Cold!

I came into the office this morning and it was soooo cold! It's been above freezing here and we do normally turn the heat down over the weekend, but it must've been off or something. Thankfully we have a couple of space heaters, but we only have two and have four rooms... :( Some of the girls were wearing their coats.
It does make me thankful that the heating crisis did not seem to reach us here in Rivne.

Today during devotions, I talked about faith and we read the passages from the end of Matthew 6 and in Matthew 7, which relate to faith and God taking care of us. It is interesting to watch the staff's faith grow. Since we are a mission the work environment is a little different and the problems we come up against area different. My expectations for my staff include that they have good and godly attitudes towards their work and each other. And sometimes we have financial issues where we can't pay everyone on time or stuff like that. It's my job to tell the staff of these problems and to help our accountant, Maria, figure out temporary arrangements. It's been encouraging to see their responses change to these things as they grow in faith and experience of God.
I brought it up for devotions today specifically because we are again in a tight place financially. We've had some generous gifts recently, but due to exchange rates and unexpected expenses we are short for this month's pay. I didn't tell them that this morning, as I am still working on paying everyone for January. I just encouraged them to pray for the financial situation and the whole ministry in general as we look forward to where God is leading us now. Please pray with us about these things and that God would just open up His floodgates of blessing upon us, not just financially, but in every other realm as well. It seems that often just before God does some new work that we have many struggles in many areas, and I do really feel like we have been in that place lately. It makes me look forward to see how God is going to work this all out!