The burden on my heart is indescribable. I feel myself reverting to the old habits I had when I was younger, when my mother was dying of cancer. I put myself through terrible guilt trips, periods of laziness, then periods of anger. I try and pray and call upon God, but feel distant, and wonder why this is happening. However, all these thoughts are from my emotions, from the pain of seeing my daughter limp and knowing she has a life expectancy of 2 years. I don’t know how to feel.

My head knows, God is good, God loves us, Jesus died for us, we are forgiven, God does not owe us anything, we are his creation, everything we have is mercy from him, in his hands are life and death, and nothing can separate us from his love. I know these things, but my heart ACHES at the sight of my daughter. It breaks every day. It hurts to look at her, to spend time with her, to lift her up, and every time she coughs and chokes I feel like screaming.

I look back at the past, how God pulled me through some very trialing times. Through my mother’s suffering and death, through a change in culture and calling to Russia, and a new family. Now with the destruction of what is so new and beautiful in my life… the slow suffering of it. The trial breaks me, I am broken, and being pounded more into dust every day.

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I am a sinful man. I am a missionary. I am a father. I am a husband. I am trying, to love you God.

The idea of leaving Russia and King’s Kids is a sad possibility. In order to come back to America and be closer with family and spend what time we have with Josie surrounded by love and help. The thought of remaining in Perm while Josie gets sicker and weaker shakes me with fear. I can’t imagine Lena and I being here without family near by. Although if we do move to America, Lena’s family will be even that much farther away. We are praying and waiting to see what and when is best to make that change.

I do love Jesus, he is my Lord and my strength. But I felt too complacent in the sprint to spend time with him, then in the summer I felt too busy, now I feel too ashamed. I know he is always there, arms open ready to hear my prayers. He isn’t a computer program, where I just enter my request and get the result I want. He is a living, loving, powerful, mysterious, God! And I am humbled and broken before him.

All his glory I see every day in the smile of my daughter Josephine.

MINISTRY
Base Life – In January we had a wonderful Christmas program with our Kid’s Club! We were able to bless many families with gifts and have a time to share Christ with the neighborhood. Since then we have had several new kids join our Saturday Kid’s club. Also many volunteers and teams have been coming to our YWAM base, also a DTS school and SBS school are both underway. The base is packed with people! But thank God we have new mattresses and no more bugs! But still I am happy we have our own apartment. I hope to invite people over this spring and play scrabble and show off my new baby girl, it has been great growing in friendship with new staff and friends here in the city.

King’s Kids Events – We are preparing a special cultural tour to South Africa, this will be in 1 year, January 2010. I hope we can truly bless some of youth with a fun and exciting trip to a very different world. This is an exclusive trip with a limited number of slots. I pray the Lord brings everything into plan. We are also preparing for our summer outreach, we have the opportunity to go to Siberia with a King’s Kids team from Spain, however also a King’s Kids team from El Paso is going to Ukraine and we have an opportunity to Join them in ministry as well. I am praying with Lena right now and hope to make our final decision soon. In what ever we do, we need to be prepared and surrendered to the Lord. Lastly I am in high hopes to prepare a Spring Retreat for our teens and church youth in Perm, I hope this to be a very fun and worship filled time, maybe at the YWAM base or a sanitarium. It would be great to spend a few days with youth, worshiping God, hearing great speakers, praying for the nations, and simply having fun!

FAMILY
On Feb 1st 2011 our first baby – Josephine Olivia Villarreal was born! Praise God for a healthy and safe delivery. I am learning how to be a dad, and to me there is no more beautiful wonderful treasure in all the world than my little girl! I was in high hopes to be with Lena during the delivery, to encourage her and cut the cord, but it didn’t work out that way. The city was under a flu quarantine, and I had to leave the hospital. It was a disappointing time and a long wait for Lena and Josie to come home, but finally they are here. Below is a story I wrote to describe to friends and family what was happening during those days.

BABY TIME

How it went down from my point of view, it was electric.

“About 2:00pm Jan 31st Lena started having contractions, she was a sea of calm and I was an electric storm of emotion. About midnight the contractions become very intense, Lena’s voice would snap like a turtle, “don’t talk to me right now.” So . . . we started to prepare for the hospital. We tried to sleep, we ate, I slept a little, Lena walked around the apartment cleaning, then called a taxi. At 4am Feb 1st we drove to the Hospital, it was cold! We got there about 5am and woke up the security guard to open the door, then we woke up the nurse, who then went to wake up the doctor.

They took Lena into an examination room and said I had to wait in the other room, hence the name of the room, waiting room. My eyes were heavy, but I told myself it’s going to be a long day and Lena needs you! But Lena came to me a few minutes later, tears in her eyes. She said, “The doctors say you have to leave. The hospital is in quarantine. You can’t be here.”

After some hugs, tears, confusion, more hugs, and a kiss, I left. Knocking outside on the window I said my last goodbye, Lena smiled at me then the nurse took her out of the room and up the stairs. I was alone, she was alone, I felt guilty and worried, so worried. I walked to the bus stop . . . and went home. I hated myself for thinking some terrible things, but God’s grace and presence was with me, friends prayers, your prayers. But more so our prayers were with Lena, the Lord was with Lena.

That morning my life was a dull depressing cold pressure cooker, boiling on the inside and steel on the outside (does that make sense?). That day Lena’s mother and brother came by train at 2:00pm. My friend Jon gave me a ride to go pick them up and bring them to my home. On the way Lena called!

“Congratulations Daddy” Her voice was a soft exhausted one, with a joy that sounded like ice cream if your ears could taste ice cream. The pressure cooker let loose, I jumped in my seat laughing and screaming the words “I love you” over and over, Jon smiling at me all the while. As the described image of my daughter came through the phone and into my mind, my heart melted at the following words. “Josephine is here, she is so beautiful Milan! She has long dark hair, dark skin, she looks like you but a girl. She is 51cm long and 3.37kg. She is healthy, 9 out of 10 points.”

I had too many questions and she had not enough time, she needed to rest, the doctor came to see her, I had to meet mom at the train station, answers had to come later. Lena will continue to be in the hospital for the next 4 days. I hope to visit her and see my daughter through a glass window, but Lord willing this quarantine will come down soon. I will post pictures as soon as I have some!

Love you all!

Congratulations world, Josephine Olivia Villarreal is here to bless you all with her presence!”

I am what most people would call blessed. I have gifts that many people in this world only dream of receiving. A wife who is beautiful, wise, funny, kind, and loves me. A baby on the way, a girl due in February, and I am afraid my heart will explode with joy when I hold her for the first time. Our warm apartment and the friends and family who support us and our ministry. Our King’s Kids family that work so hard along side us. The ministry I have in my hands, to be leading on the front lines in such a needy location. The Lord God who loves me and his Son Jesus Christ who speaks with me and encourages me daily by his Spirit, who has washed me clean from my sin and lifts me up when I humble myself. For such things I know I have received, for such things I am blessed.

So what is there now… it’s all new again. I recently returned from a King’s Kids European Conference in Barcelona, Spain. It was my first King’s Kids leader’s conference and I was blessed by so many, and I hope I was able to inspire others as well. The Lord showed me something interesting about ministry, as King’s Kids is like a sword in my hands that before I didn’t know what to with. Now after learning some techniques I am excited about my sword. I pray the Lord continues to hone my skills and make use of me and King’s Kids Russia.

I am currently praying for growth in our ministry. For more staff and ministry opportunities, growth in my own skills and connections with church leaders and children and family ministries. It would be a blessing to be able to have grand events and conferences for youth and families, to work with churches in planning awesome summer camps and outreaches, to continue blessing families and kids in kids club and have more come and see more clubs grow in the city. To meet the needs of teens and give them the spark that is needed in youth to run toward Jesus all your life long. I am praying for these things and praying that my family and I will always be in love with Christ and inspire others to love him as well. That our family will be a family of example, not just of talk, but walking a Godly walk that other families can say, “hey, lets ask Milan and Lena to pray for us.”

These are the prayers of my family and ministry, to grow and be healthy, in the Lord and in influence within our community and Russia, and perhaps the entire world as well.

The next day Lena took Alissa back with her to Yekaterinburg in order to receive new documents. Alissa has an amazing testimony, she is 13 years old and comes from a Godly family. She received all her support for this outreach from a church in America, at the same time her leg was broken and the doctor was sure she wasn’t going to be able to go any where, but now she is walking and healing every day. Then at the border it was sure that she would never get these documents in time, as bureaucracy in Russia can take weeks to get around. But praise the Lord again as Alissa returned with Lena after 2 days with all the necessary documents!

While Amy and Lena were gone I was alone with 7 young teenagers. It was an interesting and bonding experience, especially when discipline was in order. But the kids did a great job building relationships, prayer walking, and seeking the Lord while we were stuck on the border. We shared watermelon with people at the train station and shared the gospel with other children that we befriended.

Once Lena returned we bought new tickets to Astana in Kazakhstan. Our ride across the border was smooth and we arrived with no problems. We got off the train refreshed and excited. Lena and I found a place to exchange money from Rubles to Tinge, and we hired two taxis to drive our team to Almaty. The drive would take about 12 hours. And after Lena’s car getting a flat tire, helping some strangers with another flat tire, then my car getting a flat tire, we finally made it to Almaty at about 5 am.

The next morning was the last day of the Gateway camp, we were welcomed by so many smiling faces and hugs, it was overwhelming. We participated in the worship and got to hear a word from Dale Kauffman, the founder of King’s Kids and Gateway. And because of our delays and tickets we were over our budget of $1,000. However, at Gateway an offering was taken for our team and we were given $1,050!

It was a great day but in the end we were feeling the effects of our journey. The next day was Saturday and we spent it practicing and resting at the YWAM base. On Sunday our team was welcomed to do a program and share at a local church (Center of Hope, thank you Jan!). We were blessed by them probably more than we were able to bless in return. The rest of our time was spent prayer walking around the center of Almaty. That evening we had home made pizza, watermelon, and team time with Dale Kauffman. It was a great fun hearing stories of early King’s Kids days and praying together. It seems the Lord desires to show his strength through our weaknesses and joy, and we believe He will do more so through our team in the future.

Today we will be traveling to a town up in the mountains, we will stay there for 3 days. Please pray for us as we may be out of contact for a while. Please pray for safety, for the Lord’s blessing on our team, for hearts to open to Jesus, and for Lena and the baby’s health. Thank you friends for being with us through this adventure!

Like waking from a deep sleep, I found myself in a field, cold breeze, tall grass. It was dark but a light was on the horizon. I looked around and I could see others too. I couldn’t tell at first but they were naked, I was naked too.

When you die you die without clothes. So I was without my jeans but I was without my body also. I had just my soul, and my soul was naked. We were all just naked souls. It’s funny but I didn’t want anyone to see me. All my parts were showing. My soul was showing. And it was cold.

The light on the horizon was warm and I could see others walking toward it. I wanted to go too, but I was exposed. Some like me hid in the grass, and some I could hear crying. Others I could see running toward the light, all their parts showing for everyone to see. So strange, but I don’t want to sit here in the dark anymore.

(Check out the link below to see our last newsletter.)

http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=221ce3b08bd876ad71cde811d&id=e407055c6b

“Опускаю руки” or “Put your hands down,” seems to be an expression of giving up. I learned from a friend that this phrase is used more negatively and not appropriate for the way I was using it; As if to say, “keep your hands to yourself” or “don’t try anymore.” Still I don’t know if I have grasped it’s full range of meanings.

Also “point your finger into the sky,” seems to be another phrase that has to do with wasting time. As if to say your pointing to nothing or going no where. Still I don’t think I have fully grasped this phrase.

May Newsletter

On top of this news letter I would like to say that we are working on raising funds for our new King’s Kids camp. The camp is about 1 month long and we will be traveling to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Each child needs about 18,000 rubles ($600) for the camp.  Please contact us if you are interested in sponsoring a child for this years king’s kids summer outreach.

The average woman has had 8 abortions by the time she is 40 years old.

There are over 4 million orphans and homeless children in Russia and Ukraine. Officially, there are 730,000 orphans living in Russia alone. That means that Russia has more orphans today than after World War II!

• Approximately 15,000 children leave Russian orphanages each year, usually at the age of 16 or 17 years of age
• 50% of orphans after graduation fall into a high-risk category
• 40% become involved in crime
• 10% commit suicide
• 33% stay unemployed
• 20% become homeless
• Only 4% are admitted to universities

Russia has one of the fastest growing Aids (HIV) epidemics in the world, with 100 new infections every day.

The head of Russia’s anti-narcotics service said the country is now the world’s largest consumer of heroin. Out of all narcotics, heroin is broadly considered to have the worst social effect. Heroin is extremely addictive and often destroys not only the user, but also those around the user, thus disrupting the broader society and culture.

More than 23,000 people die of alcohol poisoning annually, while another 75,000 die of alcohol-related diseases.

500,000 die annually from diseases, crimes and accidents due to alcohol.

(These statistics were found from websites all over the net, if they don’t seem right to you I encourage you to research for yourself)