In our previous newsletters we mentioned the UEC Friends Club project that was started in March 2006. The UEC Friends Club was started in order to encourage some of our working patrons to support the UEC financially. We advertised the opportunity to help the Center and offered special library privileges to every supporter when their donations reach $100.

Through the past year God richly blessed the UEC with many generous patrons willing to help the Center fulfill its mission. 32 people made donations and 13 became our regular donors. Perry Kolodzy, Yuriy Kryukov, Oleg Skutsenya, Anastasia Yakovleva, and Anna Zubkova joined the Friends Club.

We see nearly all of these people at the UEC on a daily basis. Oleg Skutsenya and Anna Zubkova are International Christian University graduates. They first came to the UEC when the Center did not have the facility it uses today. For over six years now Oleg and Anna have been faithful UEC patrons. The UEC library was a place to study for both during their university years. Anna was one of the UEC part time employees when she was a student. After their graduation, the two did not stop coming to the Center. Both Anna and Oleg lead Nivky church small groups that meet at the UEC on Wednesday and Thursday nights, help with movie nights or other Nivky church activities, and simply visit the library to check-out a book. It is a great encouragement to us that after serving students for several years, some of them in their turn are willing to join the Ukrainian Education Center in its mission to promote faith through meeting education needs in Kyiv and help through the resources that God blesses them with.

We thank the Lord for Oleg and Anna, and for many others, for their care, their generosity, and for the encouragement they are to us.

Posted on April 6, 2007