Wayne's Blog

Over the winter we have been busy at the warehouse retrofitting our biodiesel reactors to handle greater production capactiy.

But more importantly, we have finally received our first official document for our biodiesel enterprise. We had a sample of our biodiesel tested at the National Institute for Fuel & Energy called MASMA. 

Our retro-fitted reactor will speed up biodiesel production considerably

Official biodiesel analysis report

Our product is of high quality meeting almost all of the requirements for European standard.  With a couple of minor adjustments we should be able to meet the standard quite easily.

Now that we have confirmed our biodiesel’s quality, we can start off down the long path toward licencing our production facility in the eyes of the Ukrainian government.  Ukrainian bureacracy is extremely taxing on one’s time, money … and  morals.  Honestly, I’m not looking forward to this process. However, God has given much favour thus far and we trust that He’ll be glorified as makes it possible to reach this milestone.

Praise points:

• We now have official proof of the quality of our biodiesel
• We now have something to show clients interested in buying our product.
• We have new strategic new contacts that can help us in our efforts to legalize the business.

Stages to legalize our enterprise:

1. Creating a new  legal entity (LTD) especially designed for renewable and alternative fuel production and sale. $
2. Ordering and a Construction Project and meeting its requirements $$$.
3. Official Approval, Licencing and Certification of each aspect of our production.  $$

Other prayer points:

• New oil source. We have located a large supply of  waste vegetable oil. We need to tie down the deal.  With greater cash flow we can reach our target much faster.
• Protection from corruption and foolishness.  Paper chasing and stamp collecting, creates exposure to the powers-that-be. It also quickly reveals the true evils of Ukrainian business and power culture.
• Blended Biodiesel shipments to McDonalds‘ look like they are about to start taking place.  This is a strategic and important long term deal. The first deal will be only a 5% blend but increasing up to 20% in the summer.

Christmas puppet show

This year Christmas prezzies from Samaritan’s Purse arrived in late February! That did not, however, dampen the expectations of the more than 100 kids and quite a few of their parents that we invited to our Christmas puppet story presentation.  It’s only the second time we’ve organized such an event but already I can see that God is working in children’s lives.  The parents too were much more relaxed about the whole thing too.  I can say that our puppet ‘acting’ skills are improving too!!  Please pray that the hearts of these children and their parents would be warmed so they would let Jesus, the Saviour of the world in.

Recently, I was invited to attend a seminar in Kiev devoted to the development of  biofuel in Ukraine.  In one day I got to meet the who’s who in Ukraine’s fledgling renewable energy sector.  It was certainly a privilege meet these professionals who have been struggling to help Ukraine’s politicians write legislation encouraging and supporting the use of alternative energy.

I gained a lot of insight and valuable information that we need to develop our biodiesel enterprise.  It may well be that some of the speakers  and contacts I made at the seminar will play an important role in our bioenergy projects in Kaharlyk.

Kids club party - 1 year

One of the relationship building ministries that is bearing fruit is the Saturday afternoon kids club. We are now seeing a number of these kids start coming to Sunday school. Alyona is doing a great job running the children’s ministry. Please keep praying for Alyona, her helpers and the children.

Nikita continues to bring us lots of joy.

We’ve had more snow than I can ever remember (40cm)… and I’ve done lots of shovelling.   I got to do lots of praying and thinking and day-dreaming during that activity…  I pictured how much good I could have done with serious snow-blower!!! Oh well… at least the path to the church is now clean.

That is more than I can say for the local government road clearing crew. Unlike previous years, the town is a mess.

Then the snow began to melt.

We took Nikita to the doctor for a check up yesterday.  The pram was next to useless. It felt like we were swimming through half foot deep slush puppies.  Not much fun.

Now it has refrozen and fresh snow has fallen. SCARY!!!  We’re expecting a solid cold spell of -15 oC for the next week. I pray that the main roads have been cleared or I fear that there’ll be some major accidents happening.

It probably wouldn’t surprise you to hear that someone with Australian blood likes too keep warm.  I love my toasty warm ugg boots.  But somehow I’ve become a heating system addict.  I just can’t help but share the warmth!

Ask anyone in our church, when pastor Vanya (that’s me) does house calls, the first thing he does after entering someone’s house is goes for the nearest radiator to check if it’s working.

It all began with the year long gas/heating project 8 years ago.  2001 was the year of the heating project.  At that time furnaces had an aura about them (oh magic white box that produces heat for my house!)… that is until they started breaking down!  Then we started opening them up and learning the nuts and bolts about keeping them running and everbody happy and WARM!

I never thought that my experience would develop into a ministry!  Over the past few weeks, I’ve fixed or regulated numerous furnaces and heating systems.

Tolik reconnecting wires on Baba Katya's electric furnace

Babushka Katya, is nearly blind. Her electric furnace blew and was without warm for nearly a week during -15 oC temperatures.  That’s pretty serious. I’m glad we were able to rectify then problem.

Icicles on the outside air inlet, low water pressure, clogged water filters and heat exchangers, electrical ‘brown’ outs, burst radiators, burnt out heating elements, air pockets.

The biggest problems is actually caused by Kaharlyk’s extremely poor quality water.  It creates a lime or iron/rust deposit that eventually clogs up the furnace heat exchangers (incidently the most expensive part).

Thankfully the church (and our home) heating system is running well. The only glitches have been to do with electricity. So, we’re ordering stabilizers and a back up power supply that’ll see us through a couple days if the power is out.

Achievements for 2009:

We continue to press forward in our vision of impacting our town with the Gospel and transforming one life at a time for the Glory of God.

Expectations for 2010:

• Continuing development (and practical application) of community transformation vision for our congregation.
• New Ministry stages in church body:
  • Activation of men’s  ‘spirit’ within men in our congregation.
  • Emphasis on practical relationship building for married couples
• Church Property:
  • Acquisition of church land.
  • Build a fence for church along the main street
  • Renovations of Children’s ministry room after fire
• Biodiesel Enterprise:
  • Licensing and quality certification
  • Improved cash flow.
• Sports Hall:
  • Quality time and discipleship of  youths
  • Outreach to blokes in the community through indoor sports.

Thank you  for your continuing active support and prayer for the work in Ukraine and Kaharlyk in particular.

We pray that you’re built up, challenged and inspired in your faith through our ministry.