Hey all! Just got back from the national conference. What an awesome, edifying and challenging time. The theme of the conference was The Church - it's structure, uniqueness, purpose, future. God has really challenged me through everything that was shared to be more simple as far as my purpose and goals go. John Chubik was sharing how the church is the body and Christ is the LIFE. And we can have all of the body parts, but without the life we're....well, dead. We so often view Christ as only our redeemer, our friend - which he is. But he's more! He's our LIFE!!! Do we live that way. The second thing that really impacted me was the great commission - the purpose of the church, thus the title of this weblog. Phil Metzger was sharing of how we just need to go. Go to the mission field, go to the streets of your city, go to school, go home.... There are plenty of places to go and spread the life of Christ!! Man, how simple. Yet it's one of the elements the church and it's members, myself included, lack most!!!

Live a life of abandon to Christ. There isn't anything that comes close to it's importance or beauty.

Peace

Jon

"The Funeral Procession" Going to bury the old bodies of new believers:)



Krissy was baptized at the conference




Me with my pastor, Alyosha Satenko, at the baptisms


Worship service, Saturday night








Alyosha Satenko, Brian Brodersen, Georgie and me



Praying before worship, Sunday morning

....

I'm never going to promise that I will be a better blogger again... But here I am! Posting after only a few months:) I do hope to keep this up though.

There are tons of things starting to happen, so I think I'll have more to write about. First of all, Steffie is going to be taking russian courses through a mission called SEND. She went today and really liked the way they do things. It's been an answer to prayer, since trying to do it on her own has been tough, and I'm busy a lot of the time so I can't really be her teacher.

I have a concert coming up this weekend at the philharmonic! Yikes, going to be my first time performing there.  The music school  I used to go to is having it's anniversary concert and they asked me to be a part of it. Definitely a great experience, just really nervous!!!

Well, haven't been able to take very many pictures lately because the screen on our camera broke:( Hopefully we'll get that working soon and we will be able to post some pics....that slideshow is getting pretty old

Peace

Jonny
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Hey all!

Little update...

Steffie and I were in Ternopil this last week for the first service of the new Calvary there. It was amazing! around 35 people came. Georgie invited me to do worship down there and there were a couple other people from our church that wanted to come and support the team as well. Steffie got to help with the nursery...well, 2 kids:) It was a really awesome time.

Going to ternopil will be one of things I will be focusing on this year. I want to be doing the same there as here...helping to teach people to play in worship...Lots of stuff going on at the Kyiv church right now. Lots of new people want to play in worship and we are really praying about how they can serve. 

Well, that's about it for now, my wife put pics of our trip up (she took all the pics) xanga.com/stephitchka

Peace to all

Jonny
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.....I know....it's been forever and a day since I posted. Well, I sort of have an excuse...actually, I think it's a pretty good excuse!

Don't exactly know what to say on here, and that's not because there isn't anything to say at all...on the contrary there is TOO MUCH to fill all of you in on.

In a nutshell tho...it was the most awesome summer of my life (duh). Not only was it an amazing wedding and now awesome to have a beautiful wife, it was also sweet to spend time with so many people that are so special to me. Everyone in my family made it to the wedding except Paul and Mel and their little dudes. It's awesome how even tho we hardly ever get to see each other any more, we are so close. The Lord really allowed us to pack the short time we all had together with so many awesome memories. It was so special.

Honeymoon was sweet...I'll try to get some pics up here for y'all. We went to Oregon and Washington...well, not at the same time...first Oregon then Washington. It's amazing out there!
 
Waterfall close to Portland, OR....


     

Oregon Coast...
     





Ok....on to Washington


Quinault rainforest Lake Crescent    Merrimere Falls    Ruby Beach
  



Olympic mountains from hurricane ridge





Mount index (from our cabin!!!)



Seattle



It's been quite the adjustment being back in Kyiv. It's definitely tougher on Steffie since she doesn't speak the language yet and is in a place she never lived. But even though I grew up here...it's pretty strange being the ONLY Markeys in Kyiv!!! Seriously, it totally takes some getting used to, finally starting our own family. I would have laughed hard a couple of years ago if you would have told me that I would be the last Markey in Kyiv:) But we both see that the Lord wants us here. Don't exaclty know why yet...but we see him leading us step by step...

Please pray for my entrance exams this October. I'm trying to enter the post-graduate program at the conservatory here. Feel a little overwhelmed by that, especially since there is so much else going on at the same time. I'm leading worship here now, and there are so many things that we want to do. First of all, need to be teaching a couple of people to play drums, since Georgie is gone now. Also working with some of the youth so they can play in worship too...etc. etc. etc....oh! one more thing worth mentioning is that we are praying about recording another album. It's all really awesome and I'm totally excited to be in the middle of all this...just need TIME!!! Oh well...Lord knows.

Ok, all for now...peace to you all

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Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with out weaknesses but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need

Hebrews 4:14-16