Another Week in the Life of a Missionary

   It seems just yesterday that baby Norah was born and my parents went to America to see the new baby. Now she is 9 weeks old and so precious! But the time came for them to fly back to Ukraine and the time went by so quickly for them; so quickly, in fact, that my mom decided to stay in America a little while longer. This was a great decision and we are all glad that she will be able to stay and spend some more time with the family.

   So my dad flew back to Ukraine and he got into Kyiv on Thursday, and then Friday afternoon he drove to Lviv and got home without any complications. Even though he was fighting jet-lag he taught at our Saturday night Bible study and he will be teaching tomorrow for our church service, so please be praying for him, that he would be strengthened as jet-lag can be a pretty nasty thing.

   A couple of months ago our sound board broke and we weren't sure how bad the damage was. However, we are so blessed because we took it to Kyiv to get it fixed and now we are up-and-running again. It is so convenient to have everything working exactly as it should again and to have our pastor, my dad, back up on stage preaching the Word of God. We truly missed him and I am happy to give up teaching Saturday nights for my dad to get back up there teaching.

   Another thing that happened this week is that we finished the book of James with our youth group! Yeah, we had a great time going through James and it was a huge blessing for me. Now we are moving on to the next thing, and we are praying about which book to go through next. This is kind of a hard decision because I don't really know when I am moving to Hungary for Bible College. If I have the money then I will move there this spring, after the winter break. But if I don't have the money yet then I will continue to study online until next fall. You can see what my goals are by clicking here, and if you are interested in helping me financially to get to college, you can click here. Whatever support you can give is greatly appreciated, and as always, your prayers are appreciated as well.

  

God bless you all,

~ Alex R. Pratt

God is Good!

   Well, this week has been pretty uneventful, so this blog post will be pretty short. But I thought it would be nice to give you guys a little update about what is going on here in Lviv. Next week my parents will be back and so this week was my last week of covering a Bible study for my dad, and I really enjoyed going through the book of Philippians with everyone. That book is such a blessing to me and even as I was teaching from it God was using it to speak to me and as I came home tonight I actually felt a real sense of peace about some things that I have been worrying about lately. God really blessed me tonight!

   Another awesome blessing is to have my buddy Evan back from the States. He had been gone for three months, but he has been back now for a little over a month and we are all happy that he is back. One of the great things about having Evan around is that he is my poitner in crime, if you can excuse my cheesy jokes. We have been spinning poi together for quite some time now and after you get used to spinning with a partner, things just aren't the same solo. We actually recently made a short video of us just playing around with poi, so if you don't know what poi are, just click here to see our new video! You can also see our older videos by clicking here and here! This is something that I enjoy doing very much and it is a blessing to have Evan around to spin with me!

   Now, teaching at Koinonia Kafe, our Saturday night Bible study, was very interesting this week. I had a few slides to show and I wanted to play a couple of videos for the people, but 5 minutes into the sermon and the power goes out. Of course the temptation in that situation is always to panic, especially when you are the one leading it. But I remembered one night when the power went out at our English club, that my dad just stood up there and talked for about an hour, and he finished the night well. So, we lit more candles and we continued to study the book of Philippians. I think it is just so great to see that even without our sound board, or even electricity, we can still continue on and talk about Jesus freely. And in those times when we can't see because of the darkness around us, we can always look to Jesus who is our light!

God bless you all,

~Alex R. Pratt

Harkiv, Lviv, and the Rest of the World!

   Wow! I can't believe I haven't gotten a blog post up in two weeks! I am so sorry guys, I don't plan on missing any more Saturday night blog posts. The good news is that I didn't abandon you guys. These two weeks that I've been absent I have been very busy, and it has been a great kind of busy. I can't wait to tell you about all that we have done these last two weeks.

   

   Harkiv! I had the opportunity to go with a very small team from our church to the Calvary Chapel in Harkiv, Ukraine, where we stayed and served for a few days. The first night that we were there we had the privilege to lead the people in worship as we performed a concert for them. It was really a sweet time of worship, as there weren't very many people and most of the people there were believers. So we gathered and we worshiped. The night was a huge success and praise be to God, a young man gave his life to Christ that night! God is good!

 Almost all of my life I have lived in Ukraine, and just about every year that we were in Ukraine we would host a Bible College group that would come to serve in Ukraine. Even though I have lived most of my life as a missionary, I've never really had many short term mission trips like the Bible Colleges would have. So it is funny for me to say this, having grown up as a missionary, but one of the things that I have been looking forward to the most about Bible College is the short term missions trips. I am sure that most of you are aware that I am currently studying at the Bible College in Hungary, but I am studying online, so I wasn't sure if I would really have any short terms mission trips this semester. So I was really blessed to have an opportunity to go to Harkiv for a few days with the team.

   

   The team for this trip consisted of me and two other people; my brother, Joshua Pratt, and our best friend, Evan Ledford, who plays bass with our band. We are a pretty tight group of friends which made it pretty easy to get along as a team. We came to serve the church in Harkiv in whatever way we could, and the Lord opened many doors for us.

   One of those doors that the Lord opened for us was physical labor! We had a great time of manly bonding as we helped our great friend, Nate Medlong, carry "stuff" down 6 flights of stairs. Now, when I say "stuff" what I mean to say is a super heavy, super old, soviet style couch that cannot be broken down into smaller pieces! We had to carry that, among other pieces of furniture, down 6 flights of stairs and into a storage basement; it was quite an adventure. But we all had a great time as it was quite comedic as we tried to get the couch down stairs and through small doorways.

   Another awesome opportunity that we had was to open the morning for a children's school. My brother got to sing a few songs of worship and then they asked me to teach from the Bible...in Ukrainian! I am pretty much fluent in Ukrainian and Russian, but I still use a translator because my Ukrainian is often more informal. So I was pretty nervous as this was my first time ever teaching the Bible in Ukrainian, but I did alright and it was really such a blessing to be able to share with the kids.

   

   Well, after a great few days the time came to head back to Lviv and to all of the opportunities that awaited us there. We got back and jumped right back into ministry with our church. While my parents are in America to see their new grand-baby, I've been teaching two Bible studies at our church; one Bible study is our youth group and the other one is our Saturday night Bible study called Koinonia Kafe. At times it has been difficult, keeping up with classes while preparing to Bible studies each week, but I have absolutely no regrets and I treasure every moment that I have to teach.

   We also have had several opportunities to do concerts in Lviv as well, which has been a huge blessing! Just last week we played at a cafe called Medelin and we had a pretty good turnout. Most importantly, on a Friday night when most people like to party and get drunk, the people at this concert heard about Jesus and the great love that He has for us!

   If you guys would, please pray for our photographer. He comes to our concerts and takes pictures and has even done several awesome photo-sessions for us. He is a really great guy, but he needs Jesus. So please pray as he spends time with us that he would see Jesus in us and that we could be a witness to him.

   

   It is truly such a blessing to be here and to serve in the many ways that God has provided for me to. It is crazy to think that soon I will leave this place to study in Hungary. After I finish studying in Hungary who knows where I will go?! There are so many things that the Lord could do, and I can't wait to find out what they are! But for now, I am content to be serving exactly where I am, in the midst of the Ukrainian people that I have grown to call my brothers and sisters. How great it is to be in the place where God has called you to be!

God bless you all

~Alex R. Pratt