April 13 2006

The last few days have been nothing short of challenging and tiring. The church is kind of at a turning point and they are in desperate need of guidance through this. Max, the UMW chairman, was here in Sumy for a few days and was able to meet with the church several times. I believe God used Max and Grady to help the church begin to go through this process. This is not unlike issues you find in American churches. Please continue to pray to God to use us here these next 2 weeks however He sees is necessary.

Several of the church members, Brett, and I saw the Bryan family and Max off at the train station last night. The Bryan family headed back to their home in Kiev and Max headed to Kiev to catch a plane this morning at 8 to go back to Texas. We will miss all of them.

Our Russian lessons have slowed down a bit because we have been so busy and have not had tons of study time. We had a lesson Tuesday, this morning(Thursday), and will have one tomorrow. There are so many things to remember and sometimes, with the language barrier between us and our teacher, Anna, I have a hard time understanding everything. When we are at the church building or at the apt for a bible study, members always ask us what we are learning and they want us to speak our broken Russian to them. It helps to hear different people say the words and phrases we are learning.

The majority of the church members are probably over the age of 50 or 60. There are some that are younger, including a mother and her 14 year old daughter, Julia. In Russian, the J in Julia is pronounced like a Y. Yulia. Anyway, her mother Lena is the member who speaks pretty good English. Julia and I have connected pretty well; she can also speak some english and she gets a good laugh at my Russian.

Our time here is beginning to dwindle. We have 2 more weeks here (and 2 days). One thing I hope to see is more of Sumy's spring birth that Grady talked about. There are a few flowers sprouting, but no trees yet. The azalea bushes in Georgia had already bloomed when we left, so it was difficult coming here to snow. The snow of course has been gone for a few weeks, but the cloudy cool days are still here. Another thing I am excited to do at least a few times is take a trip to the edge of town and visit the forest. Grady says when it is nice, people take food and blankets to the forest and have a picnic and some swim at the sandy river.

I MISS EVERYONE in the states. We pray for you all daily. Our time here is God's time(as is all of our time). I pray for God to continue to show us our purposes in this trip.
Alicia