I once heard it said that the problem with life is that it is so daily. Its easy to live in the excitement of something new or unusual, to trust God with something so big that it is clearly beyond our own strength. But when the Christian life settles down to the monotony of daily life, problems often arise. This has been my experience here in Ukraine over the past seven months. What was once an exciting, unusual ministry began to become mundane and....well...just plain boring at times.  

There were patches of excitement, of course, like the time my colleague's husband asked me to explain how I reconciled the justice and mercy of God and listened intently to the gospel, or the time when one of my students in the university asked to stay late to finish hearing the overview of the Bible. Those moments were like a breath of fresh air sent from God to remind me that my work was not in vain. But what I came to realize was that the mundane every day events of life created the soil from which fruit could grow. The daily grind of teaching in a public school with a room full of unruly kids gave me a platform from which to share with my fellow teacher. The spiritual battle is in the daily. And sometimes God allows us to see the victory on the mountaintop. 

God has been allowing me to see some of those little mountaintop victories with the arrival of the American team. When Americans come to Ukraine people come in droves. They are willing to listen to the message of Christ simply because we are foreigners. Unbelievable doors are opened as a result. Its exciting. I love it, and I thank God for the way He works through our youth as they love children, both beautiful and dirty, both lovable and rebellious. But I am equally thankful for the Ukrainians in Litin who spend their daily lives earning the trust and respect of the unbelievers in their town and in the outlying villages. May God give them the perseverance to press on in the dailiness of life.  

Michelle Qualls