200810 Monthly Update October 2008

MAY YOUR HEART BE FULL OF WHAT??
The other day I was dropping off Tashy at her former place of employment. She had a difficult meeting and I attempted to encourage her by saying “May God give you wisdom in your words and peace in your heart.” I only changed one letter but ended up saying “and may your heart be full of cheese”. It was pretty funny.

UTSIM
September has been a crazy month. This month the language school opened. We currently look like this:

• Natasha Kurilko – Director/Accountant/Bookkeeper
• Jonathan Miller – Teacher
• Sveta Hladchenko – Teacher’s Aide
• Masha Stratiychuk – Secretary/Translator

I think we have 17 students. We started with 8, but the number is changing every day. Currently we are running classes after school using one of the local school’s facilities. This means dragging everything down there – and sometimes waiting for a room to be available. I would dearly love to rent premises in the centre of town – please be praying about this.
I also currently have lawyers in Kyiv working on my documentation. I may have some problems regarding work permits and visas. I’m still holding my breath on this one and hopefully will find out within the next week or two. Big prayer point!
I’m really enjoying the teaching and the face to face interaction with the students. It’s a lot of work but I enjoy planning and creating, and the verbal interaction in the lessons. The students are mainly keen which is a bonus. Please pray for these students.
The document/business side of things is almost indescribable. To quote from a Kyiv paper, “If you are starting a business here, absurdly the first person you would have to hire would be a bookkeeper to sail you through the seas of bureaucracy and regulations. You simply wouldn’t do that anywhere west of Ukraine.”
LIFE OUTSIDE OF BUSINESS
Life outside of business does exist because I demand that it does. I guess this falls into a couple of categories

PEOPLE
I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with Mark and Jacqui from NZ who stayed at my place over the summer while working on Ruth and Jon’s house. Was also good to spend time with Ruth and Jon and I still see them most, if not every weekend. Shane from WA was also a great bloke to get to know. He hung out here for the summer and will hopefully come back sooner than later next year. I’m hoping to land another English teacher this way. Shane also rates as a formidable foe in table tennis. Max has come to stay and has been here a month. I’ve been so busy I’ve hardly spent much time with him. In-between times a bunch of people stayed over for Ruth’s 30th weekend, Looby Loo came to stay and 8 people from Moldova crashed here last night. It was also great to catch up with Nat in Kyiv for an early birthday and see the bump progressing in her belly.

EVENTS
Working backwards, we just had the 3rd Annual Chernihiv Conference. A good bunch from Rzhyshchiv went. It was a good time of teaching from the heart of God in Scripture – namely JESUS, MERCY, REDEMPTION, and THE GLORY OF GOD. We had good fellowship and fun together. Thanks to the organisers.
My little mate Jeff had an appearance at British International School in Kyiv for a Friday assembly. It was good to brush up the ventriloquism – but more so I realised that I’ve missed this little personality. He’s been a good friend to me.
I saw very little rugby this year, but watching the All Blacks beat the Wallabies in a close one which doubled as two finals – was really good. A representative from the NZ embassy in Moscow was also there so I was trying to be a little less demonstrative – but in those dying tense seconds – I don’t think I was able to contain myself.
And on the subject of rugby, I played in an expat beach rugby team at the annual tournament in late August. We played all right for a 5th placing. Was great to do something active again.
For anything further back check out the blog posts on the website.

CUT SHORT
The life of one of my first students was cut short by a tragic car accident a few weeks ago. I wrote about my feelings in a short tribute to Steph Evans. Read it here http://www.jonomiller.com/node/1634.
I came to understand the amazing help a Christian school community like Pacific Hills can be. Pray about the future of Christian schooling here in Ukraine.

New Look Newsletter
Do you like it? Dislike it? Send us your feedback please. See the attached PDF file.

WHAT YA READIN’?
“The First Circle” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn has consumed a large part of my reading time. It has been an interesting delve into the Soviet psyche as well as a thought provoking commentary upon human motives and behaviour. Albeit – rather slow moving. 3.5/5

Admittedly a little while back, I also read “A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian” by Marina Lewycka. It’s not in Ukrainian – it’s in English. A highly entertaining book made even more absorbing by the Ukrainian nuances to which I could relate. 4/5

PRAYER AND PRAISE

• Steph’s parents and brother
• Premises to rent
• Visa/work permit documentation
• My students
• Tashi, Sveta and Masha who work for UTSIM
• A glorious God, His mercy, His redemption and His Son, Jesus

Love Jono
Keep Looking Up

Attachment	Date	Size
200810 Monthly Update.pdf	03/10/08 2:15 am	544.29 KB