April Update

Posted on April 15, 2020 by Nathan

Bible First

When our team first decided to create a web-based version of our Bible First correspondence course, we anticipated that it would alleviate a lot of the pain points of running a correspondence course through the mail. What we did not anticipate, however, was that Bible First Online would come of age in the middle of a global pandemic, when many traditional methods of evangelism would have to be set on the back burner, temporarily at least.

As I write this, we have upwards of 40 students studying the Bible online, and regardless of what of what happens with lockdowns or curfews, God's Word will continue to go forth! (As long as the Internet stays on, anyway!)

Spanish

The Spanish Bible First text is ready to go! The interface still needs to be translated, and various other things need to be taken care of, but at least the text of the lessons is ready to go!

This is a screenshot of one of the Spanish lessons in development. As you can see from the "Read/Quiz/Activity" links above, the interface is still in English.

Carpathian Mountain Outreach

While we'd like to move forward with preparations for CMO and hope that things will be better in two months, it is looking more and more like that is just hoping against hope. With that in mind, we have decided to cancel CMO 2020. Lord willing, and the (coronavirus) creek don't rise, we will be back in the saddle for next year!

Residency Permits

We are currently in the process of renewing our residency permits. We recently submitted our last round of documents, so hopefully in the next week or two we will have our new residency permits in hand!

Coronavirus

I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing about the coronavirus, so I'll try to keep this brief. The bad news: as of my last update, Ukraine had 3 cases of coronavirus, now it has 3,764 cases. The good news: Ukraine has been able to slow the rate of infection, and so things are progressing slower than they did in places like Italy or America. Unfortunately, it's possible that things are much worse than they seem, as Ukraine has only done a tenth of the testing (per capita) that the US has done.

On a practical level, most everything is shut down here except the essentials, like grocery stores, gas stations, pharmacies, and the like. Public gatherings of more than 10 are not allowed, so no church, school, etc. All the parks and playgrounds are closed, but the good news is that we can still go on walks.

Family

Not surprisingly, we are going on a lot of walks these days. We continue to homeschool, but I guess that should go without saying, as everyone is homeschooling now! For the time being, everyone is happy and healthy, and we hope to keep it that way!

Enjoying a warm spring day at the park before the quarantine kicked in.