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| It's been a while...Sorry about the slackness of updates. I have had plenty of reason to but I have just been lazy lately. God is doing some amazing things here and I want to share with ya'll about them.
To see where this ministry has gone from when I first got here until now is just amazing. We have students who are involved and are stepping up to help out in so many ways with different events that we are doing and just showing a passion for seeing others reached with the gospel. We have an outreach coming up called "Porn Nation" which I wrote about in my last update letter.(If you are not on my email list and would like to be please send me an email at aaron.hassell@uscm.org) Porn Nation is an outreach which opens up discussion with students about the disastrous effects our hyper-sexed culture can have on us. Leahy tells his testimony about how pornography eventually cost him a 15 year marriage with two sons and a promising business partnership and brought him to the point of bankruptcy and suicide. Please pray that as we host this event that God would use this in the lives of students to open their eyes to the forgiveness of sins and the freedom that comes through a relationship with Christ.(this text may look weird, I copy/pasted it from a word document).
Leading up to this event we had a planning meeting in which we invited students to come and help out. We had about 7 students come four of which were guys. It was amazing and such an answer to prayer. The students really took ownership of the planning and came up with some great ideas which they are in the process of following up on right now. I was in Presov the other day and one of the guys Jakub had a giant list out of avenues for advertisement that he was looking into and I was just in awe of God's answered prayer for guys to step up in Presov and help out. We will be hosting this event two nights, one in Kosice and one in Presov on the 18th and 19th of this month. Please pray that many students would be able to come to them(there is a hockey game the same night :P)
Another answer to prayer(although not quite in the way I was expecting) was that we have started a bible study in Presov this semester for guys and girls. We had two guys come out the first night and we had some great discussion from one of the guys' questions. Please pray that God would just use me in the lives of guys this semester in Presov just to set up this ministry for success in the future in Presov. I long to see guys' lives changed for Christ in Presov.
I want to thank those of you who pray for and give financially to my ministry and helping to make the great things the Lord is doing in the lives of students on my campus and in my own life possible. Recently, however, my staff account has become very low. This makes it difficult for me to pay for ministry expenses and everyday expenses. If you are able to give additional support or increase your current rate of giving, it would be very helpful and greatly appreciated. I understand that you may not be in a position to give any additional support, but if this is the case, I ask you to help by praying for the situation. I have 4 more months here in my mission year and I really want to finish the year strong with my team. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
It is possible to give through the website http://give.ccci.org/give/0597385. If you would like to be one of my ministry partners and would like more information about my ministry and what I do here in Slovakia I would love to talk with you more. My email address is aaron.hassell@uscm.org
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| They took my visa application!Sorry it has been so long since I have updated this thing. We've been in and out of town for the past few weeks with different conferences all around Slovakia. We had our winter conference in a town near Bolesov and then our staff conference in somewhere in western Slovakia at the Slovak postal service training center.
After months and months of trying, I finally was able to turn in my visa application to the foreign police. It came none too soon either as it was the last day that I could use my koloks(think money order) for the application. I had bought them back in September with the rest of the team was putting in their visa applications and up until now I hadn't been able to turn in my application because I didn't know what visa classification I was trying to get. Thankfully now its in and all I have to do is get a few more documents together and I'll be able to be here legally until December(dunno if that will happen or not though).
As the second half of the year has been rapidly approaching I've started to have to think about what to do next. As of this point I have no clue what direction I should take. I've been praying about it and no clear answers have come up yet but I have had a few thoughts so far. My options at this point are to go back to the states and find some random job which I think is my least likely option at this point. Another option would be to come here long term doing the same thing I'm doing now. Another option would be to try and find a job here, maybe at the embassy or something. I just know that I do like it here and I like the fact that I can travel fairly easily. But whether or not that would be fun without my team I dunno. Another factor in my mind is do I want to be away from my family for even longer. I just dont know...making life decisions is really hard. God gave me some gigantic neon arrows pointing me towards coming to Slovakia, and I'm hoping that He will give something comparable to that this time around although He may not. If you get a chance please be praying for me as I make these choices coming up.
Tomorrow we leave for our mid-year STINT conference and then we have a little time off for traveling before the next semester starts up!
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| Awesome day in Presov This week we have been doing a candy cane outreach on a couple of the different campuses. Students are in exam mode right now and so they don't really have time to meet one on one and so we decided to do a big outreach and hand out candy canes to students as part of a package. Mikey and Cindy's church sent them like 1500 of them, so we put them in a Christmasy bag that had an article about the candy cane that shares the gospel in it as well as a Knowing God Personally tract. We were in Presov today as a team handing them out and as I was doing it, one guy came up to me and asked if I was with the group that did the www.everyslovakstudent.com website since the website was at the bottom of the article. I said we were...last year we posted a bunch of flyers around campus about the website to promote it and some have still managed to stay up on the boards. As I get to talking to the guy, his name is Jakob, I find out that he is a Christian!
Turns out he is a first year student who is studying to become a teacher. He is from a town slightly north of Presov called Bardejov but he commutes every Sunday morning to go to Kosice to the Apostolic Church there(its kind of like the denomination Assembly of God over here, not like the Apostolic Church in America) which is one of the 3 solid churches in Kosice. From talking with him he was really excited to find out about what we were doing there in Presov and what our goals as a ministry are and he is interested in helping me do a guys Bible study there in Presov next semester! This was a huge answer to prayer and I can't wait to work with him more next semester. He is thinking about coming to Winter Conference so please be praying that he might be able to go!
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| Illegal immigrantWell, tomorrow is officially the last of my 90 day EU visa that all tourists get. As far as I know right now that doesn't mean that I will get kicked out of the country or that anything terribly bad will happen, but tomorrow morning I head down to the foreign police office to still try and pursue getting a work visa. It's in God's hands no matter what, I just have to wait and see what will happen and keep being faithful to try. If you get a chance please pray for this situation that it will get resolved quickly and that I'll be able to stay here without any troubles.
This situation coupled with the lack of progress with guys in Presov has been really frustrating for me. I tried to have the Bible study there for guys last week and only one guy texted me back that he couldnt come, and another came late only to tell me he was going to get drunk with the friends he was with for one of their name days. I really want to have this Bible study to look at the book of Romans with these guys, because there is so much good stuff in there that I have been reading lately that I want to share with them, but I can only invite them to come. They have to make the choice to go. These guys even expressed interest in wanting to be a part of a bible study too which makes it even more frustrating.
In ministry its easy to get wrapped up in the highs and lows and think that that is the biggest thing, how many people you have coming, how many numbers you can put on the stat sheet...but the truth is, I'm here answering God's call to serve and to trust in Him for the outcome. And that is what I will continue to do. So many times I've heard of missionaries laboring their entire lives in places and hardly seeing any fruit. This part of Romans has been really encouraging to me.
Romans 12A Living Sacrifice to God 1 And so, dear brothers and sisters,[a] I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.[b] 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. 3 Because of the privilege and authority[c] God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.[d] 4 Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, 5 so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other. 6 In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. 7 If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. 8 If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly. 9 Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. 10 Love each other with genuine affection,[e] and take delight in honoring each other. 11 Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically.[f] 12 Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. 13 When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. 15 Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all! 17 Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. 18 Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. Thank you all so much for all of your prayers. They really mean so much to me and I am so blessed that God has provided me with that prayer support.
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| Chuggin along...October has flown by and its already November. Before I know it it'll be Thanksgiving and the year will almost be halfway over. This past month has been a blur but really fun. Mikey, Amber, and I all ran the half marathon at the beginning of the month. We all did really well and all completed it. The next few weekends were spent working at men's weekend then the weekend after that, fall conference. My time on campus has been hard this month. The English club that we did was really good for the girls ministry and they were able to have some good fruit from it, but not many guys came out. I have some ideas of stuff I'd like to do to get the guys ministry moving in Presov, but I feel so shorthanded there being the only guy. In the coming weeks I really want to do a bible study I'll just have to see how many guys I can get on board. This month has been rough for me too with a lot of little things bugging me. I still cant figure out how to configure my Mozilla Thunderbird email client to send outgoing emails...even after trying the tech supports advice, my visa situation has still been giving me problems. I am currently waiting on a letter from my boss to be able to even START the process. That will at least buy me some time...I am currently closing in on the end of my 90 days that I am able to stay visa free in the EU. Another key item I need is my original birth certificate to get a Slovak criminal record report. But its been 3 weeks since my dad mailed it, and it's still not here. If you get a chance, please pray that this arrives soon and wasn't lost in the mail. I really need this piece of mail not to get lost.
God has given me so many blessings as well this month. From some American foods that came in...to an amazing whirlwind trip we got to take this past weekend during All Saints Day. Earlier in the month we found a trip to Rome on SkyEurope round trip for 50$ bucks. So that with our train ticket to get to the plane ended up being 100$. We had one of our teammates' mom in town, and she was able to get a hookup somehow and so we were able to stay in Rome for free. Since I had been last year I was able to help out as kind of a tour guide for the team. While most of them spent most of their money on souvenirs, I spent mine on food and oh man was it amazing. I'm excited about the prospects of November, can't wait to see what God's got in store! If you have any questions about life here, or what's going on with me feel free to leave me a message! I'd love to hear from ya'll!
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