April 12, 2007

Every Missionary’s Dream

We are so thrilled about something that happened in Indonesia. Bruce was there for a class, and Aimee agreed to tag along, hoping to dodge tsunamis, earthquakes, volcano eruptions and terrorist bombings. On the final day of our stay, Bruce decided to give our last Indonesian gospel tract to a “butler” at the hotel. Expecting the usual, “Thanks, maybe I’ll read it sometime,” Bruce was shocked when the guy started reading it immediately. The tract was a very long one, but “Subawi” stood there by the pool and read through the entire thing, asking Bruce questions all along the way. At the conclusion, he wanted to ask the Lord’s forgiveness and saving grace! After they prayed, Subawi had goose bumps all over his arms and said, “I feel different – cool inside – something has changed.” He was grinning from ear to ear, and thanked Bruce over and over for “coming to tell him the way”. He said that if we were staying longer, we could come to his house and he would give us a fish. Or maybe it was a feast.

Eye Hope it’ll Heal

We were so grateful how the Lord took care of Bruce regarding his emergency eye operation. He was healing even better than the doctors expected, until recently when his sight started worsening. His doctor said it is due to eye strain from constant reading, and that he needs to rest.

Politics as Usual

The President of Ukraine has dismissed the Ukrainian parliament and called for new elections. Parliament has refused to disband. The constitutional court that is to decide the issue says they are under enormous pressure, and need body guards because they are being threatened. We went downtown today, and were incredulous to hear a pro-communist speech given by a protester out in the main public square.

Fun Facts

• When we get our teeth cleaned, the dentist charges us per tooth. (Let’s see, why don’t you just do these three…)
• On the way to one of Bruce’s eye appointments, our bus driver became impatient sitting in traffic in the fast lane. He decided to pass on the left, going down the street in the oncoming lane. When he passed all the cars and got to the front of the line, he turned right, went through the intersection, and then proceeded to drive down the trolley bus tracks. Good thing you’re all praying for us.

Praises

1. That the Lord saved Subawi in such an incredible way! Now if we could just get more people in UKRAINE to do that…
2. Our church has moved to elder rule – a much more biblical way than congregational, which tended to get pretty messy.
3. For the Lord’s protection – seems we are often reminded not to take that for granted.
4. Our trials are bringing us closer to the Lord.

Prayer Requests

1. Pray that the political situation would be conducive to the spread of the Gospel.
2. Our family continues to struggle health-wise. We feel fine, but our hair seems to be falling out. All five of us. We have spent several years checking all kinds of possible causes, including the obvious – radiation. So far we’ve mainly come up with a lot of conflicting opinions. It can sometimes be difficult to know where the balance is between trusting the Lord, but also doing what is in our power to investigate. The latter seems endless and exhausting.
3. That the Lord would help heal Bruce’s eye so he can work at 100%.
4. That one of Bruce’s relatives would repent and be restored.
5. For our long-time missionary friends, the Saucys. After a bout with cancer around 6 years ago, Bonnie Saucy’s cancer is back, worse than before. They have returned to the States for treatment at City of Hope in California.
6. For a building big enough for our kids’ school to meet in. The Lord has helped us raise a lot of money and now would like us to pray for the remainder. Anyone happen to have $500,000 lying around that they’re dying to loan out? Kiev Christian Academy will pay it back in 10 years with 5% interest. Or, if you are more interested in giving your money away, our school still needs $69,000 in gifts.

Since Bruce isn’t supposed to be reading, we’ll end this letter quick.

Thanks for your prayers and notes – we have needed them more than usual lately.

Worthy is the Lamb!

Bruce and Aimee Alvord

December 30, 2006

Seminary Building Finished!

After meeting for 15 years in a converted house (and turning away students for lack of space) the Lord has provided a big, beautiful place for Irpin Seminary’s new home!

Cultural Moments in Kazakhstan

Bruce traveled to the Almaty Bible Institute in Kazakhstan to help them plan their program and develop the Master’s of Divinity department. Trips like these are never without their interesting cultural tidbits. For example, Kazakstanis drink out of bowls instead of cups. They sit on the floor and eat over low tables. They have horsemeat soup. (A little tough, but not bad. Tastes like chicken. Ha ha!). They drink mare’s milk (sour and bitter – very bad tasting to all but those who grew up drinking it). Below Bruce is with his former student and the taxi driver at a restaurant. At this restaurant you can sit in regular chairs or at the low tables without chairs. Plus, they put the mare’s milk in a glass instead of a bowl so you could see it for the picture.

Play the Kazakh Way!

Horses are said to be first domesticated in Kazakhstan. Apparently they have had plenty of time to create interesting sports on horseback.

Goat-Snatching on horseback! This is the Kazak version of “keep away.” Each player tries to chase down the guy riding away with a goat in his arms. If they can catch him, they try to rip the goat away and race off with it themself. I’m assuming the goat is alive. (We’ve been looking for a new game to play as a family…)

Even better, the Kazakh Dating Game! A guy and girl race their horses to a predetermined spot. If he catches her before the finish line, he can kiss her. If SHE wins, she gets to whack him with a stick!

Fun Facts

• Inflation in Ukraine has been running at 32%

• Ukrainians don’t do gravy – plain mashed potatoes is a very common dish.

Praises

1. The Lord provided for the very nice, fully-equipped, new seminary building.
2. Safe, profitable opportunity to serve the Lord in Kazakhstan.
3. For a student of mine, Slavic. He was in jail for robbery and drug possession. While in prison, he heard the Gospel preached and was so changed by his conversion that his wife also believed. Now, while training at Irpin Seminary, Slavic ministers to other prisoners so that they too can be set free from their former sins.

Prayer Requests

1. Our pastor and church leadership are attempting to move toward elder rule. Please pray for this monumental transition, and that godly, qualified elders would be appointed.
2. Pray for the church in Moldova (several of Bruce’s students are from that country). They are suffering because so many of their leaders are moving to the US. Economic hardship in that country is great. There is a huge need for trained ministers – the ones who are left are discouraged.
3. Our family has been experiencing mysterious health problems. Please pray that the Lord would help us to figure out and fix the problem.
4. That one of Bruce’s relatives would repent and be restored.
5. That our children would grow to love and desire to serve the Lord with their lives.

Happy New Year,

Bruce and Aimee Alvord

April 9, 2006

Bruce Starts Smoking

The other day at seminary, Bruce happened to mention that he was fighting an earache. A dear Ukrainian colleague, Nickolai, knew just the remedy and INSISTED that Bruce let him perform his little folk medicine trick on him. Despite repeated refusals, Bruce eventually succumbed anyway. After tilting Bruce’s head to the side and laying protective papers over his face and hair, Nickolai proceeded to roll up a newspaper into a cone, stick the narrow end into Bruce’s ear, and light it on fire! Team leader Greg White (glad it wasn’t him, and gleefully witnessing Bruce’s “cultural moment”), caught it on film.

The earache did get better, so what can you say?

A Special, Heart-Felt Request

Our kids’ school, Kiev Christian Academy, is in immediate need of funds to build a safer school for the students. For the last 14 years we have been renting space in a run-down Ukrainian boarding school for deaf children. The only playground for the kindergarteners through high-schoolers is a dirt lot, which the security personnel have to clear of broken bottles and used syringes every morning before the kids can go out for recess. (There are even worse things lying around, but it would be impolite to say.)

The land for the new school is already purchased, and the construction plans have been approved. We even have volunteer work crews from the States just waiting for the green light (green as in money) to come over and start building as soon as we have finances for the materials. All we need is $2,955 per Kiev Christian Academy family, and we’ll be able to complete phase one (classrooms and gym). If we can accomplish this by May 31st, they can break ground this summer! We are praying fervently to get this ball rolling, because we are running out of room in our current rental situation. Thanks for any help you might be able to give! Anyone who would like to contribute may send a check made out to “Friends of KCA” to the address below.

Kiev Christian Academy
3808 Dinsmore Castle Dr.
Colombus, OH 43221 please write “Alvord” on the memo line

A very sincere thank-you to many who have already generously contributed, and to those who are sponsoring our sons in their “Verse-a-Thon” school fundraiser!

Burying a Friend

Last Monday morning Aimee and I got a call that a good friend of ours from church had died of cancer. A deacon and member of my discipleship group, Alexay left behind a large family – a wife, and eight daughters and one son, ages 7 to 23. He was only 52.

It was eye-opening to see how Ukrainians handle death. Alexay’s body stayed for a day and a night in his own bed at home, and our church members prepared him for burial. An elder shaved him. Bruce and another pastor dressed Alexay’s body in his nice suit. Still others rented busses, arranged for the coffin and burial site, and several ladies made a huge dinner for everyone at the church afterward. The funeral was the day after he died, because they don’t embalm here. His coffin was placed across a few stools, and for some of the time there was a bucket of reddish water underneath. The Ukrainians we have asked aren’t sure what it was, either body fluids or perfumed water. (Obviously we weren’t going to ask the wife.)

As usual for funerals in Ukraine, the service for Alexay was held in the street outside the front door of his apartment building. Bruce was one of 3 pastors that preached and eulogized a life well lived in faith and service for Jesus. At the cemetery, the friends and family members each threw three fistfuls of dirt onto the casket when it was lowered into the ground, and then watched as four caretakers shoveled the rest of the earth onto his coffin. Then they decorated the new mound of dirt with flowers that people had brought. They didn’t choose his burial site, it was simply the next place in line; freshly-dug graves to the left and muddy field to the right. “Forest Lawn,” it wasn’t.

Being so close to Alexay after he had died, and actually dressing his dead body, was a vivid reminder for Bruce that his time on earth is limited and that he must be about what really counts for eternity.

Alexay’s wife Natasha shared two prayer requests with us:

1. Their only son was just called up for his compulsory, two-year army service. Pray that he will receive special permission to forego his military responsibility so he can continue working to help feed the family.
2. Please pray that this trial will draw the children closer to the Lord instead of letting it push them away. When Alexay was still alive, his concern was for the children. He didn’t ask, “Why is this happening to me?” but, “Who is going to pray for my children?” He had been in the habit of kneeling beside each child’s bedside and praying for them every night.

   Thank you for reading to the end of this letter, and for caring.

   Appreciatively,

   Bruce and Aimee Alvord

February 2006

Hello from Bruce and Aimee Alvord!

DATING 101

Bruce's co-worker, Igor, was a helicopter door gunner in the Afghanistan war. Pure-blooded atheist. Became a Christian, started reading the Bible, and discovered with great delight the account of how Isaac and Rebecca became husband and wife (Isaac's servant asks the Lord to make it so that whichever young lady gives him and his camels a drink is the girl for Isaac).

As a zealous new Christian, Igor decides that this is a brilliant idea! So for six months he prays that the Lord would choose a wife for him, and make it so he couldn't miss knowing who she was. He is so busy with a 12-hour factory job, night school at the University, and being a youth pastor, that the wife thing recedes to the back burner.

One Sunday he is visiting a church with his youth group, when out in the congregation he sees a girl and "something happens in his heart". He prays again for six months that if she is the one, the Lord would make it obvious to him.

At the end of those months, Igor goes back to the church, finds a guy who knows the girl, and says, "Don't tell me anything good about her, and don't tell me anything bad about her. Just tell me who her parents are." So the guy says, "That's the pastor's daughter." Igor is happy because the pastor will be easy to find, and goes to the Sunday evening service. While he is waiting for everyone to leave afterwards, a lady comes up and "starts bothering him with a bunch of questions". He tells her (rather curtly) that he is waiting to see the pastor, and she says, "Oh that's my husband."

Finally he has the man's ear, tells him about his decision to let the Lord choose his wife like Isaac did, and asks him what he thinks about this plan. The pastor says, "Well, it worked for them, and it's in the Bible..." So Igor, having just met this man, says, "Well the Lord has shown me that my wife is supposed to be your daughter. Can I marry her?"

The pastor was Brenza, Bruce's boss and president of Irpin Seminary (you may recall the story about his dad being taken by the communists and rescued from the firing squad at the last minute). Brenza's daughter is named Lena (the baby of the family, with three older brothers), who was in high school at the time. Igor was 24, a new Christian who had just been through the war. Igor said that when he asked to marry his daughter, Brenza's face turned red, he started to sweat, and didn't speak. Igor was afraid he was going to have a heart attack.

So Brenza and his wife pray and fast for a week about whether or not Igor can marry their daughter, and finally conclude that it's Lena's decision (she is 18). So Igor goes to their house, waits for her to come home from school, and says, "Hi, I'm Igor. I came here because I want to ask you to marry me." As unbelievable as it sounds, this is true. He related this story to us himself.

Lena is shocked of course, and the conversation moves along to more comfortable subjects. As he is about to leave, Igor asks if they can pray together, and one of the things Lena says in her prayer is "Lord, bless our lives." Igor, head over heels, assumes she means their lives TOGETHER, and takes this as a definite "yes-I-will-marry-you" answer! (Lena merely meant "bless each of our lives".) So Igor thinks he is engaged and starts visiting every night, as the groom-to-be.

Fast forwarding ahead over some really good stuff, Lena agrees to marry him but is plagued by terrible doubts and confusion (unbeknownst to Igor). Because her mom and dad are staying completely out of it except to pray for her (hmmmm…), she is desperate for wisdom on the matter and starts "testing" the Lord. Here are three of the tests:

• One night there was such a bad storm that public transportation was shut down. Lena prayed that if Igor didn't come, it meant she shouldn't marry him. He came, sopping wet. (To this day he doesn't remember how he got there, because there weren't even any taxis.)
• She decided to do a lottery and made a big pile of little pieces of paper with the word "no" written on them. Then she wrote one with "yes". She shook them and shook them, prayed... and picked the yes.
• Igor was in the habit of calling her from his factory job usually around noon. One day he warned her that he would be at a different work site out in the desert where there were no phones, so he wouldn't be able to call her the next day. So she prayed that if he didn't call her that meant she shouldn't marry him, knowing that the Lord would have to literally drop down a phone (and phone line) from heaven. Then she decided to up the ante and stipulated that this miracle call must come at EXACTLY 12 O'CLOCK NOON.

Next day, out in the desert, a military squadron comes tramping through the factory work site. There are a few big wigs among the group, and for that reason they are toting a phone with a special generator and a really, really long wire on a spool. Igor, (head over heels, you remember) goes up to the top brass and asks if he can use the phone. The man says, "Of course not, go away!" So Igor says, "Sorry, just thought I'd ask," and walks away. Five minutes later the military guy finds Igor and says, "No one's looking, here I'll show you how to use this phone." The army officer helps him operate the contraption and Igor calls Lena. The time? Exactly 12 noon. (Igor said the guy probably figured it was an emergency, and was incredulous when he realized that Igor was just calling his girlfriend to shoot the breeze.)

I could go on and on with more details as fascinating as these, but this is already longer than most people will read. Last we heard there is a book about it in progress. I WILL say that Igor and Lena have been happily married for over 20 years, are a fantastic ministry team, and their daughter Victoria is about to graduate from The Master's College. Igor is finishing up his doctorate and will probably succeed his father-in-law Brenza as president of Irpin Seminary.

PRAYER REQUESTS

1. Pray for one of Bruce's relatives whose spouse has left them - that they will repent and return.
2. It's an answer to prayer that our pastor has decided he needs to train his own leaders. Pray the Lord would guide and give him wisdom along with Bruce, who he asked to help.
3. One of our children is having a very difficult year in school relationship-wise. Pray that he'd learn what the Lord wants him to, and be drawn closer to Him through it.
4. A friend in our church (also a deacon and member of Bruce's discipleship group) is dying of cancer. He has nine children. Please pray.
5. Pray for the salvation of family members, especially Bruce's Mormon side.

FUN FACT

It's been so cold (-17 F) that our tent church canceled Sunday services.

Thank you for all the Christmas pictures we received - we loved them!

Bruce and Aimee Alvord

October 2005

While visiting former students in Lutsk over the summer, Bruce heard a great story about how several Irpin graduates have gotten together and started a drug rehabilitation center. Their only method is using the Word of God and prayer. So many addicts have been saved and come off of drugs, that local police recommend the center to people on the street, and even pass out their Gospel tracts!

The Devil Made Her Do It

Natasha is our young church member who was saved out of Satanism. Not long ago she made an interesting observation comparing the prayer lives of Christians versus Satanists. She recalled how surprised she was after being saved to find how little Christians pray. When she was a Satanist, they gathered every week and prayed all night that the devil would destroy families in our church, and that youth wouldn’t come to our church or to Christ.

Fun Facts

• Ukrainians never remain seated to pray, they either stand or kneel.
• The new western-style supermarkets have armed guards watching you as you shop. There are no bag boys (you do it yourself) and the checkers do not smile or even look at you (unless your kids are holding something that they haven’t put on the belt yet).

Praises