We had to wear skirts in the Orthodox church
(Esther, Megan, Ashley, and Christina)

Orthodox church

Getting a tour of the "old city" of Belarus

Brushing up on some Belarus history before entering the museum

Using our time wisely inside the museum

Reenactment -- BFA style
(Josh, Ashley, and Christina)

One of these stitched paintings takes 2 years!!

Leaving our "old city" tour

Jacob's turn leading devotions

The girls hard at work creating a speed bump!

The men hard at work "filling in the gaps"

Our tasty, and creative, snack after working!

Christina, Megan, and Isaac at their small group bible study

Christina Foucachon's Journal (4 April 2012)
Well today Megan and I had to wake up super early, and after breakfast we took a Belarusian bus! It was so packed, we could hardly breathe, but it was a funny and memorable experience all the same. When we got to the university, we spoke to an English class that our host sister attends, and it was interesting to see their point of view on Americans. When that was over, Igor, a member of Spasenie, led us to an orthodox church. Us girls had to wrap skirts around our jeans to respect their traditions. The inside was beautiful. Anyway, when the rest of the team arrived, we drove up to "old brest", the fortress and museum. Igor explained that not many Belarusians know the history of Brest, and talked about the wars and how there was freedom of religion back then. We visited the sites, the ruins of Old Brest and witnissed high school teens, marching in uniform. We had a very nice lunch waiting for us at the community center when we got back and we had team time after that. Jacob led us and talked about forgiving people, even if we ourselves have been hurt by people, to just really pray and go to the core of the problem and forgive one another. We then worked outside on the construction site for a few hours and had a good time even though most of us were sore from the day before and very tired. To finish off the day, we all piled into Sergue's car (in Belarus, you do not have to wear a seat belt and you can just squeze as many people into the car as you want); and we each went to a home church. Their home churches are like small groups for us. I had a wonderful time with mine as we all shared our testimonies, our struggles with non-Christian friends and we read a passage and discussed the vanity of humans and material things. It was amazing fellowship and I felt like people here have blessed me so much more then I have blessed them even though I was the one on the mission trip. Thank you Lord for this amazing experience! SPASIBO!

Esther, Ashley, and Christina working on the dirt pile! :-)

The "men" working on manly things

Esther and Ashley all done shoveling!!

 

The women got done first, so they helped the "men"

Meeting with USee, the outreach team

Our two leaders conducting the meeting

Jacob, Christina, and Josh hanging out...

Esther Han's Journal (3 April 2012)
Today we woke up and ate some tasty breakfast and we went to a Belarusian university. Some people from our team went to a class where students learn English and those students asks them some question, and other people went around the university and looked around some classes and met some interesting people. After we went to the university, we had our team time and we talked about what we did with our host families. After we had out team time, we did some construction work even though it was really tiring. While we were doing the construction work we got to know each other more by seeing the crazy(?) side of them. After that we spent time with the USEE leaders and some people shared how they became personal with God. For our devotions, we talked about spiritual battles because we could easily focus in ourselves especially in this kind of situation where we are in a foreign country. In order to win a spiritual battle we could read the Bible several times, pray to God, or even worship him. Also the most important thing is we just need to believe that Jesus is our Lord.

Josh giving his devotion

Jacob, Isaac, and Ashley moving some tiles!

The pile of tiles we had to move...all finished!

Good work team! Show those muscles!

Replenishing after such hard work!

Heading to the Gypsy Village...

Ashley leading devotions:  1 John 4:11-12

Russian currency:  Rubles

Singing at the Spasenie church service 

Tim speaking about our ministry

Some of the gang:  Megan, Isaac, Ashley, Jacob, & Christina

In the community center before our performance

Getting ready for their debut

Jacob, Josh, Isaac, and Esther performing "Clocks"

Ashley Moon's Journal (1 April 2012)

3rd day in Belarus, it was a long day, but a good one. Woke up, had breakfast, and got ready to go to church. Our team was going to perform two songs after being introduced at the church. When all our team got there, we didn't have much time to rehearse, so we panicked a bit. However, during the performance, all of us didn't think about how we would look, but set our focus on God, and the performance was a success (I think I did well for my first time performing on the drums^^). We worshiped God and that was what mattered. The service was of course in Russian, so I didn't understand much, but during worship I was filled with the Holy Spirit whatsoever. I had never felt that before when I couldn't understand the words and didn't know the song. It was amazing how God touched my heart. My nervousness of performing was overcome by peace and joy from God, and that stayed even after the performance. After church, we went back to our host families' homes, ate lunch, and rested for a while. Then, we came to the community center to practice for our second performance, which was for a youth ministry that was going to be happening there during the evening. Before that, we had our team meeting and I had prepared for the devotions. I talked about love, how love is from God, how love is like water and if we don't share it, it just sits there and becomes "dead", and how He is the one that breaks the barrier, the wall between people. I wasn't in the second performance, so I helped the other teens to set the place up and just hanged out with them. I got to know them a little more (they are from the LOGOS middle-school youth group, and USEE high-school youth group) and God did break the wall between us: it wasn't awkward to talk with them and hang out with them although they spoke little English and we didn't speak any Russian at all. It was the same for the host family me and Esther was staying with. After the ministry (the ministry was good: our team performed music, did the skit, other teens from the church did some things as well, and there were activities) we came home and ate dinner, and after dinner, we were able to make a deeper and longer conversations with them more than we have had yet. We got to know them and Belarus more, and they got to know about us too. I've realized that perspective is what's important, not what we are doing. When we set our focus on God, things that might be embarrassing or nerve-wrecking becomes a joyful and a good event.

Esther, Josh, and Jacob practicing for Church

Jacob singing his heart out

Christina leading devotions this morning:  Galatians 5:13-15

Meeting with the Belorussian youth group

Ashley showing us her moves at the drum set 

Our team preparing for the Sunday service

Jacob Davis' Journal (31 March 2012)

2nd day in Belarus. Woke up in the morning after a great nights sleep. It snowed today, to my surprise. I had 2 breakfasts, one alone, and one with the son of my host, Timo. Both were composed of cheese, sausage and bread with tea. I then had my first debrief in a community center. Immediately after the debrief, we met with LOGOS middle-school youth group. They are definitely on fire for God. They have rappers, guitarists, bassist, singers, pianist, etc. In short, they are very musically gift. After meeting them and playing some games together, our team practiced music for Sunday service, and for the high-school group, U-see. we then practiced are skit, and finally headed back to our houses, however I and my host family had to wait with Issac, as his ride hadn't come yet. All in all, it was an awesome day, the people are very hospitable, and down-right curious! By the way, did I mention that I'm the only one from the team who is at my host? Thank goodness they speak a little bit of English, cause my Russian is terrible! Here's what God has shown me today : I used to think i was pretty good on patience till I came here. Imagine a 2 hour sermon with whole families listening, including the kids, crammed into a upstairs room? This is what I found myself in as soon 5 hours after arriving in Belarus. These people have grand patience, but it has been given to them because they love God and are earnestly seeking him. They've shown me not to get disheartened when I'm waiting on promises that God has told me to occur, that we must trust in him and rejoice for things he tells us, whether they are promises or truths.

Arrival in Belarus: All in a Day's work

Thank you SO MUCH for praying as we headed to Belarus today. For most of us we just settled into our host families and are getting to know them with the little Russian we know (for most of us, anyways). 

It has been great to see the Belorussian families reach out to us and be so friendly as we arrived to meet them today. For some of them this means being a friendly face to smile at, and for others this means opening up their homes to us as we stay with them for this next week. Nonetheless, we have definitely felt the love and support of the community as we arrived, reading to embark on our journey.

Landscape as we made our way to Belarus via Minsk

Tomorrow we will be heading to the community center in Belarus to practice for our first gig -- yes, that's right -- a GIG! On Sunday the team has been asked to perform a song or two in church for those in attendance. We will also have the privilege of having one of our own, Tim Watson, speak. What a joy and blessing it has been to be embraced by the community so quickly! 

Please continue to pray for our team as we reach out in various ways, especially as the team gears up to perform this Sunday in church! :-) I know that they are excited and nervous all at the same time, so I pray that God is able to use them as they use their God-given talents to reach out to those in Belarus.

Thank you SO MUCH again for all of your help, encouragement, and prayers! You are all such a blessing!

In Him,

The Belarus Team

Belarus Team here. We just wanted to update you and let you know the progress that we've been making over the past couple of weeks. Can you believe that in less than a month we will be there!?!?!?!

As we approach our trip to Belarus we have been able to slowly learn more things about one another as well as learn various pieces of information that will help us as we get there. With our missions trip being less than one month away we have began to feel the pressure of using each and every minute of our time wisely, ultimately aware that God will help guide our time together to accomplish His goal of glorifying Him in all that we do.

Learning how to mime

Various things that we have been able to accomplish so far include:  practicing music together as one unit, learning multiple words/phrases in Russian, being taught a mime skit that shows the love our Lord has for each and every one of us, and finding out different things about the culture and community in Belarus. We have been carefully preparing our hearts as we approach this unique experience that is such a privilege for each and every one of us as we serve our Lord.



Please continue to pray for our team as we use these last couple of weeks as wisely as possible in order to accomplish His goal for our lives while heading to Belarus this next month. Thank you so much for your continual support in our journey and process as we prepare our hearts and minds for what God is about to do with them.

The skit we are learning is called "Hands"

"Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed."

~1 Peter 1:13 ~

Thank you so much for your support and prayer as we get closer and closer to our time in Belarus. All of us are getting excited about the various ways that we are able to get involved in the community there.

As most of our team members wait for their support to come in as God allows it, please take some time to prayerfully consider supporting our team. If you feel as though the Lord is calling you to support us financially you can use the following link:  BFA: Missions Trip to Belarus. Regardless of whether you are able to give financially or not we would very much so appreciate your support through prayer.

Stay tuned for more updates as we practice our skits, music and prepare our hearts for the upcoming trip to Belarus!

The BFA missions team looks forward to serving in Belarus this Spring. This video will give you a quick snapshot of the country, and the church whom they will be helping.

Please join with these students through your prayers and financial support so they can be the hands and feet of Jesus in Brest, Belarus. 

Thank you!                                 Click HERE for Belarus Video

"What exactly is the purpose of our trip?"

The purpose of our trip is threefold:

1. We will be providing the Spasenie Church help in their outreach to the community by providing an English language day camp.

2. We will be helping Spasenie Church with light construction and clean-up of their Community Center.

3. Our efforts in building relationships with the Spasenie Church are the first steps toward a larger effort of developing a long term sister church relationship between Spasenie and Black Forest Community Fellowship (BFCF).