6/3/11 Our construction ( church building) is still going on. Our dream this year is making children's playground. It is our prayer to have many families as our Church Family

6/8/11 We have soccer camp from next Monday. We will have 30-40 unsaved children ( age 12-15). Please pray for their salvation, and most of them are from very difficult families, or orphanage. Pray for Sunday school boys so that they can show good example in Christ. And for teachers. We need energy!!!

6/13/11 Soccer camp has started!!! About 30 unsaved children. Pray for their salvation.

6/14 Soccer camp DAY2: Yesterday they went to sleep very late, and got up at 5:00am. They have full of energy... Everyday we have Bible study. Today we had heavy rain, so stayed in church, did ping-pong tournament. Thank you all for your prayers!!

6/15/11 Soccer camp DAY3: We won the soccer game. yay!! God blesses Bible classes, Some of kids are really opening their hearts to Truth. Our teachers and workers are working so hard!! Keep going with prayers

6/21/11 We had internet& telephone problems more than week. It is fixed for now, hope it last long!!! We have FBC team coming this Saturday. We are very excited. Tomorrow we have big cleaning day!!

6/22/11 Next week We have exciting days with FBC team. We have international children's Bible club, Ladies meeting, construction, baptismal service!!! Please pray so that we have 40 children!! Please pray so that many people get saved!!

6/28/11 The team arrived safely on Saturday. We are already having wonderful time with them. Please pray for children's camp which starts from tomorrow. ( 3 days.) And for the weather( we have rain& cold weather) so that men can work with construction. Ladies meeting went very well tonight. I really appreciate our ladies who shared their testimonies and Bible lesson. It was big blessing to all ladies!!!

7/2/11 We had a great ladies meeting on Monday. God blesses our children's camp. 1st day 22 kids came, 2nd day, 32 kids came, tomorrow is the last day. Please pray so that more kids can come and get to know Christ. Men made beautiful playground!!! We really thank God for sending wonderful team.

7/3/11 Camp DAY3: We had 40 children!!!! Praise the Lord!!! It went great. We thank the team and teachers who worked and prepared so hard!!! Today we have baptismal service!!!

Love In Christ,
Masato & Miki Funakoshi

Download PDF

4/11 Yuki and I arrived safely in Japan. Masato will join us in about three weeks. We will get our visas and return to Ukraine in about one month. Yesterday our home church in Japan sent 7 people to north part of Japan where we had disaster to help people. Please pray for them, and for people. They are still in very difficult situation.

5/16/11 We got our visas and arrived safely back in Odessa, Ukraine. Thank you all for your prayers. Our Internet at home is not working, so we are sending this note from McDonalds.



Drama Team at our church in Odessa- Easter Sunday

We really appreciate you, our prayer and financial partners.

Love In Christ,
Masato, Miki, & Yuki Funakoshi

3/2/11 Tomorrow we have a piano concert. 10 kids will play at the concert. Maybe I am more nervous than students?! We have a electric piano at church.Goverment often cut electricity without reason, please pray so that we can have electricity

3/3/11 We had a piano concert, had electricity, had a great time. Everyone played very well. Thank you for your prayers. Now I have to chooce new song for the next concert yay!!

3/7/11We have "Special Women's Day" on Sunday. It will be a BIG DAY!! 3 skits (youth, kids), special songs ( kids, men), special video presentation and of course, special Bible message. We pray so that many ladies can come. ( men,too.) Oh, actually men will make cake for ladies. They say they have special surprise for ladies. We see~!!

We had wonderful Womens day!!! Men bought flowers and cards, cakes for all ladies, it was big surprise. Kids and youth did a great job with drama, songs. Many ladies cried by dramas, songs, and Bible message. Praying so that many people get saved!!

3/21/11 We have 2 children's camp this week. We are doing same time in Odessa, and in Lemanski(village). Kids are very excited, teachers has been really preparing for this camp . We will have unsaved kids, praying for their salvation. While we have oppourtunity, we want to do whatever God tell us to do.

3/22/11 Our children's camps is going very well. CampA( Odessa) has 18 kids. (3 unsaved kids) CampB( Lemanski) has 20 kids. ( All unsaved kids from orphanage or difficult families) Please pray for their salvation, and growth of Christian kids. Also please keep praying for Japan.

3/25/11 Tomorrow Children's CampB( village, Lemanski) has final day. Masato and our members are going for drama, Bible message, special songs. Praying for their safe trip, and salvation( 20 unsaved kids)/ Japan is still in serious situation. Please pray for people who are suffering.

3/28/11 We had a wonderful week with 2 camps. Had a wonderful service today. Though many people are sick. This coming Friday Yuki and I are going back to Japan for a few weeks. ( for Yuki's school, and visas) We also want to help people in Fukushima whatever Lord tells us to do. Thank you all for your prayers.

Love In Christ, Masato, Miki, & Yuki Funakoshi

Funakoshi Update (Taken from Miki's Journal)

12/30/10

What a adventure we had yesterday at evangelistic meeting. It takes 2 hours from Odessa to get there. We had very snowy and icy road, and on the way the car fell into the ditch, we pushed the car, couldn't get it out for a long time. But even with all the problems God really blessed the meeting. Came back safely at 1 AM Praise the Lord!!

We had 80 unsaved people, and 20 Christians worked together as a team. Praise the Lord!!!

12/31/10 A Happy New Year to all dear friends!!! Have a wonderful year of 2011!!! May God richly bless you!! We are having new-year party with our people at church!! Everybody brings meal, having fellowship, of course with love and prayers!!

1/1/11 We had a wonderful New-Year party with church family. We ate lots of food, played together, watched fireworks, gave testimonies, and prayed together. Finished at 4:30AM. I think we need to sleep for Sunday's preparation.

1/7/11 (Christmas day in Ukraine) Praise the Lord!!! We had about 90 people for special Christmas today!!! We had drama (adults, kids), special songs, and Bible message. Everything went well. Thank you all for your prayers. Thank God for our people who worked very hard. We really hope all unsaved people who came today will know Christ. Thank you all for prayers.

1/17/11 I am so frustrated!!! Our telephone and internet have not worked for 6 days. Every day we call company, but they just don't do anything with it. ( I am doing E-Mail at a different place now.) Please pray so that it will work...

1/21/11 Finally our telephone and internet fixed today!!!! It was hard time without internet more than 10 days. Thank God and thank you all for your prayers.

1/24/11 We had many sick people, but had a wonderful Sunday. Masato preached about, "Training our children with Biblical principles." It is really big issue here, too. But it was blessing to see our Sunday school kids. No one told them to do it and without knowing what Masato taught in the service, right after their Sunday class, kids cleaned very heavy snow for everybody. They did it because of their own desire!!

1/29/11 We have Sunday school teacher's seminar tomorrow. We have 8 Ukrainian teachers who all have children. We really want them to understand how important to train your child with Biblical principle. Seminar goes 5 hours!! We have a special speaker, friend of ours, Bro. Chris. We are really looking forward to hear it.

1/30/11 It went very well! Our Sunday school teachers learned so many important things today.

As always, we deeply appreciate all of you who pray for us and give to our ministry.

Love In Christ,
Masato, Miki, & Yuki Funakoshi

Funakoshi Family, including Masato's parents & siblings

12/5/10 We had a great Sunday. Had Lord's supper, practice for Christmas dramas, kid's songs, meeting for Children's Camp to be held on Dec. 25 and 26. We have Christmas on 9th of January. ( Their Christmas is 7th of Jan.) Praying that many people will come to Christ!!

Yesterday 16:40pm two Ukrainian police men stopped me on the street. They asked me to show my passport. They said," you have problems with registration, come to police office." Which is not true. I said," Everything is fine with me!!! Tell me your full name, I'm going to call Japanese embassy RIGHT NOW!!!" Suddenly they changed their attitude." Oh, I am sorry, now you can go." I thank God for His protection. God is good all the time!!! Look around, God's blessings are everywhere.

12/12/10 we had a wonderful Sunday. Praise the Lord!! But we still have heater problem that needs to be fixed. It is already cold in Odessa, Masato is sick...please pray for him.

12/14/10 Thank you all for your prayers. Masato is better now. Fixed small problems with heater today, but big problem has to be fixed after winter. Praying that we won't have super cold winter.

12/18/10 Today we had Sunday school teachers meeting, music practice for tomorrow's service, and shopping for children's camp. While ladies had meeting, men prepared barbecue for all and shoveled snow from walkways for tomorrow. Exhausted ph physically, but spiritually such a fruitful day. And my stomach was happy:-) Our ladies made puppets so we can have puppet show for children.

I am sick. Several days in the evening I have temperature. coughing, sore throat. I wish I have time for rest praying so that by Children's camp I will feel better!!!

12/24/10 Merry Christmas!!! Hope you have a wonderful Christmas!!! Please pray for our children's camp which starts tomorrow (25th-26th till Monday morning service.) Kids( Sunday school kids) are so excited, teachers are really preparing. We love our Saviour, Jesus Christ!!!"

12/27/10 We had a wonderful Children's camp. Thank you all for your prayers!! Unsaved family members of campers heard the gospel. Now we are heading to the evangelistic meeting tomorrow in village. There will be about 80 unsaved people there. We will have concert, play and meal. It will be a big day.

As always, we deeply appreciate you being our faithful prayer and financial partners!

Love In Christ,
Masato, Miki, & Yuki Funakoshi

Dear Prayer and Financial Supporters of Masato, Miki, & Yuki Funakoshi,

While in Odessa, Ukraine, recently Masato and I had long discussions regarding the need for all of their financial partners and as many of there prayer partners as possible to receive monthly updates regarding their ministry. Masato does so many task so well. However, I told him he needs to delegate the communication to partners to Miki and our office. He concurs on this matter. They recently lost $150 support for one church, as the pastor felt they had not received enough communication for them.

The Funakoshi's have worked diligently for 10 years in Odessa. They have established a strong group of believers and over the past four years, with the help of works teams from America have built a first class, three-story church building. It was my honor to help dedicate the beautiful auditorium. See photos below.

This monthly update will go on on Microsoft Outlook as well as CompuServe from our office. If for any reason you do not want to receive these monthly updates, please hit reply and let us know. We will be glad to delete you from this list. If you receive more than one copy and need to be deleted from one of the lists, again, just let us know. Also, if you know of people who need to be added to this list, please send us the information.

Thanks,
Dave Marcum

10/10/10 Update
We had rain 3 days till Sunday morning. Just before the morning service, rain stopped. We have many people who don't have cars, so we thank God for His mercy!!

Dear Prayer Partners,

We are always thankful for your faithful prayers.
The Lord has been blessing our ministries in Odessa.
Let us share just a few of the many blessings in recent months.

Salvation
This month, two young men for whom we have been praying for a long time finally got saved! Artyom (20) for whom we had been praying over three years finally came to repent and receive Jesus Christ as his personal Savior! His father (Oleg, a member of our church) and young people had been praying for him but he kept showing his resentment toward God and his father for many months. We continuously prayed so that God would open his hardened heart. God answered our prayers!! Also Vasya (14) who began coming to our church since October last year repented and received Christ as his personal Savior! His parents have just got divorced last month and he really struggled in that situation. But God touched his heart in this dark time and he found hope in Jesus Christ!! We rejoice salvation of these young men and thank you for your prayers. Please continue to pray for Artyom and Vasha. Also please pray for salvation of the following people: Sasha (a girl), Andrei, Sasha (a young man), Ksusha, Misha, Sasha, Oksana, Oleg, Sophia and Svetlana.

Baptism
A young lady Katya (23) got baptized at our church on 18th of June. It was such a great moment of joy for all of us! Please continue to pray for her spiritual growth. She is praying for his father, Seryoja to come to church and get saved. Please pray for him too.

Construction
Some of our dear friends from FBC in Alabama came to help us put wallpaper and lights in the main auditorium in the first floor!! They did a fantastic job and it now looks so nice and we are getting ready to begin our Sunday morning services there. We are so excited about it and thank God for big help of these American friends!!

Sunday service, Wednesday Bible Study, training leaders
On Sundays, we are now studying the Book of Joshua. On Wednesdays we have studied God's covenants in the Bible and we are now studying the 11th chapter of the Book of Hebrews. We are planning to start a new series of the Book of Revelation from September. Please pray for spiritual growth of our believers. We are continuing training leaders as well. Please pray for the leaders of our church.

Summer Camp in Velika Mihairvski
Summer Camp for children and teens in Velika Mihairvski (a town outside of Odessa) begins in the middle of July. Our church has supported and participated in this camp last three years and we will support and participate in it this year as well. About 60 children and young people joined the camp last year. Please pray for God's blessing upon this camp so that many children and young people will come to Christ through this camp.

Once again, we are so thankful for your prayers and financial support of our ministries here in Odessa. We are also praying for you. God bless you!!

Masato, Miki and Yuki Funakoshi

Dear Prayer Partners,

We are always thankful for your faithful prayers. The Lord has blessed our ministries in Odessa in 2009. Let us share a few of the many blessings of recent months.

BAPTISM
We baptized three new converts (Vova, Lyuda, and Lena) in October and November in the new baptismal pool at our new church building! We were so excited about it!! Please continue to pray for spiritual growth of these three believers.

TRAINING SEMINAR
From September through December, we had special courses to train our leaders on Wed- nesdays and Saturdays. We taught them Biblical principles of leadership, spiritual gifts, and principles from the Book of Jude. Please continue to pray for leaders of our church. CHRISTMAS EVANGELISTIC SERVICE
We had a Christmas Evangelistic Service at our future auditorium on the first floor of our new church building on January 9. (Christmas is January 7 here in Ukraine.) We prepared a special drama, You are Special, and music and dinner. We invited families and friends and prayed for 80 people to join us. The Lord blessed us and 85 people participated in the service!! We presented the gospel through the drama and sermon in the first part, and during the second part some believers shared their testimonies. Please pray that those who came to the service will continue to come to our church so that they put their trust in Christ. We also plan to offer the public school the opportunity to show this drama to children. Please pray that this door would open for us.

SEMINARS IN JANUARY AND FEBRUARY
On Wednesdays in January, we are having a seminar on the subject, "The Christian and Finances." In February, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, we plan to have a seminar on the subject, "God's Covenants in the Bible." Please pray for God's blessing on these seminars so that believers will develop a Biblical World View to glorify God through their daily lives.

Once again, we are so thankful for your prayer and financial support of our ministries here in Odessa. We are also praying for you. God bless you!!

Masato, Miki, and Yuki Funakoshi

Dear Prayer Partners,

We are always thankful for your faithful prayers.
The Lord has been blessing our ministries in Odessa.
Let us share just a few of the many blessings in recent months.

Blessing upon Summer Camp
Our church and Velikamihairvski Church had children and teens' camp in July and 44 teens and 28 children participated in the camp and the Lord blessed the camp!! Please continue to pray for spiritual growth for those young people who got saved during the camp.

Training leaders
From the beginning of September, we began a new series of lessons on Wednesdays for training of leaders of our church. 18 members have been faithfully participating in it and diligently studying the biblical principles, which they need to clearly understand as they continue to strive to become an independent church in the future. Please pray for God's blessing upon this training project.

Evangelistic meeting at the Gorki Park
We were finally able to have the evangelistic activity for children and for teens at Gorki Park (the largest park in Odessa and the nearest park to our church) on 27th of September!! We thank you so much for your prayers for this!! It took us a couple of months to get permission from the city to have this activity, but we were finally able to do it. We gave cleaning services for the park a couple times and the city finally gave us the permission. Praise the Lord!! After the morning service on 27th, we went to the park with audio devices and instruments for activities and began children's program at 5:00PM. More than 150 people (mostly small children and their families) participated in the program. We began the program with games and songs for children and then presented the gospel (the story of the lost sheep and his shepherd) and invited them to our church. Everyone was listening to the message very carefully. Then from 7:00PM, we had another program for teens and more than 100 young people participated in it. We presented the gospel to the young people and gave invitation to our church as well. Please pray so that those who heard the gospel message and received the invitation will come to our church and will come to Christ.

Baptismal service
We plan to have a baptismal service on October 11 (Sunday) at our new church building. This will be the very first baptismal service in the new baptismal pool in our new church building! We are very excited about it!! Our sister Lena will get baptized. Please pray for her.

Once again, we are so thankful for your prayers and financial support of our ministries here in Odessa. We are also praying for you. God bless you!!

Masato, Miki and Yuki Funakoshi

Summer Camp




Gorki Park Evangelism




Masato Preaching in New Church Building

Dear Prayer Partners,

We are always so thankful for your prayers.
The Lord has been blessing our ministries in Odessa.
Let us share just a few of the many blessings in recent months.

The Lord blessed and used our church and we had opportunities to present the gospel with Drama and music at two orphanages (more than 200 children) this month. Those orphanages requested us to come back again. Please pray so that we can reach more children with the gospel both at orphanages and schools.

We are planning to have evangelistic concert with both Drama and music at the largest park in Odessa (Gorki's park) in July. We have requested the city already several times to give us a permission to do so but we have not been able to receive it yet. Please pray so that the Lord will open the door to this opportunity so that we can present the gospel to many people in Odessa.

We (our church and a church in Verika Mihaervski which is located outside of Odessa) plan to have a children's summer camp in July. We had more than 60 children in the camp last summer and many of them came to Christ through the camp. This year, we will focus on teens and will teach them what the Bible says about dating, sex, marriage and family. Please pray for God's blessing upon this project.

We had special Sunday on June 14 with guests from America (building team) and more than 75 people came to the service. This wonderful building team helped us to build the platform and baptistery at the main auditorium on the first floor and they also helped us to expand our fellowship room so that our church can grow both in quality and quantity. They accomplished such a fantastic work and we praise the Lord and thank them for it!! We will continue to build the main auditorium on the first floor of the new building this year so that we can reach more people. Please pray for it.

Once again, we are so thankful for your prayers and financial support of our ministries here in Odessa. We are also praying for you. God bless you!!

Masato, Miki and Yuki Funakoshi

Dear Prayer Partners,

We are always thankful for your prayers.
The Lord has been blessing our ministries in Odessa.
Let us share just a few of the many blessings in recent months.

Public Schools and Universities
The Lord has been blessing us with teaching ministries at public schools.
Young generation in Ukraine is really under devastating conditions spiritually and morally. Simple facts that Ukraine is the fastest country in Europe of the speed of spreading HIV and the number of prostitution show us the seriousness of spiritual and moral devastation here in Ukraine. Official statistic says that the divorce rate in Ukraine in 2008 has reached 84%. This is the environment where the next generation is being formed. We have great privilege and responsibility to go into public schools to present the values of the kingdom of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We have had teaching ministries at Public School No.100 for three years now. From last year, the Lord opened the door at a new public school (No.41) where one of our Sunday school teachers, Miss Tanya, works as a history teacher. Just this month the Lord opened a door to another school (architecture institute). Also, some other teams in other cities (Dalinski and Velinko Mihailvski) are using the material that we have developed for teaching in public schools to reach many young people. We also have had opportunities to visit and teach about God's love at universities and other schools on special occasions such as Christmas, Valentine's Day, etc. Please keep praying so that we can reach more young people with the Word of God at public schools and at Odessa State Polytechnic University.

Sunday Services
We studied the life of Joseph from September of 2008 through January of 2009. I started preaching on the book of Acts since the beginning of February. Please pray so that many people will come to Christ and each believer will clearly understand that to be witness of Jesus Christ is their purpose for living in this world.

Sunday School
The Lord has been blessing our Sunday school for children as well. We now have soccer club for Sunday school children on Sunday afternoon. We use a gymnasium of one public school where one of our members works. New children are joining us through this club.

Christmas and Easter
We had a special Christmas celebration at our church, including a Christmas play on January 7 (Christmas is on January 7 in this part of the world). More than 60 people attended and we presented the meaning of the birth of Christ. We had a great time together! We are now preparing for Easter that is on April 19 in Ukraine. We hope we can show the play at public schools as well. Please pray for blessings upon our Easter evangelistic meetings. Once again, we are so thankful for your prayers and financial support of our ministries here in Odessa. We are also praying for you. God bless you!!

In Christ, Masato, Miki, & Yuki Funakoshi