Category: Guest Post

David Coffield, Featured Writers, Guest Post, Jesus, Messiah, Yahweh, Yehovah

Called . . . Beloved . . . Kept

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

Our couple’s study is working on Jude, and I was struck by verse 1.  “…To those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ.”  This verse says nothing about our responsibility or actions—only the sovereign work of our Father.

“Called”.  Funny that I have never heard a group of Christians calling themselves “the called”.  It emphasizes the sovereign work and choice of God.  God doesn’t call those who are worthy because there is no one worthy.  He saves sinners.  We will be sinners until we stand in His presence and this body of flesh is done away with.  It is not about my works or efforts but about His mercy and grace.

“Beloved”.  This describes our relationship with our Father.  For some inscrutable reason, He has chosen to love us.  He can’t love us more than He does or less than He does.  He loves us perfectly and deeply.  We are always on His thoughts and in His heart.  I think we do a sad disservice when we teach people that our sin separates us in the relationship and causes the Father to be angry with us.  We end up living as Pharisees constantly concerned that we are not good enough and striving to do more and be better.

There is nothing good about sin.  Romans 6 gives 3 reasons not to be involved in sin.  1-We are dead to it.  2-God has provided something better.    3-Sin produces crap and who wants crap?  But if we live thinking that less “sin” (whatever that looks like) makes us more like Jesus we are deceived.  Walking with Jesus makes us more like Jesus.  We won’t walk with Jesus if we think He has something against us or if we think we aren’t good enough.

We can’t move out of the state of being beloved by the Father.

“Kept”.  People lose things all the time.  If you are a professional athlete, you know that you are only secure as long as you can perform adequately.  There is always someone younger, faster, stronger, etc.  We are held in the hand of the Jesus, and we are forever secure, not because we can perform but because He loves us.

Letter from David Coffield.

David Coffield, Featured Writers, God Loves Us, Guest Post, Jehovah, Jesus, Messiah, Testimonies, Yahweh, Yehovah

How God feels about us is unshakeable.

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

Dear Mike,

How God feels about us is unshakeable.  It is never dependent on how good we are or how poorly we behave.  

God looks at His children, clothed in the righteousness of His Son, and He is forever delighted.  Not a delight that I have ever deserved or earned or ever could deserve or earn.  Those who think they can merit God’s pleasure have no idea of His holiness nor their sin.

It leaves us in a wonderful place of being able to rejoice in our Father’s love and pleasure without worrying about our performance.

Does God engage with us to help us grow up?  Yes.  Does sin produce death?  Certainly.  Is all of our sin paid for on Calvary?  Yes.  I can never sin my way out of my relationship with Father.  I can affect the way that He deals with me.  He is always about growing us up into the image of His Son Jesus.

Hebrews speaks of “fixing our eyes on Jesus the author and perfector of faith”, Paul speaks of “not being drawn away from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Jesus.”  

Despite my brokenness, despite my failures, despite my weakness, foolishness, stupidity—I am deeply loved by my Father.  It leaves me in the posture of rejoicing in God’s love for me, settled and confident in who I am to my Father (regardless of what others or my performance is saying), and free to move forward in love.

Your brother,

David

David Coffield, Featured Writers, God Loves Us, Guest Post, Jesus, Testimonies, Yahweh

What is the will of God for you?

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

Rejoice always, talk with God continually, and thank him for everything.

This is a letter from Dave Coffield, shared with you with his permission.

“Several of us are studying our way through 1 Thessalonians, and I am struck by 5:16,17,18.  ‘Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.‘ One of the guys in the study, Russ, suggested that all 3 verses represent God’s will for us.  I had never considered that before, and I am grateful for his input.

‘Rejoice always.’  It doesn’t say to be happy always.  Rejoice is a choice I make with my will to lift my heart to God in gratefulness regardless of the circumstances.  It is our ability to rejoice in hard and unpleasant circumstances that bear testimony to a watching world to the reality of God and our faith.  It is a compass heading.  I don’t always do a good job of it.

‘Pray without ceasing.’  We can pray without ceasing because our God is always present with us.  We are always in communication; the line is always open.  

Our sin doesn’t separate us from God.  In the early days I believed and taught that.  However, all of our sins have been forgiven on Calvary, past, present, and future.  All of them.  We don’t have to connect with God or regard Him, but He lives inside of us.  We carry Him around with us and Psalm 139 says He has intimate knowledge of us.  Every word, every thought, every deed.

So, the Lord and I talk all day long.  He is a constant companion, an ardent listener and deeply loving of us.  Incredible.  There is nothing that we can’t share with Him, nothing that He doesn’t know, and nothing that He doesn’t care about.  Incredible.  How lonely must be the life of an unbeliever!

‘In everything give thanks.’  We don’t have to feel thankful.  We don’t have to see the event as ‘good.’  We can give thanks because our Father is absolutely sovereign over this world and its smallest events.  So, what we see as an accident, an intrusion, a mistake, is all from the hand of our sovereign Father to accomplish His purposes.  We can give thanks because our Father loves us with a matchless, wonderful, profound love.

So, this is God’s will for us.  May our lives move in this direction.”

David Coffield, Featured Writers, Guest Post, Jehovah, Jesus, Mental Health, Messiah, Recommended Reading, Testimonies, Uncategorized, Yahweh, Yehovah

Embrace the suck

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

Written by Dave Coffield

“God is far more likely to use pain, suffering, sorrow, grief, troubles, and such to grow us up into the character and image of His Son than He is to use happy times and pleasure.  I know what I like better.”  

“There is a reason that James says to ‘count it all joy when you encounter various trials’ and Paul says, ‘not only this but we also exult in our tribulations‘.  What would it be like to rejoice in the goodness of the Lord in the difficult times that He brings into our lives to accomplish good things in us?”

“The Army has a term I like.  ‘Embrace the suck’.  The understanding that you will be in environments that are difficult, painful, stressful, etc.  You endure it.  Hebrews says of Jesus, ‘Who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame…‘”

Featured Writers, God Loves Us, Guest Post, Jesus, Mental Health, Recommended Reading, Testimonies, Uncategorized, Veterans

Brand New Dad Reflects On Sleepless Nights

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

Shared with permission, written by an Airborne Artillery Officer.

Zechariahs Prophecy. Yet another cannonball-sized movement in my heart from the Spirit. 

Luke 1:78-79

78  “because of the tender mercy of our God, 

whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high 

79  to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, 

to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Those last four words are what did it for me. ‘The way of Peace‘. That sounds like a distant dream for me right now. We were up nearly all night trying to figure out how to calm our two-week-old Son; ultimately, we tried everything and made him so overtired that he didn’t fall asleep until he was on his Mom’s chest around 3 am. 

These days feel like combat for me, far from the way of peace. The days are unpredictable, and there seems to be no routine despite our efforts to set one. It’s combat. That’s the only way I know how to describe it. I thought last night, during the chaos of my all-nighter air assault mission that led directly into another movement at 3 am during my artillery platoon’s evaluation cycle at the National Training Center before deploying to Iraq. I remember feeling so deflated when I was called to the commander’s Humvee less than an hour after finishing this long, drawn-out failure of an air assault mission. I couldn’t believe I was going to have to do it again, and I was going to have to lead another platoon movement to a new firing position. This was insanity, and I could barely keep my eyes open. I remember leading the convoy, literally dozing in and out under my night vision goggles… 

Yep, that’s how the nights feel right now. Exhausted and battered, only to be called to the commander’s Humvee again and again. So why do those words ‘the way of peace‘ stand out to me so much? In my angry prayers for respite last night, I began to sense that this was indeed a time of testing from the Lord. How to answer the test? I haven’t figured it out yet. Except that these words this morning point me back to the purpose and mission of Jesus. And to the way in which he accomplished it.  

In my journey of faith, at least in recent years, I don’t think I have been physically and emotionally tested in the way that I am now. So, what does this mean, Lord? 

He leads my eyes back to verse 79… “to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” Wow, I actually chuckled to re-read that. That’s exactly how it feels in the midnight hours—sitting in literal darkness, under the shadow of death, in this case, death being physical exhaustion and weariness. But the word clearly states that Jesus will be a light in this place, and that he will guide us out of it, into the way of peace. 

Hebrews 12:11

“For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

Thinking back to that all-nighter air assault mission. Why did they [the evaluating cadre] allow it to go on for that long? How was it beneficial? It taught me how to keep going. When there is nothing left. Literally nothing. It taught me to endure. To put on my helmet, brief the platoon, and get moving. To get through the breach and know that there would be rest on the other side, at some point.

I don’t know that I can pinpoint a time in Iraq when this testing came to bear fruit. Except maybe the night our howitzer exploded, and a mass casualty event kept us awake until the sunrise. And what did I do then? I got it done, and eventually I slept when it was all said and done. 

The way of peace is narrow, as Jesus himself said it. The way of being a new parent is rough. And I have a choice to make, each and every night. I have to choose that I am going to trust the one who is training me. I have to choose that I will believe in the fruit it will yield. 

Prayer

Jesus, as you always do, thank you for giving me space and clarity to write. To think through these things occurring in life. To see, to hear, and receive your teaching. My heart is full again now that I have understanding. My heart has joy to know it is all for good. Jesus, I will try, I will not quit, but will keep on trying to commit my heart to you during these late nights. Teach me when to engage our Son. Teach me Lord, to be following your way for my feet, and to let go of my own way. 

David Coffield, Featured Writers, Guest Post, J3 Khai Restoration, Jesus, Recommended Reading, Testimonies

Our faith grows to the extent that we grow in our connection and relationship with Jesus.

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

It is a great privilege to share with you my experience as a broken man with a mighty God.  The older I get, the more impressed I am with Him and the less impressed I am with me.

I think Hebrews 12 has great advice for us.  “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.”  Endurance is basically hanging in there, moving on when we would rather stop.  I have run a 20 miler.  The question at mile 17 was no longer whether I could run again, but whether I could keep walking.  

Our couple’s study was working on James 2 last night and our discussion helped my understanding.  Faith is an ongoing connection with God.  It is not a one-time intellectual assent to God’s existence.  The noun (faith) and the verb (believe) share the same root word.  Our faith grows to the extent that we grow in our connection and relationship with Jesus.

Pick up the Bible, listen to the voice of God as He speaks.  Respond to Him.  It is as simple and profound as it gets.

Nobody does it well all the time.  Nobody gets it right all the time.  No one.  And it is ok because every believer has been clothed in the righteousness of Christ, all our sins have been forgiven, we have been adopted into His family, we are completely loved and accepted, we have eternal life.  Incredible. 

When Thanksgiving rolls around, I am drawn to Hebrews where it says, “Through Him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.”  Giving thanks is a sacrifice we give to God.  Proud people are never thankful, they are entitled, they deserve it.  Humble people recognize that everything they have that is good comes from the hand of our loving Father (the bad and the good).  And we give thanks.

Your brother,

David

Family News, Featured Writers, Guest Post, Recommended Reading, Testimonies, Veterans

Chaplain’s forced exit on deck while NDAA getting hashed out

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

J.M. Phelps/American Family News

Dec 14, 2022

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Chaplain's forced exit on deck while NDAA getting hashed out

An Army chaplain awaits word on his forced separation from the military, pending the Senate’s decision on the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which could bring the military vaccine mandate to an end.

For Army Chaplain Brad Lewis, the last 15 months have seemed like a decade. Within days of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate in August 2021, Colonel Lewis – who became a chaplain due to religious conviction – requested a religious accommodation to the mandate. His request was denied in February 2022, and within two days he submitted an appeal to the Assistant Secretary of the Army. Eight weeks ago, that, too, was denied.

When he received the denial of his appeal, he was given two options: either voluntarily submit for retirement, or voluntarily get vaccinated. He tells American Family News that he didn’t feel he could, in good conscience, step away from “a fight just to save my own skin.” To him, both options were unacceptable, explaining he felt it was “immoral” being forced to choose between his faith and his career.

“I would love to have a retirement after the better part of three decades, but if it means the next generation of chaplains and soldiers are able to get a retirement at the expense of mine, then I’m willing to do that,” Lewis asserts. “[So] rather than assist in the death of a retirement it took nearly 27 years to earn, I left the ball in the Department of Defense’s court to separate me.”

Once his appeal was denied, Lewis says, he was immediately labeled a “vaccine refuser.” According to Army Directive 2022-02, issued by the Secretary of the Army, Christine Wormuth in January 2022, an officer who refuses to be vaccinated will be involuntarily separated for “misconduct, moral or professional dereliction.” And those who are involuntarily separated for this reason are “normally” separated under other-than-honorable conditions according to Army Regulation 600-8-24.

According to Lewis, that characterization of service “carries with it some pretty significant curtailments of veterans benefits.”

“Without saying it, they were threatening my retirement,” he contends. “It’s not just my retirement they were threatening, but the retirement of every other soldier in the Army.”

And that, coupled with his religious convictions, compelled him to take the stance he did.

For standing firm, there’s cost … or there’s reward

As part of the separation process, on Monday Chaplain Lewis was to be given a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand (commonly known as a GOMOR) as a result of his objection to the COVID-19 vaccine and the denial of his accommodation request.

But in the eleventh hour, he was told by his command that the GOMOR would be put on hold until the Senate decides how it will respond to the U.S. House’s passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which is expected to repeal the military vaccine mandate.

“If someone doesn’t stand up and say You can’t do this, then it’s just going to continue,” Lewis contends. “The scope of religious accommodation denials indicates a pretty severe anti-religious bias in the DOD,” he says. “And as a chaplain, I had to stand up and say we were not going to play that game.”

The chaplain argues that the job of the DOD is not to determine whether an individual’s beliefs are valid, but whether they are sincere; and if sincere, the government should accommodate those beliefs, according to the U.S. Constitution, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), NDAA, Army doctrine, and more.

Regardless of the outcome, one thing remains true through it all, according to Lewis: “God is bigger than the Army and is always good.”

Accessed/copies Dec 16, 22 from: https://afn.net/medical-health/2022/12/14/chaplain-s-forced-exit-on-deck-while-ndaa-getting-hashed-out/

David Coffield, Guest Post, Jesus, Personal Reflections, Uncategorized

“It cannot not bear fruit.”

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

Part of a recent letter from our friend Dave Coffield.

It is difficult when so many of us have grown up in a Christian culture of either church and/or parachurch where ministry and works are stressed. We have a chaplain who tells us pretty much every time he is standing up front, that our job is to fill the empty fews. So, you feel a little guilty and overwhelmed.

I love the words of Jesus on His way with the disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane to engage in serious prayer prior to His arrest. He stops by a vineyard and grabs a grape plant and tells them that He is the True Vine and they are branches. Their job is to abide in Him. Their job is to abide in Him.

You know John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” The branch is not concerned about bearing fruit, it is concerned about abiding, about partaking of the rich life of the vine. It will bear fruit if it abides. It cannot not bear fruit.

There has been discussion about what “fruit” is. I like to suggest that fruit is anything that the Holy Spirit wants to produce through a person’s life as they abide in Jesus. And it is seasonal. My friend, Bill Mason, suggests from Psalm 1 that the tree bears fruit “in its season.”

My attention, my focus should be on abiding.

Anytime I am engaging with a believer I want to know how they are abiding. I don’t have concerns about bearing fruit if they are abiding. It is impossible to bear good fruit if you are not abiding. You can produce stuff. Check out the Lord’s comments in Matthew 7 when He says, “Many will say to Me on that day…” They prophesy in His name, they cast out demons in His name, and they perform miracles. Pretty cool. Except…they don’t know Him. They are not abiding in Him.

Do I dare to believe that my value to my Father resides in my relationship with Him?

Guest Post, Obituary, Recommended Reading, Uncategorized

Way to go Harriet!!!

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

By Joseph Berger

Nov. 23, 2022

In the summer of 2001, Harriet Bograd decided to visit her daughter Margie, who had taken a summer job in a remote village in Ghana.

When Ms. Bograd and her husband, Ken Klein, arrived in the village, Sefwi Wiawso, they learned about its community of two dozen families who considered themselves Jewish, even if religious authorities in Israel and elsewhere did not.

In the week she was there, Ms. Bograd, whose husband called her “one of life’s great enthusiasts,” turned her enchantment with the villagers into a practical project that has become a major source of income for the community. She guided artisans in fashioning the colorful kente cloth sold in the local market into covers for the braided challahs that observant Jews bless and eat during Sabbath and holiday meals. A trained lawyer, she set the community up as an incorporated business that sold the challah covers across the United States for $36 apiece. Thousands have been purchased.

In the years after that trip, Ms. Bograd worked with the nonprofit organization Kulanu, which supports “isolated, emerging or returning” Jewish communities in places where even most American Jews don’t realize there are Jews: Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Cameroon, Madagascar, Indonesia, Pakistan, Guatemala, the Philippines and more — 33 countries in total. These are people who for generations have kept some fundamental Jewish laws, like resting on the Sabbath and abstaining from certain foods, but that may have had only opaque ideas of their community’s Jewish origins.

Ms. Bograd wearing a hat and hiking with her husband. They are holding walking sticks and there are trees all around them.
Ms. Bograd with her husband, Ken Klein, on a trip to Ghana in 2001. Her experience there motivated her to join Kulanu.Credit…Joseph Kwame Nipah, via Kulanu

They trace their Jewish roots to a variety of sources: the 10 lost tribes that were dispersed by the Assyrian conquest of the Kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C.E.; the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions, which, starting in the late 15th century, scattered thousands of Jews in far-off lands, where many practiced their religion in secret; century-old conversions by communal leaders more attracted to the Old Testament than the teachings of Christian missionaries.

“It gave her such joy that these Jewish people felt they were connected to the greater Jewish world and felt they belonged,” Mollie Levine, the deputy director of Kulanu, said in an interview.

Ms. Bograd died on Sept. 17 in a Manhattan hospital. She was 79. Her daughter Rabbi Margie Klein Ronkin said the cause was complications of heart surgery.

So exhilarated was Ms. Bograd by her experience in Ghana that she promptly joined the board of Kulanu. By her death, she had served as its president for 14 years. The organization’s headquarters were in the study of her Upper West Side apartment.

Under her command, the organization, whose Hebrew name means “all of us,” raised funds to build synagogues in Uganda and Zimbabwe; a Jewish-themed primary school in Uganda that is open to Christians and Muslims; and a mikvah — a ritual bath — in Tanzania. With a budget of around $500,000, Kulanu has also provided rabbinical training and advanced classes in Judaism at American seminaries for community leaders and distributed prayer books, Torah scrolls, prayer shawls and other ritual items.

Kulanu’s work has not been without controversy. While Jews in Ethiopia have been recognized by the Orthodox authorities in Israel as authentically Jewish, those in other parts of Africa have not been. Efforts by Conservative rabbis to formally convert some Africans to Judaism have encountered challenges because the Orthodox establishment in Israel does not recognize the legitimacy of Conservative rabbis. Bonita Nathan Sussman, Kulanu’s new president, said that many Africans also reject conversion, arguing, “Who are you to tell me I’m not Jewish?”

On the other hand, Ms. Levine said, Ms. Bograd “met them at the level where they are.”

She was active in Jewish causes in New York as well. In the early 1980s, she and other parents partnered with educators to found the Heschel School, a Jewish day school in Manhattan that now enrolls about a thousand students. And at the West End Synagogue, a Reconstructionist congregation, she was known for the warm way she greeted newcomers, an act congregants affectionately called “Bograding.”

Harriet Mary Bograd was born on April 6, 1943, in Paterson, N.J., into a Conservative Jewish home. Her father, Samuel Bograd, owned an upscale furniture emporium with an uncle. Her mother, Pauline (Klemes) Bograd, sometimes helped him with his business and was a leader in a local chapter of Planned Parenthood.

Harriet attended a special high school operated by Montclair State Teachers College (now Montclair State University) and graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1963 with a degree in political science. The summer she graduated, she arranged for a group of nine white Bryn Mawr students to teach at Livingstone College, a historically Black college in Salisbury, N.C., so they could absorb the impact of the growing civil rights movement.

A grainy black-and-white portrait of Ms. Bograd.
A 1963 yearbook photo of Ms. Bograd. She graduated from Bryn Mawr that year and went on to Yale Law School.Credit…Special Collections, Bryn Mawr College Libraries

One of 11 women in her class at Yale Law School, she graduated in 1966. Rather then joining a law firm, she went to work for an organization in New Haven, Conn., that represented indigent clients in matters like access to medical care and trained local residents to be advocates for themselves and their neighbors. She helped start a day care center in New Haven, joined with other parents and teachers in a drive to improve local public schools and campaigned for the government to approach drug addiction as a crisis of health and poverty rather than a crime.

She married Mr. Klein, a tax lawyer, in 1977. In addition to her daughter Rabbi Klein Ronkin, he survives her, as do another daughter, Sarah Klein; a sister, Naomi Robbins; and two grandchildren.

When Ms. Bograd received a diagnosis of Stage 4 breast cancer in 1997, with a bleak prognosis, it only made her more determined to use her remaining time for the Hebrew concept of tikkun olam — “repairing the world” — and for her work with Kulanu.

Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, said that Ms. Bograd also saw Kulanu as a vehicle to expand the mainstream Jewish sense of what Jews are supposed to look like.

“She felt it enhanced American Judaism,” he said, “to recognize that all Jews are not white and European.”

Joseph Berger was a reporter and editor at The New York Times for 30 years. He is the author of a biography of Elie Wiesel, which is scheduled for publication in February. @joeberg

A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 25, 2022, Section A, Page 23 of the New York edition with the headline: Harriet Bograd, 79, Guide and Mentor To Jewish Communities Around World

Featured Writers, Guest Post, Personal Reflections, Ukraine, Uncategorized

Update from Ukraine, 147th Day of the War (From email dated July 23rd)

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

Dear friends, I wish you the God’s Day.
My wife and I haven’t seen you for a long time, so we would like to physically be with you face to face over a cup of tea. But now there is a war and you cannot come to us in Ukraine, and we cannot come to you.

I am glad that I have many friends and acquaintances. It’s good for me, but I can’t physically write to everyone in person – it’s bad for me, I’m sorry.

My personal news, my personal feelings and observations.
Today is the 147th Day of the war: Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
The fifth month of the war will soon end. It feels like “eternity”.
I was interested in analyzing myself, what did I feel at the beginning of the war and what do I feel now?
I remember the first days of the war, from February 24 to March 31, when Russian troops quickly approached Kyiv and tried to surround and capture it. At that time, I felt confused, scared and stressed by the rocket attacks and shelling of our city by the enemy. Now in the news, this time is called the first stage of the war. Many people then prophesied for Ukraine, as a state, that it had 3-5 days left to live, and then it would have to capitulate to Moscow. But by the grace of God, this did not happen, the Ukrainians withstood this sudden, strong and insidious blow of the aggressor. God loves us.

The next period of the war, this is the time from about April 1 to June 30. This is the time when the Ukrainian troops forced the Russians to start retreating from the cities of Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy, that is, the enemy retreated through Belarus from the north of Ukraine to the east. At that time, I felt joy for our Armed Forces, I felt hope for our quick victory and the end of the war, but at the same time I felt the pain of our losses, because the Ukrainian army at that time had about 100 soldiers killed every day, who died in battles to deter the enemy from seizing the east and south of Ukraine. A large number of Ukrainian civilians died from shelling and shooting. The International and Ukrainian Olive Branch and the “Path of Truth” church prayed together and then my feeling of pain decreased. Thank you all for your many prayers through messenger. Thank you, Olive Branch! God loves us.

Now say that now is the third stage of the war. This is from about July 1 until today. Russian troops are concentrated in the east of Ukraine and are trying to attack all this time. Our Ukrainian troops stopped them in all directions. Positional and artillery battles are now underway. Ukrainian troops with the help of American weapons are trying to seize the initiative and destroy their rear. I still feel in me the old stress from the shelling and the new stress  from the uncertainty, because every time it seems that the end of the war is near, it is pushed back further. It is difficult psychologically. But God loves us.

Today in our church was Chaplain, who graduate a 2015 year of the  program “Pastoral Chaplain Leadership” at the KTS, Major of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Yuriy us his testimony, he thanked us for our prayers, and he repeated many times that prayers work and they are real act even when we do not see it with our own eyes. Major Yuriy cited many cases when he felt our prayer, when he himself prayed, when soldiers started coming to him one by one, and when the shelling started, then 20 people came to his room.He said that God, through our prayers, brought their unit out of the enemy’s encirclement, God saved their broken car at night, God saved the building where their military unit lived from terrible shelling for two months. All the windows there were broken and covered with plywood, but the glass in Yura’s window was intact. It is a miracle of God that where there are trained military chaplains, there are almost no wounded and none killed.

Our church has a list of alumni chaplains and has been prayerfully and financially supporting them since the beginning of the war.
God used to prepare Ukraine for the battle against Mordor through the Olive Branch, and now God continues to do so.
God is doing this through all of you, dear friends and employees of the Olive Branch, this is God’s miracle in Ukraine!

What I do at Olive Branch in Ukraine

During the time that has passed since my last message, I conducted two three-day online seminars: 

for the Evangelical Reformed Seminary of Ukraine (in June there were 18 students) and for KTS in July.
So, on July 4-6, 2022, by the grace of God, I conducted the second three-day training course on the topic: “How to prepare a military chaplain for the local church to care for the defenders of the country.”
35 students were registered for this course during the war.
All three days of the course, 28 students were present online (according to screenshots). Another seven did not listen during the entire study time. The senior chaplain, pastor Vasyl, helped me in teaching.
Among the 35 listeners were:
Pastors – 7;
Deacons – 6;
Chaplains and volunteers – 10;
Other types of service – 12.
After reading the given literature, the students will be sent the Certificate of the program “Pastor and Chaplain Leadership” of the KTS.
The leadership of one of the independent Baptist churches of southern Ukraine was present at the seminar: a pastor and three deacons, one of whom was a military chaplain. They had a conflict in the middle because of the chaplaincy of one of their deacons. The church did not understand who a military chaplain is, how to equip and support him, and the chaplain did not understand accountability to his church and adherence to his creed. Therefore, I explained it to them in the course of teaching. They understood this and reconciled.
I think that during our studies we were able to learn to love God and each other more.

In the Church “The Way of Truth”
On July 25-30, in the premises of our church, we plan to hold a six-day camp on robotics and English for 20 teenagers from military and other families.
We are preparing four people for baptism.

Hospital chaplains work in Cherkasy
Senior hospital chaplain, reserve lieutenant colonel wrote:  “We, the Cherkasy hospital chaplains, are very grateful to OBI for the support you provide us. It inspires us to defeat the enemy. Soldiers who need both medical and spiritual support enter our medical facility. We are always on the spot and work together with the medical personnel (due to martial law, I do not provide most of the photos with the soldiers). Glory to God and Glory to Ukraine.”

In Irpin, under the leadership of Zhanna, the Ruth club works:
1) On July 17, 2022, the leader of the women’s ministry, Zhanna, Marina and the club “Ruth” at the “Path of Truth” church held a women’s event on the topic “Spiritual gift set” for women from the Irpin of branch of “Olive Branch”. These are women, who survived the occupation, internally displaced persons and refugees who recently returned home. Spiritual truths were remembered more because each of them was associated with one of 10 symbolic gifts: a neckerchief, soap, perfume, salt, a candle holder, a chocolate bar, a towel, lip balm, tea and a rose, as a symbol of originality and uniqueness every woman Each truth is related to one of the biblical images (women) that made them interested in reading about these women. A total of 26 women attended this event, including 8 for the first time. Faithful women from the club decided to prepare for Mother’s Day to invite other women to such an activity. And each will tell one biblical truth and give one gift.We also plan to prepare a presentation and excerpts of other Christian films!
2) We make plans for what we will do after the war is over. This is also a way to overcome the stress that women are under. We thank Linda and Caroline for their training during the online classes at the “Ruth” club, which were held on June 7 and July 11.
3) By July 31, we are preparing Galina teenage group for an evangelistic trip to the place of compact residence of people who lost their homes due to bombs and mines in Irpen. We also prepare a gift set for them – towels, bedding, hygiene products.
4) I visit these people once a week, I bring food to those who especially need it, then I learn about their needs and we pray. We sincerely thank our American brothers and sisters for their support, for the fact that we can help people in difficult circumstances. Together with the Word of God, we bring what is necessary. We also distribute volunteer aid.
5) We received bandages, towels and sleeping bags from volunteers from the city of Brody. The dressing material was transferred to the hospital of Kyiv and Kropyvnytskyi. Towels and sleeping bags – for people who have lost their homes.

Another 21 subdivisions of Olive Branch operate in different cities of Ukraine.

Our regional presbyter Mykola Romaniuk suggested that I prepare online training for pastors of the Baptist Brotherhood with the participation of his familiar American chaplain on the topic: “How to prepare yourself and the church for the meeting of military personnel from the war.” I am starting to work on this issue.

My mother continues to live in the village. I was in her apartment in Chernihiv. I installed a new door there. The inner walls of the apartment collapsed from the air strike, so we threw them down through the window from the fifth floor. We need to restore the walls, order and buy new windows, electrical wiring, pipes for water and heating …

Remember this letter in your prayers.

This is the latest news I have. Tomorrow I plan to go to sell my garage, and then I will go to my mother in the village for two nights. My son Mark has not cut his hair for 147 days …

Thank you for your prayers and other help.

Valentyn Korenevych,
Colonel (retired)

President of the Public organization “Olive Branch” Ukrainewww.olivebranch.org.ua
Program director of “Pastors-Chaplains Leadership” of the Kiev Theological Seminary
www.ktsonline.org

The above is from an email dated July 23rd, 2022.

Guest Post, Uncategorized

Update from Ukraine

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

[I received this letter on May 29th]

Dear friends, I wish you all the God’s Day.

Today is the 95th Day of the war, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

I have not written to any of you for almost 40 days. Earlier, I wrote to you that every inhabitant of Ukraine, even one who is not in the war zone, is exposed to the post of traumatic stress, and in the military goes into the post of traumatic syndrome. Therefore, any creative work or brain effort today in Ukraine is given with great difficulty, such as reading books, writing letters, teaching, planning, training, drawing, preparing for preaching and preaching, and so on. Very difficult. Therefore, sorry for me that I am not often writing because I can’t do it at times, or I am forced to choose a priority that I must do right now. Necessarily and right now I need to talk about chaplaincy. So, in the previous week, I taught three o’clock in the evening to believers from the olive branch about chaplaincy, and I was also preparing to teach for a group of 22 students from the Gospel Reformational Seminary of Ukraine.

I was also preparing for teaching this week, but I was not home for three days because we were in the village of my mom. Every two weeks we visit her, and we bring her products, medicines, water, shoes and things, because after her home in Chernihiv was broken by a Russian bomb from the plane, she had nothing. Even her documents need to be restored. So next week during Monday – Wednesday I will online teach people who want to be chaplains.

We, that is, the Olive branch in Ukraine and the Church “Way of Truth”, we continue to use one of the most effective weapons during the war, that is, prayer. Our military feels the power of our prayer, as a supernatural inspiration and the good power of the Spirit.

We continue in the church to make our daily prayer online meetings. It will be 100 days soon.

The Olive Branch Ukraine and our Seminary also hold online meetings and prayer.

That Monday once every two weeks I have communication and learning from two Olive Branch International leaders. Thank you. I also thank you all, dear friends, for your financial and prayer support for chaplains and students of the Chaplain Program of the Kiev Theological Seminary in Ukraine.

The family of our eldest son returned to their apartment in Irpin a week ago. Their house was built near Kiev, so it was almost not injured: on one side of the building there are two holes from the shells, but it is far from the windows of our sons apartment. They had windows in ventilation mode, so the shock force of the wave of air did not break their glass in the windows but opened them. In cities where there are fighting, windows are not closed at all, but put something soft and heavy, such as pillows on the windowsill. When the shock wave hits the windows, they open, and the pillow falls on the floor and all is well. This is usually when there is no direct hit of a projectile or rocket into the house.

Maybe you are strange to read it, but it is strange to feel in my life. I never thought I would live in a real war. And, unfortunately, it’s not a movie.

The US military volunteer was in the Cherkasy region and he was also visiting the hospital chaplains of Cherkasy. Last week he returned to Kiev to relax and gather things. In a few days he is about to go to the military unit. Today, on Sunday, we prayed for him again in the church, then we had communication with him and ate pizza.

Ukrainians protect their land and their people, but the enemy does not go away. The war is delayed, possibly, until winter. Ukrainians are already tired but are determined to fight. But I think that in Europe and in the US, television and media are now devoted less time to Ukraine and, perhaps, that the news will be given even less time about us. This is normal on the one hand, and on the other, there will be less help and prayers for Ukraine. Therefore, I have a request: to pray for us in Ukraine and about our government at least once a day in the morning or in the evening. Thank you very much for it.

Leader of women’s service has already returned home to Irpin, and my deputy will come to visit me in Kyiv on June 2.

Thank you all again. Christ said that how you served a cup of water or visited someone in the hospital or you visited someone in prison, you helped him. Thank you that you do exactly as the Lord Christ did.

I wish that we have in the soul a peace from God.
Valentyn Korenevych,

Colonel (retired)

President of the Public organization “Olive Branch” Ukrainewww.olivebranch.org.ua
Program director of “Pastors-Chaplains Leadership” of the Kyiv Theological Seminary
www.ktsonline.org