Spring Break

It is spring and beautiful here in Ukraine. We had a break from school last week and we traveled to visit the churches in Sumy and Ternopil.

SUMY-
We left Kyiv a little early to make it to the Bible study for Friday night.


It was a landmark weekend for us in Sumy because Lena our translator is gone, so we had to speak in Russian the whole time. At the study we sang songs and read our favorite Psalms.

Here's me trying to speak Russian at church. I'm reading my script. I had to use a script for the prayer, too.


The kids came in after services and Nena talked about Christ, what resurrection is all about, and they met for a couple of hours into the afternoon. Alicia helped prepare the tea and snacks and sat in on their meeting.

We got to visit with many our our friends in Sumy. This is Max and Larissa and Nastya and Masha.

Ivan tansivaoot with his grandaughter Vika. Nena fed us two times from her home; took us walking in the new park near our old flat from last year; we had a good time visiting with Vadeem and Natasha, too. She made sure we had food for our stay and for our journey. And thanks again for the beroza.



Vova came by the church building (which also serves as our flat while we're in town). Alicia fixed a great breakfast (we even had bacon), and we discussed the church in Sumy, the summer, and just had a good time fellowshipping.

Vova always meets us and sees us off when we are coming and going from Sumy. This time when I left my clothes-bag on the train, he helped me find where they park and recover my bag. It was an adventure.

TERNOPIL
We were guests on a trip to Western Ukraine with our friend Anya. When we got on the van to go, the three Americans Anya's Dad had picked up were a surprise to meet... Tom and Sherla Winter I had met years ago while I was preaching in Savannah and they came to visit their daughter Rachel, grandaughter (only Sarah at the time), and son-in-law Jerry Lamb, who were members at the Islands Church. Here they are in the van as we met them: Joanna Boyd, Anya there in the front, Sherla, and Tom.


The Church of Christ in Ternopil is some of the fruits from a ministry of Steven Bilak. The Minter Lane Church in Abilene has been supporting them for years. I wish you could see all the pictures of the church building, of our Easter Sunday there, but our camera ran out of juice and we packed so light we left the charger. So you'll just have to settle for now of the excursion we took on Saturday to Lvov/Lviv:



The Whites in front of the Opera House in Lviv on the beautiful city center. Lviv is more "European" than many other part of Ukraine. This city was spared from bombing during the great war, so much of the beauty of the old architecture has been preserved. Lviv is considered the cultural centre of Ukraine.



Anya's cousin Andre lives here, so he met us, and accopanied us on our excursion for the day. Here are Andre and Anya over cups of their kava.

Geographically, Lviv is near Poland, which also means it is also close to Poland religiously. There were many Greek Catholic Churches and Catholic Churches, outnumbering even the Orthodox churches. Look closely at the picture above to see significant cultural icons: The baskets of food they are taking to the priests for an Easter blessing; beside the left column, you see the priests instrument of blessing, splashing water all about; the lady in the forefront is a gypsy, roaming (no pun intended) around taking advantage of the abundance of the crowd on this special day. And of course the icon in the middle reminds us that-- religiously, we're not in Kansas anymore.



Alicia wanted me to show you this picture of one of the Easter traditions, pascha bread. Notice the egg-shapeed bread with writing on it, saying: Christ is arisen!