Prayer update

Dear MDI Friends and Family,

MDI is headed back to Ukraine!!! It has been a long time since we have been there due to family situations for all of us and we are full of anticipation! This is going to be a fascinating trip, May 30 – June 9, 2010.

We are going to spend time with all of our ministry partners in our roles of mentors and consultants. While we have continued to work with them via Skype, email, and during their visits to the USA, it will be good to be back in their country. The Vasilevskys and Radooga have been preparing for our meetings as that ministry is going through phenomenal growth and maturation. We will meet with Ben and Tanya Robinson to determine next steps for Loza. Anatoly Kaluzhny and New Life Center have asked for our help as they develop strategic plans for pastor training in Muslim countries, and a new initiative led by the Ministry of Education to take a Biblically based curriculum of Christian Morals and Ethics into the public schools throughout Ukraine. These will be full days of ministering, listening, thinking, praying and encouraging.

This trip has a very personal side to it, too. My 18-year-old nephew, Sash Blevins, was adopted from an orphanage in Kiev, when he was 22 months old. He is going with us to experience his country of origin, to visit the orphanage where he lived, and to spend time with the ministries that MDI works with. In addition, Sash’s parents, Meg and Ron Blevins, are joining us for the first few days! So we ask for your prayer coverage that all of the details will go smoothly for the visit to the orphanage and meeting some of the same people that cared for Sash 17 years ago.

As this trip will have many different dimensions to it and much intensity, we ask boldly for your prayer coverage. We NEED you. Even simple prayers for us as you move through your day really undergird us and strengthen us.

For this trip, please pray:

• For good health, traveling safety and no delays (especially with the Iceland volcano continuing to erupt!)
• That we will have hearts of love, grace and mercy and will each be a visible picture of Jesus wherever we are and with whoever we meet
• That Sash will see a true picture of his birth country and will be able to start processing all he experiences
• For our families. This is huge – there is so much going on in each of our families, health-wise, traveling, etc. The Blevins are leaving younger children at home.

For MDI in general, please pray:

• For Tanya Baranova, MDI staff in Odessa, Ukraine, who is joining MDI on the return flight to the USA and will be in Nashville for training until July 7.
• For Randy Morgan, who is in England, preparing for the SOZO festival in July
• For Russell Anderson, who is preparing a team to serve at a Radooga Orphan Camp in June
• For the financial support for MDI to increase. MDI lives by the generous financial support of our friends. As the ministry grows we are praying for the support to grow also.

Thank you for loving us well, praying for us and supporting MDI.

Partnering with you,

Marti Scudder for the MDI team

Update from Belgorod

In the mid-90's, MDI was instrumental in planting a church (pictured) in the Ukrainian city of Belgorod.

This past year, MDI led a team of women to conduct a Women's Conference for the church.

Here is an update from Lyuda Betina, wife of the pastor of the church, on the developments since that conference:

"I want to share with you our news. Last spring conference was great blessing for us. God used you in a great way to move us to the revival of our women's ministry. We have just finished the course " Women in the Bible" that we studied with our women during several months. Now we plan to do once a month some special events for women.

In the end of May we want to invite the wives of the pastors of our Ukrainian Presbyterian churches to come to down to Belgorod and have two days of rest on the beach having fellowship, prayer, reading of the Scripture and just having fun.

I think God will bless us with new ideas and direct our women's ministry."

Please join us in prayer for the burgeoning church in Belgorod and its ministry to the women of Ukraine!