Prayer Requests – 02/21/22 to 03/23/22

Thank you, friends, for checking on us, praying for Ukraine and our school community. We know that God is bigger than all of this, but it doesn’t take away from the heartache that we are feeling right now. Sometimes there are just no words to describe this. But we are encouraged by believers around the world praying and watching and fighting on their knees. We still have many colleagues and students/families in Kyiv, which is disturbing, but again God is bigger than this. We pray for opportunities for Ukrainian and Russian believers to reach out with the truth of God’s Word no matter what world leaders or media say or do. This is an opportunity for all of us to be the church, so pray to that end. Thank you again.

Terence & Jen
Feb 25, 2022 by Erin Dobraska

We were looking at the requests that we sent and seeing how God just orchestrated and answered them according to what He saw fit for us.

Thank you for praying for our families. We know this isn’t easy to watch on the news and wonder how we are. We are so thankful for technology to allow us to keep everyone up-to-date and just stay connected.
We are now in Sofia, Bulgaria with some good friends. They are housing us while we figure out next steps, and we are beyond grateful for their friendship and their housing!!! Our first contingency plan was to drive west with a friend, but God made it very clear very quickly that we needed to leave the country.
Some of us are online while our students are in person, though daily we are seeing a steady decline of in person students, which is expected.
The embassy and our school have done a good job in giving information and wisdom, so we are grateful.
Now we’re just praying for guidance for the next few months. But we know that for right now we are here and are able to teach online.

Just to show you how this has really affected us, Terence had about two minutes to say good-bye to one of his students. This kid is headed towards ministry and to see him go was really hard. Another kid got on the online class call and announced to the class that he had 24 hours to leave. His mom and I said good-bye on the phone. It has been really sudden.

I (Jen) will get to meet with three students after school. Two of them are stuck in the States from Christmas, and one will be working out of his dad’s office. I am grateful for the opportunity to continue to see these kids grow and progress, and I’m thankful for their parents that are supportive of this and want services outside of school.

Saying good-bye to my (Jen) staff on Friday was really hard. Three of the five of us left. We don’t know when we’ll see each other in person. It is just a myriad of emotions at times, but we know that we made the right decision.

One more praise…we didn’t know what to do with the apartment, and we asked a guy from our church if he’d want to stay in it. He immediately said yes, please! We are doing premarital counseling for him and his fiancee, and we feel very comfortable with him staying there. This way the landlady didn’t have to figure it out, and we didn’t have to give it up yet.

God knows…He knew that being online during Covid would serve our purposes now. He knew all the details and still knows the ones we don’t see. We are encouraged. We are sad. We are overwhelmed, and we are numb. But we are also resting in the goodness of God.

Terence & Jen Petoske
Missionaries in Kyiv, Ukraine
Feb 24, 2022 by Erin Dobraska

Please pray also for Mike Kaut’s Uncle Rudolf. He had a stroke and has heart issues.

from the Kauts and Blocks
Feb 22, 2022 by Erin Dobraska