, click here.

As I’ve posted before, Daniel Courter arrived about 2 weeks early for CMO.  Since the project hadn’t started yet, he became my assistant at the Ministry Center.  Want to publicly thank him for all the work he helped do, everything from counting literature, wrapping Good & Evils, helping clean out and organize the MC office, checking Good & Evil Full for errors, inserting invites into the rest of the Good & Evil shorts, etc, etc, etc.  Thanks Daniel for all the help!

CMO started on June 1st.  It started off relatively slowly, but has been gathering steam and is now roaring down the tracks now!  Nathan Day arrived in L’viv on the morning of the 3rd, and the following day we headed up to the village of Kashchtovania to had out film invites for last Sunday’s showing.  We took the train for L’viv the Stree, then hoped on a bus to go the rest of the way.  Father Stepan (Kashchovania’s priest) got on the bus shortly after we did, and Josh was able to talk to him for the 2 hour ride to the village.  To read more about that conversation, please click here.  Needless to say, it was a shock and a blessing to met a born again Catholic priest in the Carpathians!  We pray that more of his fellow Catholics will come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

We were in the mountains Thursday and Friday, with Friday being filled with a LOT of hiking!  For several hours we hiked through the Carpathians.  It was a interesting experience hiking in a short-sleeved polo sweating, then during a break in the hiking, putting on my hoodie and rain coat due to the really cold winds.  Crazy  We were able to hand out Good & Evil shorts and invites in 2 villages along the way in which we had not been before.  Then hoped on a train and headed back to Stree, then jumping on bus to finish out the route to L’viv.  Made great time due to that great new road

Saturday, Evan Hein joined us (He came in to L’viv the day before).  Nathan Day, Daniel Courter, and Evan Hein are all settled in the CMO apartment.  It’s between here and the Steele’s apartment.  It’s nice to have the entire team so close together!

Sunday we headed back into the mountains to pass out invites in the villages we will be showing ‘Fireproof’ in next week (There are 2 showings on Sunday 1:30pm and 5pm [5:30am & 9am CDT]).  We were only able to get one village done (ran out of invites), so we planned on heading back up there on Wed.  Show the film in Koshchtovania.  There was a wedding that happened on the same day, so we weren’t expecting a large audience.  We had 11 people when the film started and by the end we had had 13 people at one time or another.  Josh gave a salvation message at the end, then we gave out several tracts, Good & Evil shorts, and CBC starter packs.  Right before we left we had a time of prayer with Father Stepan and encouraged him to remain a light for Christ in his village.  It was a massive blessing to our team to get to know him better, and I hope we were an encouragement to him as well.

Monday was the CMO day off.  I had my language lesson with Veronica in the morning, followed by my first speech therapy session with Dara in a few weeks (She had surgery at the hospital for her back and is now able to do lessons again).  Started working on the never-ending pile of to-do’s, but missed out on the blog update

Tuesday we passed out Good & Evil Invites in 2 villages just outside of L’viv (Dublyany and the one next to it).  It was a warm day, and the sun was out.  Yeah, I got sunburned

Wednesday, we headed back up to the mountains to pass out film invites in the village we missed on Sunday.  Took about 4 hours, but we got invites to almost all of the houses!

Today the CMO team was going to be going out to another village in the L’viv area, but it was raining, and (for village distribution) is difficult to adequately get invites out to all the houses.  We decided to make it our Friday ministry day, with Evan & Daniel worked on relabeling our science tracts and plastic wrapping Good & Evil shorts for mountain distribution, Nathan working on preparing chalk skies for next week’s chalk talks, and Josh meeting with a lawyer about the immigration laws here in Ukraine.  Please continue to keep this in prayer.  It appears that the law is now requiring us to register with the OVIR’s office in L’viv, but we have had difficulties with this in the past.  Josh has another meeting tomorrow with someone from the OVIR’s office.  Please pray that this will be fruitful and that we would be able to find a way to get registered with minimal hastles.

Sunday we will be showing ‘Fireproof’ in Volosyanka at 1:30pm (5:30 am CDT) and in Yalynkuvatehat 5pm (9 am CDT).  Please pray that we will not be hindered in our showings by the priests, and that those who come will have open hearts for the Gospel.

Next week, we will also be working with a VBS here in L’viv.

Thank y’all for your prayers!  Sorry if this post is a little scattered.  It’s late, and I am falling asleep as I write this  God bless

We have a film showing of ‘Fireproof’ today in Koshchovania at 6pm (10am CDT). Please pray for a good turn out and open hearts to the Gospel. Watch my tweets for more info. Heading out in a few minutes! God bless

We’re heading to the mountains in a few minutes. I forgot/ran out of time yesterday to post, so sorry… To keep up with how our trip is going check out my twitter updates on the right hand column of this page or on Twitter itself (I can update that in the mountains visa SMS). Thanks for the prayers, God bless!

I received this in my inbox the other day from Family Research Council and though I would share it with you. 

Where Poppies Blow

Until about 40 years ago, Memorial Day was observed–not celebrated–on May 30 every year. Eager Cub Scouts would work their way through the crowds at small town parades selling bright red artificial poppies. In reviewing stands, graying veterans would salute or place their hands over their hearts as high school bands marched by. Often a young girl would be called upon to read the World War I era poem “In Flanders Fields” that describes the poppies blowing row upon row among the graves of fallen warriors of the Great War. 

You can gain a real appreciation of Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery. There, soldiers of the Third Army, the ceremonial “Old Guard” will place little American flags on thousands of well-tended graves. Visitors will be told the story of Arlington, how Col. Robert E. Lee paced the floors of the Custis-Lee mansion back in 1861, praying and pondering. He had to decide whether to serve in the U.S. Army to which he had dedicated his life or to leave the Union with his beloved Virginia. The terrible Civil War that followed for four long and bitter years helped to fill thousands of graves at Arlington, once Lee’s beautiful hilltop home. 

When the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was dedicated in 1921 at Arlington, President Wilson spoke as a Bible was included among the objects placed in the cornerstone of this sacred space. Today, 24 hours a day, Tomb guards march their appointed rounds, honoring those who have fallen to defend our freedoms. The bumper sticker dates from our own time, but the sentiment it expresses goes all the way back: “America–land of the free because of the brave.” 

Americans have always loved their country. We love our country still. And we have a special reverence for those who gave what Lincoln called “the last full measure of devotion.” Even today, with casualties in the War on Terror mercifully coming down, there are still flag-draped caskets returning regularly to Dover Air Force Base. There are fresh graves being filled daily at Arlington–and across America. So great is the call of America that even foreigners feel its pull. The Marquis de Lafayette–a brave hero of our Revolution–took home to France enough American soil to bury his earthly remains. In recent years, Memorial Day has become the occasion for sales at the mall, cookouts, rock concerts, and days at the beach. Our fallen heroes died for this America too. They knew that a certain lightheartedness, of ever-youthful exuberance, is a part of what it means to pursue happiness. It is for all of this, the paths of laudable pursuit, the fruits of honest toil, that America stands. May we always be worthy of those who died to give this America to us.

All I can add is: Remember and be thankful!  God bless America!

We recently found out about changes made to the immigration laws for Ukraine. We are trying to get clarification on what it means. Please pray that we will find out how these new laws affect us, and that our ministry here will not be hindered. I will keep y’all posted on what we find out.