Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you! As you can see, we are already thinking of our return to Ukraine (as God allows). The kids all received new hats and gloves for Christmas. The weather where we are now, in Valdosta, Georgia, has not permitted much use of hats and gloves at all! The temperature has been in the 80's! But, we anticipate a lot of use from them in the future.
Our Christmas was spent with family; aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins. We saw the Christmas musicals from our local church and celebrated with lots of good food! It was a rushed holiday from one place to the other, but thankfully it was not a lot of long-distance driving. After Christmas we spent the whole day in our pajamas (mom did, at least!) playing with our new toys!
The FAMILY...
Alaina Katharine continues to grow and kick, Canon can put together a Star Wars Lego X-wing fighter in less than an hour, Isaac can create a beautiful picture with his drawings, Scotland has decided to become a professional football player and Eli thrives on throwing "ball-balls". Kyle is preaching this week at Crossroads Baptist Church and continues to make arrangements to speak at other churches in the area.

May you Grow in the Lord this upcoming year...blessings.
The McLane's

Life as we knew it...

It has been a long time since my last entry, but I am finally taking time to write. Life as we knew it in America may be the same, but I guess that I am different. I have often heard that life overseas changes people...it does. You see, we each have our own book of individual experiences and each can change us. Throughout our lives we are given a different deck of cards (as they say) and the way we use them is what is important. How is God using me right now? What is it that He wants me to learn from the experiences that He has given me? How can I use these experiences to further His Kingdom and draw people to the Cross? I guess that is my questions for now. Well, my question, to some degree, has been answered. Through my studying in Matthew and in Luke, God impressed upon my heart the urgency to pray for workers. In Matthew 9..."The harvest IS plentiful, but the workers are FEW." This verse is familiar, but unless the passion to pray is there, it does not mean much. God has given me a new passion for praying.

A house full of boys...and a girl?!

We are excited as we await the birth of Alaina Katharine (or so we are now calling her!) and we anticipate that she will spice up our family full of boy stuff.

Speaking of boys, we had a fun time at the Fall Festival (pictured right) held at Crossroads Baptist Church in Valdosta. The kids played games and dressed up in their favorite costumes. They also had a Farmer Brown day at school (pictured left). For Thanksgiving we celebrated with family and enjoyed lots of turkey! We have finally had a chance to vacation some...we have been to the local zoo, the Agrirama, the beach for a day, and to Lake Burton for the weekend. We have enjoyed the family time together on these trips.

Kyle continues to travel and encourage churches to be involved in missions.

What's Horodok?

Horodok is a city that we are currently praying about how to start an evangelical church. There is no evangelical church there right now, but we were excited to meet a group of believers who live near Horodok. This group has been meeting on Sunday nights regularly. We are hoping to bring a day camp to work in this area next year and begin moving towards a church start.

In Horodok this past month, we were able to have a week-long day camp (with 90 kids attending) and a week of English lessons (50 kids attending). The Jesus film was shown and the gospel was clearly given. We are so thankful for our team of short-term missionaries who took part in these events. It was a blessing to have them join with us and share in the excitement of missions!

C-A-M-P...CAMP!

We recently returned from camp in the Carpathian Mountains. It was a good trip, even though it was exhausting towards the end. We stayed up late, got up early and stayed busy throughout the day! We had fun with skits (pictured right), songs and games. The children's English class (pictured left) went well each day and the kids seemed to enjoy it. The parenting seminar that Maya did was well received and we had a team come and help with English clubs and give a seminar on having a quiet time. Many of the participants who came to camp also visited church the following Sunday. One woman went with a group of believers after camp to the Franklin Graham festival and went forward in asking for repentance! Please pray for these people that came to camp. Many are struggling with alcohol abuse and their family life is difficult. Pray that God will transform their lives for His glory and honor. "In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." Romans 8:37

Grapevine Baptism...

After Jimmy Eager gave an invitation to receive baptism at Grapevine Church recently, their were 4 people who came forth. Two had prayed to receive Christ as their Savior a while back, but had never followed in baptism. The others were new believers who were considering being baptized. After they had heard the message preached by Jimmy on who should be baptized, it was exciting to see the Holy Spirit at work in these people! Continue to pray that others would not be afraid to be baptized and that they would be obedient to the Lord in everything.

Day In and Day Out...

It will just be a few more months before we will be packing our things up and heading to the US for an eight month visit. Before we start pulling those suitcases out of the closet for the long airplane ride, we still have a number of ministry commitments here still going on. Kyle is working with Igor at Grapevine church and also with a number of other Ukrainian leaders. He is finalizing many details with the camps coming up this summer. Grapevine church is looking at joining the Baptist Union here and they are planning for a Family Camp in the Carpathian Mts. Kyle and Maya will be helping with many of the groups and seminars in that camp. Maya continues to encourage Ira in the Bible Study she has organized on child-rearing. It meets every other Saturday and has had 4-7 women in attendance each time. Kyle is still leading the English Club that meets weekly, but they are looking at changing some of the logistics of the group. Please pray that we will have wisdom from God in every endeavor, that the camps will be planned well and glorifying to God, that these women in these Bible studies will come to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and that Kyle will know how to bring closure to many of the things he has been working on and have a renewed vision upon our return.

Team of Three...

Just imagine...it's the week before our missionary team will arrive from Georgia. Kyle's mom and a couple who are full-time missionaries in Nicaragua (presently in the states for a few months) make up our team of three. Our plans are to minister to those who are needy spiritually...and physically. We have a number of boxes filled with clothing items...that haven't arrived yet. The team is uncertain as to exactly what they will be doing. We don't have a list of who we are going to be ministering to...our plans are somewhat vague...things are what you might say...ASKEW!

Despite the situation from a humanly perspective, God proved Himself faithful once again. I am amazed at how He can glorify Himself. I will admit, when Kyle was telling me of the plans for the coming week, I was doubtful. Every question I asked was answered with, "I'm not sure, I don't know or maybe." Praise God that He knows all things even when we don't!

Well, the week was great! Many days the team spent prayer-walking and almost everyday they were out ministering to people within the city. Four boxes of clothes arrived a couple of days before the team, we had a list of people to see and the members of our church were eager to be a part of what God was doing just as things came together...not a minute too soon (nor too late!) After Jimmy gave a sermon on Baptism we had 4 people to voice an interest in being baptized. There were a few people that visited our church that Sunday after our team members gave them clothing. Our church members are going to be in contact with the others that we met with...God just really showed that He can do more than what we could anticipate!

March Ministry

We recently had a team of 10 short-term missionaries from Houston, Texas. They came and worked with the missions department of the Lviv Oblast. This group of nationals has a goal to start a church in the OCEAN region of Lviv, an area where there is currently no Baptist Church. This team led Bible studies and English classes throughout the week they were here and did prayer-walking. They plan to return to their hometown and each team member wants to lead new volunteer teams back to this region.
The missions department will be in the school where this group met for the English Club doing a seminar on drugs and AIDS this week. They are also starting a youth club that will meet in another school in the same area. They plan to continue to make contacts and further the Gospel in this region.

Update on the boys!

Well, as for Eli, he is making his way around the house quite well despite his unusual way of crawling. He likes to keep one leg stuck out to the side as he scoots along! He had his first taste of a cheeseburger and french fries and he enjoys the new found freedom of eating on his own. He is beginning to try out his legs and it won't be long before he is walking.

Scotland recently got the "bonked head" award...mom was pretty nervous about the big black bump! He still seems to have no fear and thankfully God has provided him with quite a skull for a helmet!

Isaac recently desired to pray and ask Jesus into his heart! We are excited about his desires to follow Christ and his interest in baptism. We continue to encourage him in God's Word. Since he turned 5 years old, his maturity has grown by leaps and bounds! It's amazing what a birthday will do for a child! He sports his long gun, holsters and cowboy hat almost everyday and said he wanted his hair longer...because it looked cool! Later as dad read a story about Samson and also Samuel, he said he was going to let his hair grow like the Nazarites!
Mom hasn't shunned the idea as long as it is kept neat and clean!

Canon is hanging in there with his schooling and still practicing Aukido. He had been interested in Ninjas and Ninja toys until he realized that Ninjas typically work as "bad guys". A friend was telling him this and he decided that he did not want to be a Ninja then. We explained to him that that was the reason we had not ever bought him any type of ninja things, etc. and that the Aukido he attends is for sport and physical regimine but not as a religion like many people see it. He grows in maturity and we pray that he will continue to grow in stature and wisdom.

Happy New Year!

With the Christmas tree finally put away, our lives begin to get back to normal. We have celebrated Christmas on the 25th, Father Christmas, New Year's(picture of the "girls" at the New Year's Eve party), and Ukrainian Christmas on the 7th(family photo). In Ukraine, they have a traditional dish called Kutia which consists of wheat grain, raisins, nuts, honey and poppyseeds. Each family's recipe is always a little different. Maya and Scotland really enjoyed it on Christmas Day, but the rest of the family is not too crazy about it! On the 7th, Kutia is the first thing to be eaten and then the other 11 dishes, which is meant to represent the 12 apostles of Jesus. The braided bread we served represented the Trinity and the first star to appear in the sky was a reminder of the Star of Bethelehem. As we celebrated the many traditions of Ukraine, we also prayed for the people here who are living by traditions instead of knowing a Savior personally. We talked about the many traditions that families here often participate in and why we don't agree with them. One such, is setting a place setting for the deceased, placing gifts near icons and others. After the evening meal, children begin to carol throughout the neighborhoods and we were greeted by the first group after a time of prayer. We continue to pray for the truth of God's Word to be made known in the hearts of Ukrainians and that the lost would come to know Him as their personal Savior and Lord.

We were glad to be able to share the New Year with our church family, but it was an "all-nighter!!" It's hard to imagine that most of us stayed up the whole night, but it was a lot of fun too. We played games, ate (of coarse), sang and prayed together as we praised God for another year. May it be a year that will be filled with ministry opportunities beyond our belief!

The holiday season was a great time to share with our neighbors and friends, baked goodies. With some of the "sweets" a Bible and leaflet were given. May God's Word be read and not return void. Also, Maya has been able to share with a new friend many truths of God's word concerning fasting, prayer and other Biblical topics. At first this Ukrainian was a bit stand-offish, knowing that we are missionaries, but as time progressed she has began to ask questions. After a conversation, Maya set her at ease by assuring her that she did not come to Ukraine to "convert" her to her own beliefs...God does the converting. That the truth lies within God's Word...encouraging her to understand for herself the truth of salvation. She belongs to a traditional Greek Orthodox church...pray for her and many others who live by traditions instead of a relationship with a Risen Savior!