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1 Corinthians 15:3,4: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…”

Thank God for blessing our first Podil Spring Conference at the beautiful resort in Yuzhny—just outside of city of Odessa.  We prayed for 20 members to attend and God sent 21 as an extra blessing.  Fourteen members came from Podil UBF and 7 members came form Odessa UBF.  We experienced God’s faithfulness during conference preparations.  Four of our faithful sheep who promised to come suddenly changed their minds.  Satan tried hard to discourage us but God sent other unexpected sheep to come at the last minute.  In this way, God encouraged us greatly.  We thank God who renewed our resurrection faith in Jesus.  We learned through the resurrection of Jesus, God has guaranteed us the final victory.  We thank God for our Odessa coworkers, especially M. John Lee who helped us find a place and sent a delegation.  Among them Sh. Matthew worked hard as a translator for my message.  Since it was our English Club the message was in English and translated in Russian.  Also, Sh. Sveta from Odessa UBF shared her beautiful testimony.  M. Maria led the group Bible study.  Sarah and Johnny Peace prepared the praise songs and picture presentations.  After the message Natasha, Sveta and Sarah Peace shared their testimonies.  We also had two travel reports: i) Natasha reported about her visit to Turkey UBF when she attended their conference a few weeks ago, ii) M. Maria about our visit to the Bible Academy in the Middle E.  On Sunday we had a beautiful rest physically and spiritually.  In the morning we swam in the most beautiful swimming pool I ever saw in Ukraine.  The temperature was 28 degrees C.  Then at noon we attended the Sunday Worship Service in Odessa UBF where Sh. David gave a powerful message on faith and salvation.

Among the members who attended we thank God for his work in Natasha’s heart.  Several weeks before the conference she was depressed because she didn’t have a job and would soon have to leave her dormitory.  But through Bible study with M. Maria she learned the spiritual principal of not worrying but putting God first.  The key verse of her testimony was Matthew 6:25, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?”  She decided to be faithful to Bible study, English Clubs, Sunday Worship Service and she even volunteered to attend the conference in Turkey, paying half the price of the plane ticket.  Podil UBF subsidized the other half.  She believed God’s promise if she put God first God will give and bless her with everything she needed.  Then while she was in Turkey one company called her and told her to come in for an interview.  When she went to the interview after the conference she was hired.  She was amazed by God’s timing because she was told to start work on May 16^th which was the day right after our Spring Conference.  After this first conference we learned that we made some mistakes and need to improve next time.  For example, Sarah had prepared a video drama but when it was time to show at the conference it didn’t work.  But overall we thank God that through this first conference we could practically experience the final victory that we will receive through Jesus’ resurrection. To see more pictures of our conference check out the photo gallery in our website at bestatpodil.webs.com/ Thank you for all your prayers.

John Peace