Teenagers and Women Too

This summer I was able to be in America for six weeks. God provided housing in a church manse in Rahway, N.J. This was great blessing for me. In July I attended the Sharing Conference in Louisville, which was a great learning and fellowship time, hearing stories from different ministries, and also I had a chance to get some training in how to share better about my ministry.

I was glad to be able to visit with five different churches in New York and New Jersey. We rejoiced together as I learned about their congregations and shared news from Ukraine. I also visited with my sisters and brother in America, and helped my sister in clearing her house for sale after it had been on the market for a year. Thank God it was sold.

I came back to Ukraine August 13. Thank God about 20 children from the three Roma settlements received permission from their parents to go to the summer Christian camp in Csunkapapi-Karpatalja.  Then I had enough time to prepare for the new school year, buying shoes and clothes for children entering first grade and encouraging them to go to school. Thank God the school year started almost a month ago and 40 preschool children and about 25 first-grade children are healthy and happy and going to school.  I continue to meet with the teenagers for the Bible Club and with the women’s Bible study group.

Ukraine continues to be overshadowed by a war atmosphere.  We feel it more when we receive news of war casualties; last week we heard of two people killed in the war.  You have seen the news about the difficult refugee situation facing Europe.  The refugees haven’t come to Ukraine. The Reformed Church in Hungary is involved in the matter and Presbyterian World Mission has offered to help.  Because I am an Arab speaker I may be able to help with translation for some of the children living in refugee camps.

I thank God that I have finally been able to open and use my pcusa.org e-mail account.  I sincerely apologize to many of you have been writing to me at this address for a long time and never received any answers from me because I was not able to use this e-mail. Once I was able to access the account, I found many messages of prayer, encouragement and even invitations to come and visit your churches. I was glad to finally receive your kind messages and deeply sad that I had not seen them sooner. Please forgive me and I pray that you can accept my apology. Please know that I have read about 300 e-mails and I thank you so much.  Now I am responding to each one, one at a time.  If you have not heard from me, please write again using nadia.ayoub@pcusa.org with a copy to nadia_a@gmx.net. Please note that my Skype name is Nadia.K.Ayoub.  I very much look forward to your communications.

Many of you wrote expressing concern about the urgent financial need facing Presbyterian World Mission.  I thank you so much for being a part of God’s transformative work in this ministry and in my own life.  World Mission is trying to keep as many missionaries on the field as possible, but the financial needs are great.  For example, the total received for my sending and support from January to July 2015 was $22,107.  Thank you for your generous gifts!  At the same time, I know that the total costs for keeping me in the field were $34,806.  I pray that God will continue to move among his people and lead you to partner actively with Presbyterian World Mission, helping to keep mission workers in their countries of service.

Please pray for:

1. The children to continue to be happy to have the chance to get an education and to be able to learn to read and write.
2. The teacher Monica, her assistant Marta, and Elemer, the Roma leader, that each will continue to be filled with love for the Roma children and have patience to help them in learning.
3. The youth Bible club that it may start again with no difficulties.  Sometimes after our August recess it can be hard to get the youth back again.
4. The women’s Bible study, that we might be able to meet more frequently.
5. Finally that I might better understand how to help a 9^th grade student Regina with her studies and in training her to be a leader among the Roma people.

Thank you so much for continuing to pray for me and to support the ministry that God has led me to.  I pray you will be encouraged in your partnership in God’s mission in the world.  If this is your first time to hear about God’s mission among the Roma people, I pray you will choose to become an active partner through your prayers, your encouragement through e-mail and Skype, and if possible, by your gifts and financial support.

The Lord directs the steps of the godly.  He delights in every detail of their lives.  Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand  (Psalm 37:23-24).

Thanks be to God for unmerited favor, mercies and grace!  May we live lives of obedience, pleasing God in all we do. May God continue to bless you and enlarge your ministry for God’s glory.

Serving Christ with you,
Nadia Ayoub