Abilene, Texas

We have been in Abilene at ACU for the past 3 weeks taking Cultural Anthropology and Spiritual Formations classes. There was also a Mission's Focus that we participated in for 3 days.
This trip has been such a tremendous blessing for us. We have made many new friends and so many new contacts for mission work. ACU is full of teachers who were in overseas mission work and are still involved, and it has a mission's program that prepares and sends students into the mission field.

The spiritual lessons that I have learned are priceless and uncountable. We also learned so much about mission work and missionary care; things that I had not really ever thought about. Another major blessing from this trip were the Dr's appts that were provided to Brett and I. I had no idea we would receive all of the medical care that we did.
I believe that the Holy Spirit guided us to ACU for these 3 weeks, because I did not realize how important it was that we come.

We will be in Ballinger, Texas, about an hour from ACU, until probably the end of this week. We are here visiting with the Ukraine Mission Board. Two of the members will be back in the States from Ukraine on Tuesday. We will meet with them a few days later to give them a chance to rest a little.

Until later....

We're back.

Last Tuesday was a day of nineteen hours of daylight! We had good travels on Air France all the way back to Atlanta where Mom and Dad picked us up and drove us to Valdosta. Good spirits, good meal at the original Dwarf House Chick Fil A, good conversations, and a great nap. We've conquered the jet lag.

We're now preparing to go back to Texas for the rest of the month of May for Abilene Christian's Mission Forum. We have a book to read and review before then. We've had good days of rest, viewed Ice Age 2, had good family time, dinner with Jerry and Lora, a doctor visit for me, a salon visit for Alicia, a day of yard work, a nice seafood dinner, and a four mile walk.

We are still praying toward our decision and ministry path. We haven't lost the lesson from another culture, being strangers in a foreign land. We can't think of any decision as permanent-- nothing in this life is. My prayer is for faith and obedience.



Me and Alicia at the Forest. See all the pretty yellow flowers about? We were leaving on the May-day holidays, on the verge of Spring.




Alicia is prettier than the flowers, I know, but I thought we would make them look good if she stood in front of them.




We owe a lot of gratitude to Grady and Lena Bryan. They were aquaintances when we went over, but they are now dear friends. We love them.

Dascha Visit

Path to Nena's Summer House




Brett and Leesh at the garden



Brett cutting wood for the fire




Nena and Leesh at the garden





Alicia's pretty flowers



Daschas and the water hole



Nena and Brett in front of Blue Lake (that's the name of it)



Side view of Nena and Ivan's Dascha. A quaint little place.

Pasca at Sumy Church

Julia and Vita at the Pasca table, getting the goodies ready


Brett and Leesh at our special "place of honor"-- note the Pasca Bread with the sprouting wheat wreath



The Pasca play. These are the kids from the Bible study they have each Sunday at Lena's house. They are neighborhood kids. This was a special day for them all to be at the church-house.

Pasca

We are week behind USA for "Easter", but it was PASCA here yesterday. So when someone in Russian says some greeting to you something about Christ and it's the Sunday after Easter in America, you're supposed to say to them "vayeesteno vas Chris". They said, "Christ is arisen" and you just said "surely arisen."

We took in the whole orthodox tradition of "Pasca". We went to the church at 11:30pm and these are some of the images we captured:




These are some of the priests in the procession. They marched out of the church, having left the "body of Christ" on the altar down front. The procession marched out and walked around the church three times (to represent the days of Christ in the grave).



They had military men holding the crosses, priests holding the icons and candlesticks, and the "main guy" was in charge of the whole program. We noticed that there are distinctions of hair among Orthodox clergy. The young ones (altar boys and young priests) have no facial hair and short hair cuts. The more intermediate priests may have mustaches or thin beards. As their expertise increases, so does their hair. The "second man" had a thick beard and medium length hair. The main guy wore bushy beard and long hair. All the women keep their heads covered and they do sing accapella.



These are the people who followed. I walked around once, and they were like sheep. There were little babushkas running past me to get closer to the clergy.

There is a holiday today and the whole week for some, following Pasca. They will be having picnics all over, going to the Forest.




More later... (and a few days late anyway) Love b and leesh