The 10th Anniversary of Our Church in Kherson

Last Sunday we celebrated 10 years since our church held its first service. Our joy was doubled as it was the first time that our worship service was held in our new sanctuary. It is far from being finished, but God has been good to us, and we trust that He will provide for the rest of the construction project.

Here are some pictures of our church family.

Here is our sanctuary. There is still quite a bit of work to do, but we are very thankful.

Latest Pictures from the Church Construction Site

Our church family went over to the church construction site after the worship service and Sunday School last Sunday to see the progress and to thank God for His provision. There is still a lot of work ahead, but we all were very encouraged to see how much He has already given us. Please join us in praising the Lord for this building and pray for it to be finished soon.

The front of the building. There will be some steps added later on.

Angle view

Front Entry as seen from the inside

The Sanctuary

Staircase to the second floor, where SS classrooms and offices will be located

Same stairs, different view

Another shot of the stairs

Second floor

Some construction details -- these logs support a cement ceiling beam that was poured and is drying now.

Some of our church family in the Sanctuary

Update on the Church Building Construction

A picture is better than a thousand words. Here are some shots from last Saturday.

It's hard to see in the pictures, but the ground floor has windows in and the door is in, too. Thus, the ground floor is closed in. There is work being done on the inside (pouring of the cement floor).

As soon as the main floor is done and closed in with the front door, windows and the roof, our church might move its services to the new building. We are hoping for that to happen sometime this spring, possibly April. We anticipate that inside work will be taking place over summer months.

Building Progress

While we have known that we were going to be able to begin building a church building this year since we arrived, it has been a struggle to decide how big of a building, where the worship hall should be, what can we afford. The cost of building materials has sky rocketed and what we thought we could build a year ago is completely out of our reach.

Progress on the foundation and basement

A couple of weeks ago, we settled on a simple yet nice church building and took the concept to an architect. The architect is about done with the drawings, and work on the basement floor has begun. Instead of a full two-story church, it will be 1 1/2 stories with a basement. The sanctuary will be on the main floor with Sunday School rooms in the basement. Above the sanctuary will be space for a church office and storage space. Now that the plan has been settled on, we will press forward as quickly as we can and hopefully be able to have our first worship service their in the fall. The church will be built using a local material, the Crimean stone, which is widely used for construction in this area.

Church Building

One of the obstacles that we have faced as a church is not having a building. To the average Ukranian, a church that does not have it's own property and building is a cult. When we invite people to church or tell them about our church, the question on which most people stumble is "Where do is it?" When we begin to explain that we meet in a Daycare School, the desire to go to church quickly leaves. This is due in part to the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church is present and has been fhere or 1000 years. Most people only give lip service to believing the truth of the Gospel and instead are enslaved by superstitions, relics, and icons. Cults have come in great numbers since the fall of Communism and most people are wary of such things. The view is one of skepticism towards things Western. There are a few Baptist churches and a few charismatic churches but they mostly have their own buildings here in the city. A year ago our church bought property and this year we have cleared the lot and begun to dig the foundation.

The corner of the lot with the old building (Spring 2007).

The work was slowed until this past week when we received word from a sponsor in the States of his gift to help us build. We are excited as with this gift we should be able to build the walls, roof and basic utilities/communications. The church will still be responsible for the furnishings inside and making it look like a church. We are hoping to be able to worship in it sometime around the 1st of November.

Some of the foundation has been pored (Spring 2008).

We are also trying to register the church with the local Committee of Religions. Most people thought this committee stopped working with the fall of Communism and the independence of Ukraine, but it is still here. Please pray that we find favor in their eyes and our registration gets completed in a timely manner.

The new address: 130 Kalinina Street.

Driveway to the church property.