So I’m in Ukraine and let’s just say something didn’t settle well with what I ate our first day here. The nice thing is that there are drug stores everywhere around here. All you do is go into one, tell them your symptoms and they recommend something for you. So out I walked with the bottle shown above. I have no clue as to what it is but it worked. I feel much better. This is extremely different than Germany where you almost have to have a doctor’s prescription for aspirin so it kinda weirded me out.

On another note, please continue to pray. We have had a interesting time here in Ukraine between some sickness (me and another team mate), some interesting roads (I’ll show more of that later), housing situations have been in flux and we have not had as much time as we would have liked to configure our new Mobile Outreach Center than we would have liked. As a matter of fact, the only reason I have Internet right now is because while our team is doing some street ministry in a town north of Kiev on this Ukrainian Holiday, Sasha and I are working diligently to get the computers just ready for our classes that begin tomorrow. Praise God with us that our major hurtles have been overcome and we are now just putting the final touches on the systems.

I will probably not be able to get back online until I return to Germany in just over a week so take care and I’ll update you later.

- Courtney

PS - I did get converse with a young man who is going to be attending our classes this next week. While he is a computer programmer, as he puts it - he has this deep need to hear more about God and he knows that while we are teaching computers, we will also be talking about God. He just came to know about Christ in this last year and I am hoping to talk with him more and more this week.

Thank you to all of you that prayed for us while we were in Ukraine. It was an amazing trip. It was awesome to see and hear how God is working in Ukraine - using technology to train leaders and for outreach purposes.

The first part of our time in Ukraine was an eLearning Center (eLC) Directors meeting. We have over 18 (actually more now but that in a moment) eLCs in Ukraine and most of these eLCs are in churches scattered across the country. eDOT invited those church leaders who are involved in using the eLCs to come to Kiev (Ukraine’s capital) for a time of encouragement, more training on how to use the eLCs more effectively and for them to meet each other. Our goal is that they will be each other’s greatest resources and to hear how each of the centers are being used is just amazing. Some are a part of ministries that are focused on outreaches to orphanages, some are focused on adult education, while others are focused on reaching local ethnic communities. How they use the computers is just slightly different in each context but they were able to share these differences with one another sparking new ideas and excitement. It was just great getting to know these church leaders and to share in their passion to reach Ukraine for Christ.

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Above you see a traditional Ukrainian toilet. No, you don’t sit on it! This is how most of the public restrooms are here and honestly, it took me a while to figure out HOW to use them and I’m still not able to really USE them. Unfortunately, I get a leg cramp.

Thank you to all of you who prayed for our eLC Directors Conference that eDOT sponsored this last weekend. There was a great exchange of ideas and it was awesome to get updates from many of the elearning centers and hear more about how God is using their computer ministries within their communities. I hope to share more of these stories later.

Half of our team left today and returned to Germany. There are three of us still in Ukraine as we are working on installing a new configuration of an eLC. In the past, our eLCs have been either all Linux based or part Windows and part Linux. This new configuration is an all Windows based configuration. After spending several days trying to get Windows 2003 Server loaded and configured, we figured out that the server we were using was designed for Linux and will not support Windows 2003 Server. So I am taking this moment to write to ya’ll while our partners here in Ukraine are running the server back for one that will run Windows 2003 Server.

So please pray for us as we are suppose to leave tomorrow for the location to where we are to install this new eLC which is about 300 km from Kiev. We are scheduled to fly back from Ukraine on Friday and so we really need to finish up the configuration tonight (sleep, not needed right? We can sleep in the van on the way there!)

Also pray for our families as this has been a long trip with little communication (we have been in areas without Internet access and what access we have had has been very slow). We are at that point in our trip that we are missing being with our families.

Thank you and God bless. Oh, and remember us the next time you are able to SIT on the toilet.