WE'RE MOVING
So after several days without electricity and heat in our house and much prayer we have decided to move out of our house. The warmest it has been in the last several weeks during the day is no more that 8 or 9 F. During the night it gets below 0 and the house has been between 38 and 48 degrees inside.

For now our team will be finding our own palces to stay. I will probably be coming to the states in march with pasha for some training with Ywam LA. I'll send out more info on that when everything is final. Since i may be leaving in the next couple montsh i cannot rent an apartment and just need to find someplace to stay. I may end up just sleeping at pasha's house or at the greenhosue with shuhrat, a student who lives with us. Please be praying for our team during this time as we search for places to live.

THE GREENHOUSE
Things are going well at the greenhouse right now. Our heat is working quite nicely so our studetns have a warm place to stay at during the afternoons. This saturday we will begin another Love Feast with a small group of students. We will meet at the greenhouse to share a meal with them and then have a time of teaching. We will be teaching on who Jesus is, misconceptions of God, a few weeks on encountering Jesus(this would hopefully be mostly testimonies from local believers), character of God and repentance. We have a lot of students right now who are open and seem to really be seeking truth, which is exciting. This love feast will be run by both our team and some local believers that we have been raising up over the last few years. It's exciting to see soem of the believer's here beginning to walk out in their giftings.

We have several students right now who have said they would like to accept Jesus but are afraid. They want to have a realtionship with him but fear has crept in so please be praying with us about this.

I have a lot to do today , even more now with having to pack so quickly, so i will go for now. please write me when you have time.

Here are a couple pictures from about 2 weks ago on a saturday afternoon.
Tiffany had some students over to hang out and teach them how to make cookies.
Jim is playing with one of his kids toys. also it was freezing in the house that day so i was wrapped in my down comforter to stay warm while i did some work in my room.
The last picture is a couple students at the geenhouse, Tyncha, Aibek and Dostan

Shoveling Coal, Frozen Gas and Candlelit Dinners
This last week has been a pretty eventful week and thus quite tiring. Beginning last saturday night the electricity in our region started getting turned off every couple days. Praise God we have a coal furnace and coal in the house as well. normally we use electricity for the heat, but we have had to use the coal to heat the house. i can now say i know how to operate a coal heated furnace and also have a possible coal mining career to fall back on.
During the nights we have had to wake up every hour and a half to add more coal so we just do it in shifts. it's actually not as bad as it may sound. i don't mind being up in the middle of the night because it's so quite and if i can't fall back asleep it's a good time for me to pray for students and other things.
I've gotten quite used to cooking by candle light and going to the bathroom by candle light this week. however i am hoping that next week the electricity will stay on.

Last night the temperature dropped down to about -30 celsius(which is somewhere around -15 or -20 farenheit i think) resulting in our gas freezing. our stove is gas so if the gas freezes we can't cook, which for myself i can manage but jim and mel have 3 kids to feed so it's a bit more challenging. it has been face burning cold these days but i might be getting used to it. i haven't decided yet.

Y-Team

We just finished hosting a short term team from a Y-base in the states. they were here for the alst 2 weks nad mainly worked int he greenhouse but we also had them set up to wrok with some of the other minstries ehre so they could get a broader sense of what God is doing here in Kyrgyzstan and see all the different opportunities available. Our team had been praying a few months ago that God would bring more young people out here so i am sure they were God's response to our prayer. we are still longing to see more young people come out here and take hold of what God is doing here.

…24 hours later. the computer i was using ran out of internet time. i’m just going to post the about blog and add more to it later.

GREED
8:30 pm last night…
Our owners tell us that because of the dollar dropping in recent months they want us to back pay them the difference in the exchange rate from 3 months ago and what it is now. That’s about $50 per month for the last 3 or 4 months. They also requested/threatened that if we did not continue to pay our rent (which we had been paying in dollars) at the exchange rate from September then we could leave right now, in the middle of winter and that they would be raising the rent in the spring, regardless of what our contract says the agreed rent price is for the next year. So we prayed and asked God for counsel on how to respond lovingly but at the same time with a spirit of righteousness. None of us can afford to pay any more in rent right now, especially with the drop of the dollar and the increase of food and property prices and just about everything else. After praying, Shuhrat, a student who lives with us, went over to their house to call their bluff (threatening to kick us out if we did not pay more rent and also that they could raise the rent price at any time). We agreed to pay the difference in exchange rates, but changed our contract to say that rent will from now on be payed in som (the local currency) which should insure, to some degree, that they cannot come to us every month asking for more money. Also we told them if they threatened to raise the rent once more we would move out, which none of us want. This is not an unusual thing here but lately has been happening a lot more with the recent fall of the dollar.
Hopefully I didn’t confuse anyone in my re-telling of last night’s saga. Spiritual strongholds, like greed, do not hold any set of business hours. They do not respect our “privacy” and will rear themselves in your face at any moment, usually when we are at our weakest. Some ways you can intercede on our behalf is that we would have the strength and will to move out in the opposite spirit, in this case that we would move out in a spirit of generosity.
Isaiah 30:1 says-“woe to the rebellious children”, says the Lord, “who take counsel, but not of me, and who devise plans, but not of my Spirit…”. Pray that we would continue to seek counsel of the Lord and make plans/respond according to His spirit.

GREENHOUSE
Since re-opening in September we have had over 125 new students come through our doors. Some only come a few times, some end up coming back almost everyday. I’ve sort of taken over management of the greenhouse this season and thus have taken on a lot more responsibility. I have been a lot busier with this new responsibility but I have seen a lot of growth in my life as a result of it.
The last couple months in the greenhouse I was leading a “book reading” club to help people improve their English. The club is over now but it was a good platform for building some new relationships and although the club is over now I am continuing to meet regularly with some of the students I met in this club to help them one on one and to just to talk more deeply about life.
A couple students I have been spending a lot more time with and have been able to share with are Mirlan, Uran and Aibek. Please be praying for them that they would have ears to hear God’s spirit calling to them, that they would be able to see their need for Jesus and that He is God. This is always a stumbling block for people here and just about everywhere it seems. Please pray for me as God continues to give me many opportunities to share openly with people. Pray that I would continue to respond in boldness about the Truth that I have come to know. And pray for an outpouring of God’s spirit upon the greenhouse this week. we will be sharing a lot with people tomorrow and on friday at our Christmas party.

NEXT YEAR
For the last 7 months Pasha and myself have been praying about attending a training school with Ywam called a School of Worship. We sent out some emails in august sharing our vision in doing the school and what we want to bring back to Kyrgyzstan to several Y locations, but at first only heard back from a couple, none of which really stirred anything within us. About 2 months ago we got an email from a school director in Los Angeles that was very encouraging. We were able to call and talk with him a couple times to share our hearts and the things that God had been placing in us in regards to attending this school. We found that God had been speaking things to the director of this school about us attending and were even more encouraged. So after praying this last week both pasha and myself are beginning to take steps towards attending this school in March. The school will be about 4 months, including an outreach. Please be praying for wisdom for both Pasha and myself as we seek the Lord for direction during the next couple months. For a heart that is desperate for God and for an increase of faith to believe the promises God has spoken. I’ll be putting something together with more information on this and more details on the vision God has placed in us. we are hoping to do this before the end of the year.

One more quick thing before I close. We have a short term team coming out a couple weeks to serve in the greenhouse and see what else God is doing here and we are preparing for their arrival right now. This team is an answer to some of the things we have been praying(asking God to send more young people out here) and so we are excited to have them come. It does take a lot of effort to host these teams for us though since our ministry is in full swing so please pray for us as we prepare for this team and that God would bless their time here.

Tony

COST OF BREAD TRIPLES IN PRICE!

The cost of food/housing has been going up for the last year or more but this last month food proces have skyrocketed. Bread, which used to cost 5 soms has gone up to 16 soms. A large bag of flour, around 30 lbs., has gone from 1,150 soms(what we payed 3 weeks ago) to 1,500 soms and is expected to go up to as much as 2,500 soms when Ramazan(the islamic month of fasting we are currently in) is over. Oil has doubled from 45 soms a liter to 95 or more. dairy products and pretty much all other food items have gone way up as well.
The dollar is falling. It has been falling for years here now. When i first came here the exchange was 49 soms to the dollar. Today - 33 soms to the dollar. last night we saw it drop to 30! there are rumors saying it will go back up next month but regardless the american dollar is still worth significantly less than what it was a few years ago.
this sudden increase of food prices and the dropping value of the dollar does affect me but not as much as it does the people here. this time of year is when most locals would be canning fruits and vegetables to get them thru the winter but many are not able to afford do this now. normally you could buy tomatoes for about 4 or 5 soms per kilo, but the price has never dropped and remains around 12 to 20 soms.
i realize these things don't affect most of you and are hard to understand maybe. even for me it's hard to fully comprehend how it affects peolple here but i do hear people around town talking about it.
The other day i was buying bread and an old russian lady came in complaing about the p[rice of bread, which has been going up everyday. on marshrutkas(public mini buses) i hear people talking about it. anyway just a bit of life here right now i thought i'd share. if you would like to know more just let me know.

Also, not quite as disturbing as the drop of the dollar, but still disturbing for skinny people like myself has been the rapid drop in the temperature recently and quite suddenly. it was down to -2 celsius last night.

Quick Update
A lot has happened in the last month and a half so i wanted to send out a quick update for now.

GREENHOUSE
We own a building! We became the owner's of our first property about 5 weeks ago. We have spent the last 4 weeks working everyday doing remodeling. there was a ton of stuff to do because we decided to reopen the greenhouse this fall season in this new house instead of renting a temporary place. it was extremely tiring and we still have more work to do but we did reopen yesterday. the new building is outside of the center of the city but has lots of transportation for students to get there.
I will hopefully be able ot get some pictures uploaded of the new building sometime soon but i wanted to let everyone know we finally got a building and have reopened. thank you all for your constant prayers and support.

NEW HOUSE
Also to add to the insanity of the last month, out team moved into a new house that is closer to the new greenhouse. it's a large house, 7 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and there will be 8 adults and 3 kids living in the new house but it really big for here. we have a huge yard also. the house is even further outside of the center and the neighborhood is very different. it feels more like a village to me. also i will try to send pics of the house too soon. we are still getting settled and things are kinda hectic.
i am doing well. i like being busy and having lots of work to do. at least for now.
i apologize for not sending anything recently. there are no internet cafes near the new house and i have just been too busy to sit down and think. so please forgive and please write when you can.

It's been awhile since i have sent out an update so i apologize for that. I forgot how to sign in to this blog so that has taken me awhile to figure out to. Anyway, for now i will be posting future updates on this blog.

GREENHOUSE UPDATE
As of now we are still without a permanent building. We received another $10,000 last week towards the greenhouse building putting us at a total of $42,000. We still have not reached our $80,000 goal but the recent support we have received has been a great encouragement. We continue to search for buildings every week though we have yet to find a place that we feel God is directing us to buy. Our team prayed last week and felt like God gave us more specific direction as far as what types of properties to look at. You can continue to pray for a releasing of more finances for the Greenhouse Building and that God would clearly without any doubt show us the exact place He has prepared for us. We feel like He has shown us the area we are to look in but we still want to know the exact property He has for us.
Regardless of if we have purchased a building by the fall we are planning on reopening on some scale. If we do not have a building purchased we will be renting a temporary place, which God has already provided some funding towards.

As of now we are continuing our Monday night Love Feasts with different teaching on God's word and character. We will continue these until august when we feel God has directed us to end them for now. We may start again in the new year with a new group of students.
Myself and Pasha are leading a time of worship and prayer on Thursday evenings for local believers.
We also continue to meet with Alexei several days a week to pray and read God's word together with him. This has been good but i feel we are to start meeting with him even more. He shared yesterday, before our prayer time, that he feels he is still holding on to things of this world and that he still talks about the same things he used to with his friends. Here are some verses i have been praying for him and I'd like to ask you to be praying for him right now to:
"Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."
James 4:4 and
"If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God."
Colossians 3:1-3

GULNIZA
Several months ago i sent a prayer request for a student named Gulniza. We have not seen her much lately but i found out why last week. She has been doing translating for some other believers here and we talked with them and they say she is still very open and feel that she is close to accepting Christ. This group she is translating for are actually having her go on an outreach with them to share with people in a smaller city in southern Kyrgyzstan. The great thing about this is she is now seeing lots of local kyrgyz believers and thus dispelling the lie that Kyrgyz can only be Muslim. She is now seeing that Jesus came for all nations and all people. so please continue praying for her during the next month. I know it is difficult to keep praying for someone when we don't see fruit let alone for you who have never met the person but please continue to persevere with us on her behalf.