Thankful for God's Provision

   It's that time of the year again...the first snow is still sitting on the grass, the people are wearing coats again, and all of the Americans are regretting how much they ate at Thanksgiving dinner. We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with dear friends and a house full of laughter. It really was such a joyous occasions and I am very thankful for the people that came and the part that they have in my life.

   

   I can't complain, my place on the team in our church in Lviv is amazing! I love leading the youth group, playing on the worship team, working the coffee bar, and serving in whatever ways that I can. Because of my place in the youth group it has been so awesome to be able to speak into the lives of these kids and watch as they grow and mature. I am really proud of the kids in the youth group and the ways that they serve in our church.

   But times change. Right now is a large time of change in my life. In fact, today is my last day to hang out with my best friend Evan. Tomorrow morning Evan will be flying back to America to become a police officer, and he is the perfect man for the job! I also have other friends in the church that are moving and even my sister has moved out now. I have been observing the changes that have been going on and praying about what will be next.

   I believe that God wants me to accept these changes and realize that this is a time of change in my life. One of those changes that will be taking place is that I will be moving to Hungary for Bible college! It is my desire to be able to go Bible college this spring, as I have already done one semester online. Unfortunately, moving over to Hungary for Bible college costs more than studying here from Ukraine does. If I don't go to the college this spring I will remain in Ukraine until next fall. If that is what needs to happen of course that is okay, I will continue to serve here. But I would really prefer not to spend my whole first year of college off campus.

   

   This is where you guys come in. If I can get enough support then I might be able to make it to Hungary for college in a couple of months. If you have a desire and would be interested in supporting me for college, please click here. Any small amount of support that you can contribute will be a huge blessing to me and I thank you ahead of time for your support. Almost all of my life I have lived as a missionary and we have lived off of support from people like you. You guys are a huge blessing and I thank you very much for the part you have played in our lives in letting God use you to help us.

   I would also like to ask for your prayers as I will be having a wisdom tooth cut out on Tuesday. It should be a pretty simple operation, just a little bit of cutting and then it will be done. Praise God, we have a great dentist here that I know and trust. I will have the operation on Tuesday, but for now I am taking antibiotics to get rid of some inflammation in my gums so that they can easily get the tooth out. Thank you again for all of your prayers, they are very much appreciated.

   Well, that is all from me for today. Thank you again for your prayers, and please pray for my mom who will be flying back to Ukraine next week! We've missed her very much and are very happy to be having her home soon! So, until next week...Happy Holidays!

God bless you all,

~Alex R. Pratt

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

  

Speaking Louder Than Before

   

   Jeremy Camp really rocks, and I don't just mean his music...I also mean his lifestyle. The message behind his song, Speaking Louder Than Before, is going to be the main point of this blog post. This song is such an encouragement, but it is also a challenge...am I speaking louder than I was before? Am I sharing my faith for the world to know who Jesus is?

   A few months ago I had the privilege to see Jeremy Camp and his band in concert, and I got to meet each of them personally. The concert was an amazing time of worship. As a musician I absolutely loved the balance, because Jeremy Camp and his band are such talented musicians, so as a musician I thoroughly enjoyed his music; but the other side of Jeremy's music that is so amazing is the worship. I looked around me and felt a rush as I watched thousands of people that were all there to worship the same God. Even now as I write about it I am getting chills, just remembering that night. I remember standing in front of the stage, praying over the people and watching the people come down to us for altar calls. Behind me, Jeremy sang the words, "Savior, worthy of honor and glory, worthy of all of our praise, You overcame. Jesus, awesome in power forever. Awesome and great is your name, You overcame. And we will overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony, everyone overcome!" And what a great testimony that we have as believers!

   Now I've been given an opportunity to speak louder than before. Our band, which consists of me, my brother, and my best friend Evan, have been asked to come to the city of Harkiv to help with evangelisms and concerts. We will be there for almost a week, and Lord willing we will have many open doors to speak to the people in Harkiv.

   What are the prayer requests for the trip? Well the first one is simple...the weather. The forecast says that it will be raining the whole time that we are there, so that would be a bummer if that hindered any of the outreaches that we have planned. Another prayer request would be for me, as I will be busy keeping up with studies while participating in the different outreaches and concerts. 

   Of course the biggest prayer request is for the people. Pray that many people would come, and that they would hear the words that we are saying. Pray that they would come with open hearts and that they'd be willing to receive the Gospel. Please pray for us as we travel and as we deliver the Word of God to the people. Pray for us that God would give us the Words to speak to the people and that everything that we will do while we are there will be in God's strength, and not our own, because we can't make it on our own.

  

   Also, if you guys would be able to pray for me in another way that would be great. As I'm sure that most of you all know by now, I am a Bible College student and right now I am taking correspondence classes. However, it is my desire to actually go to the college as soon as I can, and study on campus. This blog is to share with everyone what is going on in my life and to ask if you'd be able to help me in my vision with college. You guys can help me in great ways, really! If you have any desire to support me financially in whatever way you can, then you can click here to go to my support page. If you don't feel like you can support me financially that is okay, your prayers are appreciated very much! Also please, if you have the time, spread the word about my blog; just sharing a link on your Facebook or Twitter can help me in great ways, even though it may seem insignificant.

   I just want to thank all of you, my readers, for taking the time to read my blogs. Without you guys there would be no point in writing these blogs, and I truly enjoy sharing with you guys about the things that the Lord is doing in my life. Next week I should have exciting news about the work that God is doing in Harkiv, Ukraine!

God bless you all,

~Alex R. Pratt   

A Little Bit More About Me and When I Was Called to Worship

   I wanted to talk a little bit more about my story today. My story is pretty long, so for the sake of time I will condense it. But I thought it might be nice for you guys to know a little bit more about my background and some of the things that have made me who I am today.

   

   I grew up in a Christian family and the only life I've really known is with the Lord. I got saved when I was 4 years old and I've been following God ever since. I spent most of my life in the missions field living in Ukraine. A lot of people have asked me if I felt like I was missing out on the life that all of the kids in America had. My answer to that question is rather the opposite; I feel like very few of the kids that grew up in America can say that they have had the unique experiences that I've been able to have because of my life in the missions field. An example of that would be Auschwitz; I have been to Auschwitz two times, whereas most kids have only seen pictures in their history books. I have been given a rare opportunity to experience history and visit a place like Auschwitz.

   

   As I've mentioned before, my main calling is to teach the Word of God. I am studying at Calvary Chapel Bible College and I absolutely love it! It is a great experience and I feel like even after just 2 weeks of studies that I'm already growing in my knowledge of the Word.

   But I am also called to worship and I enjoy worship very much. Worship is really what brought me closer to the Lord in a more personal way. When I was 14 years old I was at a Christian conference  that we have every year for all of the Calvary Chapels in Ukraine. One night, as we are all singing the songs that I grew up with, I experienced worship for the first time. I think that we all remember at least one time when we began to truly worship and the Lord just brought us to our knees. That night I had that moment; I fell to my knees and I worshiped God and it was personal for me. It wasn't because my father was a pastor, it wasn't because my family were missionaries, it wasn't because I'd been in Sunday school my whole childhood; it was a personal time of worship with me and my Savior. I call this time the time when my religion became my relationship.

   

So after that night I decided that I wanted to be involved in worship. However, I didn't play any instruments and I couldn't sing to save my life, so I decided that I would try to learn an instrument. The first instrument that I tried to learn was the harmonica. I do hope to one day master the harmonica; unfortunately, at that time in my life the harmonica didn't really work out for me. Then for a brief time I thought about maybe trying guitar, but after trying to play a few chords and feeling the pain from the strings, I decided that maybe guitar wasn't my thing either.

   So at this point, I was pretty discouraged and I felt like maybe I wasn't going to be able to play on a worship team. We were back in America and one night my friends, the Lyons, invited me to stay the night with them. They are great friends of mine and I love them very much and so of course I agreed. 

   But before we went to their place we went to a home fellowship, where we just worshiped and read the Word. It was a very informal meeting, and as we worshiped people would start handing out shakers and things like that for people to play. But at one point someone handed me a djembe and I just about panicked. I had never played a drum before and I had no idea how to play it. The fact that I hardly knew anyone at the meeting also made me embarrassed and by the end of the night I said that I'd never play a drum again. But we got into the car and Mrs. Lyons told me that I had a real potential and she strongly encouraged me not to give up on drums quite yet. Mrs. Lyons...I am forever in your debt! Because playing drums is so much of my life, and when I play drums I feel like that is when I am completely free to be me.

   

   So I started to learn drums. It wasn't easy and it wasn't fast; there were times in the middle were I was ready to quit, I felt like I wasn't learning anything. But something inside me kept pushing on and now I am so glad that I did. I love being able to play drums and it is so much fun; but being able to play them for Jesus, and being able to lead other people to the throne-room through worship is even better!

   So here we are, a band now. We just had an awesome photo session that is most likely going to be album artwork for the new album that we are working on. We are hoping to have our second album done by the end of winter, before I leave for Bible College. But fitting time in for recording can be difficult between all of the concerts and practices that we have; and not to mention that I am studying and that also takes a decent amount of time to finish each day. 

   But we are really enjoying this time and we ask that you pray for us. Please pray as we go to different cities to do concert and worship nights; please pray that the people would listen and that they would open their hearts. That is really what worship is all about; opening our hearts to Jesus. 

   We recently went to a different city and did a concert for a Christian camp. Then we led the kids in worship and offered them the chance to accept Jesus into their hearts. I'll never forget this because after we said the prayer and the night was over, a little girl came up to us. She's a little Ukrainian girl and she said, "Thank you for opening my heart to Icyc(Jesus)." We were so blessed to hear her say that and we hope to hear many more as we travel around Ukraine, leading worship.

   Before I finish, I wanted to touch on one more thing and that is the position of a drummer. Maybe some people are curious about what it is like being a drummer. We were recently interviewed on TV and one of the questions that they asked me was, "Do drummers get less attention then the guitar does?" Honestly, a lot of the time, the answer to that is yes; but I don't see that as a bad thing. There certainly are many people that notice drums, especially other drummers. But the guitar/vocals are generally considered the leaders of a band and they are usually looked at as more pleasant instruments.

   I was talking with Leif, Jeremy Camp's drummer, and I asked him some questions about this topic. I asked him how he responds to people if they don't notice the drums, or how he responds to people who only notice the drums if there was a mistake. And I love the way he answered this! He told me, "Well, of course I want people to like me and for people to notice me. But if someone complains about the drums or something, I try to say this careful so as not to offend them, but I usually say, 'I'm sorry that you didn't like it, but I wasn't really playing it for you in the first place.'" I just love that! We can get so caught up in the crowds and the people that we lose sight of the fact that we play for the glory of God. The fact that Leif, Jeremy Camp's drummer, had such a humble answer, really encourages me! So, for anyone that is interested in drums...don't give up! If God has given you the gift to play drums don't let fear stop you. Just be patient as you develop your talents so that you can play for God!

God bless you all,

~Alex R. Pratt

Busy as a Bee!

   Well, what can I say...this week has been crazy busy! Where do I begin? Well, I guess I could start by announcing that I am officially a Bible College student! I got accepted and my classes started this week. I've really enjoyed my classes so far! I've only been studying for one week, but I am already so amazed with the things that I've learned and can't wait to see what I will have learned after three years of studying there.

   On top of my classes I am still teaching our youth group, which I really enjoy. It is my desire to one day be a pastor and this is such a great way to start. I am so blessed to see all of the kids that are coming, and we even have unbelievers coming now! About seven kids have joined us from VBS and they have come two weeks in a row, and that is just amazing to see. Please pray for these kids as they hear the Word of God and as we develop the relationships that we have with these kids. They have heard the Gospel and we even showed a skit for them that you can view here if you are interested. So, pray that they will keep coming and that they would have open hearts to what God is doing.

   Another amazing blessing for me is that my best friend, Evan Ledford, came home after three months of being away. While Evan was gone he had an opportunity to go to Israel for a month and he went. I was very happy to see that he had such a unique opportunity, but I was also excited to have him back in Ukraine again! 

   As I mentioned in a previous blog, we have recently had many open doors for our children's ministry. We finished our VBS and I'd say that we went out with a bang! But even after VBS was finished we weren't finished serving the kids. We put together a children's festival where we had games, music, and Bible stories. I was asked to play a special role in the festival and I was honored to serve as, "Bozo the Clown!" This was not my first time being a clown and it is unlikely that it will be my last time. It brings me great joy to see the smiles on the faces of the little children and to know that we had a part in that.

   Today was a very nice day for me, because I have some Christian friends that I met at our church's English Club, and they invited me to go bicycle riding with them and to join them for a picnic in the woods. Truth be told, I haven't been on a bicycle since I was in America the last time, and that was for my sister's wedding, two years ago. But I absolutely love riding bikes and I was very happy to join them.

   I was also very happy and very blessed by my friends. They are so thoughtful and loving, and it really made my day to do all of the things that we did today. They say that a place is only as good as the people that live there, which makes Lviv a pretty amazing place, because my friends really rock!

   So, it's been a long week; I'm feeling very exhausted. But I think back on all that has happened and I have absolutely no regrets, everything was totally worth it! I will miss doing these things when I move to the Bible College, but I know that God will open up many different doors and opportunities to spread the Word of God, and to have fun and to be encouraged.

   

God bless you all, 

~Alex R. Pratt