Tuesday, July 1, 2008
My days are filled with packing my house, preparing for camp, working on my lessons for when I return to the US, packing for camp, and trying to get all money problems solved. The money thing is taking better shape now, thank the Lord! This is our 2nd week of Bible Studies and devo’s Monday through Friday and our plans are to continue them next week. We had 15 for our devo tonight and I fixed pumpkin muffins! I was going to fix pumpkin pies, but I couldn’t find that recipe – terrible!!! It’s my Mom’s recipe! I sure hope that I can find it! Each night, several are staying later and later – they don’t want to leave and I don’t want them too, even though I am pretty tired by night!
Wednesday, July 2
Our weather continues to be great with temps in the 70’s and at most low 80’s with at night around low 60’s! We have a lot of rain for a couple of days and then it clears up and we have some wonderful sunny days. Instead of Bible Study at my house tonight, we had a parent’s meeting at the church building at 7pm that took about an hour. Most parents have gone through this before, so our numbers were not large.
Thursday, July 3
My days are the same as are my nights. I try to schedule as many people into my day as possible, and still get all the other stuff done that I should do. We had our Bible Study tonight and food and fun afterwards, which really makes the days bearable!
Friday, July 4
No holiday celebration here, for the 4th of course. We tried to play Frisbee in the evening, but not enough people came, so we went to my house and more people came and we had a fun, impromptu dinner and evening. I was pretty blue tonight and I tried to keep it from showing, but people noticed and they did a good job of cheering me up!
Saturday, July 5
We had our Team Leaders Meeting for camp tonight. We had a lot to work with and ALL our Team Leaders were here and it went really well! The last to leave were Yura, Olya and Yulya as has been the case several times – I am thankful to have them! I took Yulya home at about 11:15pm and my car broke down on the bridge – it ended up it was my power train belt breaking! What do we do? Well, within 5 minutes a guy and friends driving an F10-150 – a BIG Ford pickup truck (I have seen maybe 2 of these in Ukraine – ever!) stopped and asked if we would like a tow across the bridge – and of course we accepted! Then he towed me back across the bridge and put the car at my place and will come and take it and fix it on Monday!!! Of course Yulya got home safe, too! Today is another National holiday here – they have a lot!
Sunday, July 6
Of course I had to take the marshutka (public transportation) to church back today – that was really taking me back to older times and I rather enjoyed it! After Sunday evening services 8 of us walked home and most came to my house again and we had a great time! I love these people so much!!!
Monday, July 7
Same oh, same oh. It doesn’t seem possible that what I am doing could be such a demanding these do, but it is! I also spent most of the morning getting my car fixed and it cost about $60 to get it all done. The banks were closed today – holiday weekend again! We had a good Bible Study in the evening.
Tuesday, July 8
Wow, it is just a week until camp!!! I can’t believe it! Frankie’s church and parents wired money to him to live on and for camp - $1000! We are now going to have all we need to cover all our costs! I backed out most of my teaching materials that I am leaving, Bibles, Books, Children’s Books, etc., etc. and at 3pm, with 4 of our guys helping me out we moved them to the church building. Maybe 20 boxes or more! We had 13 for our devo tonight and fixed Chocolate Chip cookies – using my LAST bag of chocolate chips! It’s all going away. I didn’t burn a cookie tonight! Yea! A lot of lasts happening here, but this is the last devo in my house in Kremenchuk! We have probably had at least 280 devos here in the last 6 years!
Wednesday, July 9
What was different today was that we went to the Orphan family to see them and encourage them. They are doing well and growing in their new faith!!! They are at peace and content as being new Christians! God is watching over them, protecting them and taking care of them! We had a good study. Afterwards, Artem, Olya and I went to buy materials to make Flags at camp and bandanas for each team. We will have a different color for each team and a camp flag for each team, too! We had 9 people at our Bible study tonight, and made my “famous” home-made pizza with the help of Olya and Artem! I do have to say it was really good! Everybody else thought so, too!
Thursday, July 10
I worked most of the morning on my power point presentation to make to Churches when I get back to the States. It went pretty well. At about noon, I took Anya O. and her mother to the hospital to pick up her grandmother and take her home. After that I did a bit of shopping, had lunch and then went to Alina’s to allow her parents to test drive the car they already said they would buy and then we had tea afterwards and I got home after 4:30 and spent nearly the rest of my time until Bible Study trying to finish most of the presentation. I also boiled some eggs to make hot tuna sandwiches. About 6:30 we had my very last Bible Study in my home with 9 people and then fixed the sandwiches – with a lot of help – afterwards. Probably my last large group meal, too unless we have something on Sunday afternoon. There should have been enough to feed at least twice that many, but we ate them all! The last of our group left about 9:30pm.
Friday, July 11
The last 3 days it has been raining – a lot! Working on the same stuff I have been working on. Alina came over at noon and helped all afternoon get my kitchen done and did a lot of other work as well. At 3:30 Frankie, Yura, Vika and I went to Anya O.’s graduation from the University and that was interesting and nice. We were going to play Frisbee but didn’t because of the rain – some came to my house and we played some games in the evening.
Saturday, July 12
The closets were my big project today and books and teaching materials – I took a load to the church at 4 for the Church discussion and then at 5 back home for a meeting about camp activities in the evenings. At 6:30 we played Frisbee, then people over here again until about 9:30 and I took some people home.
Sunday, July 13
After worship I took 6 to McDonalds for lunch and then we went back to the Church building to record Russian/Ukrainian songs at 1pm and we did this until 2:30. To my house with a half dozen again and then my first big stuff went out with Vika’s family getting my davenport, 2 arm chairs and foot stools out of my living room. At 6 we had a nice group of mixed older and younger with 18 present. One of our newest young people is Serge and he brought his mother with him this evening to worship with us as well. At 8pm, we had our last Team Leaders meeting before camp and finished up about 9 and I hadn’t had supper, so I went out with a couple of friends – Yulya and Alina and had a bite to eat!
Monday, July 14
I had a ton of last minute errands in the morning and Yulya helped me out with several things that I needed translation help with. At 1 we had about 15 people here and I did a free give away of many of my dishes and many things. It felt like a garage sale in my living room that was free. We did a drawing and people picked one thing at a time until it was all gone – it took over an hour to get it all gone! In the evening we went to our Orphan Family and had a pie and tea with them and a nice Bible study. Please pray for this family as they are going through birth and growing pains as new Christians often do. At 9:30, I went to a movie with some friends.
Tuesday, July 15
Today has been another crazy day of packing for camp and last minute things as I prepare for it. I have helped friends with errands with my car and now in about 20 minutes I will give my precious cat, Zhenya away! Oh, this is so hard! At 9:30pm we meet our bus to take us to the Black Sea Bible Camp and we will leave Kremenchuk about 10pm and return on the evening of the 26th. Please pray for us! I will be out of touch except by my cell phone. There is no internet in the small village that we will go to.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Journal for June 16-30
Nastya's Birthday
Natasha's Birthday
A few of us at the last day of our VBS Day Camp
Victor's Baptism!
Inna's Baptism!Monday, June 16, 2008
My life is going through more changes as our VBS Day Camp is now history and life slows down again – or so I thought. Just different is all. I have 5 main objectives in the next four weeks: 1) Prepare for the Black Sea Camp, 2) Spend as much time with people as I possibly can, 3) Have some evening Bible Studies leading up to camp, 4) Finish helping our Orphan family come to Christ and 5) Get everything packed out, given away, and ready to be out of this apartment and shipped back to the states! The first 2 of these objectives are right now paramount in my mind, but the others are just as demanding and have to be met as well! We didn’t go to the Orphan family tonight because they were busy and the parents gone.
Tuesday, June 17
We celebrated Ksusha’s birthday after devo tonight where we had 15. We had a good evening together.
Wednesday, June 18
I am having all kinds of banking problems in that my wired money that was supposed to arrive the first week in June still has not arrived – and this is the money we will pay for camp. As you will read this at the end of the month, I am sure that all will work out, but it is rather stressful! I spent the 2nd half of the day with Inna – one of my oldest student/friends. We had lunch together and went bowling together – I had been bowling in a long time and still remembered how! When I took Inna home, I saw her parents again after 5 years! Mostly I had seen her in Kiev where she has been going to the Univ. or when she was in town, she came to visit me and I never went to her parents’ home. It was really good to see them again.
Thursday, June 19
In the morning I went Sasha girl’s 9th grade graduation. It was nice and she sang a song in the entertainment part of the graduation time. In the afternoon, I studied. In the evening about 5 we (Artem, Olya and I) went to the Orphan home family village where there 2 twin boys had their 9th grade graduation. If you don’t know, students can either continue in school at this time or go to different colleges or technical schools. Many choose the latter route as all 3 of the graduates today will choose. Afterwards we were all hungry and Artem and I went to a pizza place to eat. I got home a little after 9. I am still working on the money wire transfer and they said that it will take at least 5 more days to work it out – my money is in Austria right now!!!
Friday, June 20
I am spending a lot of time on camp preparations. I spent some good quality time with a couple of my young people – I am trying to spend as much time with all of my young people as I possibly can to encourage them and just to be with them! The main event was school graduations took place this evening all across Kremenchuk and Ukraine. I went to school #11 for the last time for their graduation and one of our girls, Ivanna. When I walked up to the school, my first Ukrainian friend, Natalie – the English school teacher who left Ukraine to get married after the first few months that I was here – was at the school! It was fun and good to see her again! After the graduation I said good bye to several teachers and they were polite and kind. Another good bye.
Saturday, June 21
I haven’t been food or grocery shopping for some time so I went to the grocery store and market – both time consuming events. I had the bright idea of how to better give away my small items in my house. I was putting them in boxes in my living room and trying to get people to take them, but they wouldn’t do it! So I decided on Monday when our Bible Classes begin in the evenings (3 weeks of them before camp) I would do a “Christmas in June!” I had a lot of Christmas stockings left over from the holidays, so I hung them all over my living room – like I do at Christmas and started filling them with things for people to have. Every evening after Bible Classes and Devo, we will open them up and those that come, I will refill again! So some will get a lot more than others, because as they come, they get more! In the evening we had Frisbee and celebrated Nastya’s birthday.
Sunday, June 22
We had a good number at worship this morning. 4 of went to Prostor (like our Wal-Mart) had lunch together and bought a back-pack for Natasha’s birthday which we will celebrate tonight. I had a restful afternoon and then we had our evening worship and celebrated Natasha’s birthday at the church building and played games.
Monday, June 23
I had a busy study morning. Today I hung the stockings and began the process of going through my house step by step to empty it out as much as possible into the Christmas stockings. I sent out a text message to all inviting them to Christmas in June! Artem said it read the text 3 times because he couldn’t believe we were having Christmas in June! We had 10 for our first evening Bible Study. Everyone had fun opening their stockings and I cooked apple-jack pancakes for everyone! These evenings do look like that they will be late nighters!
Tuesday, June 24
I went to the market to buy extra food stuff for making tortias tonight – it is really improvising, because there are no true tortias here, but a kind of bread wrap that is similar, but a lot thinner. As I was starting to prepare supper, my kitchen sink fell apart – the drain rusted through and I had water everywhere! I took it apart and went to a plumbing outlet store that I know of – the ONLY one that I know of in Kremenchuk – and it was 5:15 and it was closed!!! So I washed dished that I had dirty and our evening meal dishes in my small bathroom sink and drained the dishes in my dish drainer moved to my bathtub! We had our devo tonight and Artem led the study on growing in our faith. Again we open stockings with 14 people here and several of us went for a walk after I cooked and we ate chocolate chip cookies! I have one bag of chocolate chips left! Pretty good timing and planning, don’t you think!?
Wednesday, June 25 – A Red Letter Day!
I continue to work on camp – I know a broken record! But it is coming along well and hopefully we will have a great camp! I also finished a chart that I have been working on about worshipping in song in our worship to God. I got to spend some extra time today with Zhenya and that was good. At 2, Yulya, Olya and I went to the Orphan family for our Bible Study! Victor is off from his work today, but the older kids were all working. I asked Inna and Victor if they were ready to be baptized and they said yes. So we went to the river, about 10 kilometers away, found a quiet spot and baptized them into Christ about 3:30pm!!! Yes, it was a great day and afternoon!!! We had 11 for our evening Bible Study that went well. Everyone enjoyed their stockings again. My tortias went over well and I took the last people home around 9.
Thursday, June 26
I went to the bank today and my money is still not there!!! So I wrote and then called the bank in the US, practically begging them to help me get it straightened out! They are not being a lot of help! They don’t seem to care! They said that I should go to my bank here and ask them to help too, which I will do tomorrow. I met Inna, who is the young woman that I first knew in the 9th grade when I was first here and is married and going to Spain to join her husband. We had lunch and a nice chat. It maybe the last time I see her for a long time! I have been sleeping only 4 to 5 hours a night for about a week and it caught up to me today. So I slept about 2 ½ hours in the afternoon. In the evening I was much better. We had 9 for our evening Bible Class. I fixed chili tonight and went to a late movie with a couple of our group.
Friday, June 27
I have been mistaken about the US bank – I have found out that they have been working very hard on this problem. I was telling a friend the other day that it seems like for people in the USA time is measured by weekends, where as we have daily and hourly pressing needs here that are not often realized by American friends and brothers in Christ. Often, we must move forward in actions with faith in God and also knowing that our US Brethren will act faithful in the future. So what about Friday? My life is full of camp, preparations for the future and people right now! In the evening we had a nice evening of Frisbee with 8 of us and 6 of those coming to my house afterwards until about 10:30.
Saturday, June 28
Since I am preaching tomorrow, I have spent several hours working on my sermon and today in finishing it up. We had no planned activity today, but again I was blessed to be with several of my brothers and sisters in Christ. In the evening we walked to the Lenin Square, where a large crowd was gathered to celebrate the Day of the Constitution. I had my sermon outline translated into Russian, so I could share it with the Church and with those that were not able to be there to hear it.
Sunday, June 29
I believe that my sermon went well and was appreciated by the Church. Our worship was good! Afterwards, about 12:15, I left for a couple of days in Kiev. I am visiting one of my students, Lilya who I have known since she was in the 9th grade. I stayed at a decent hotel and met her in the center, traveling by the metro. Today was another holiday – the Day of Youth and the center of Kiev was much more crowded than Kremenchuk’s was yesterday! We had a nice walk and supper together.
Monday, June 30
I rested and read in the morning in my hotel room and then met Lilya at 1pm in the center again and we spent the afternoon together. We said our goodbyes about 6pm. It was so hard to say goodbye. She is such a dear daughter to me! (Just a note, so you don’t have to wait to long to get the message – on July 2nd, most of my money and banking problems have been resolved.)
My life is going through more changes as our VBS Day Camp is now history and life slows down again – or so I thought. Just different is all. I have 5 main objectives in the next four weeks: 1) Prepare for the Black Sea Camp, 2) Spend as much time with people as I possibly can, 3) Have some evening Bible Studies leading up to camp, 4) Finish helping our Orphan family come to Christ and 5) Get everything packed out, given away, and ready to be out of this apartment and shipped back to the states! The first 2 of these objectives are right now paramount in my mind, but the others are just as demanding and have to be met as well! We didn’t go to the Orphan family tonight because they were busy and the parents gone.
Tuesday, June 17
We celebrated Ksusha’s birthday after devo tonight where we had 15. We had a good evening together.
Wednesday, June 18
I am having all kinds of banking problems in that my wired money that was supposed to arrive the first week in June still has not arrived – and this is the money we will pay for camp. As you will read this at the end of the month, I am sure that all will work out, but it is rather stressful! I spent the 2nd half of the day with Inna – one of my oldest student/friends. We had lunch together and went bowling together – I had been bowling in a long time and still remembered how! When I took Inna home, I saw her parents again after 5 years! Mostly I had seen her in Kiev where she has been going to the Univ. or when she was in town, she came to visit me and I never went to her parents’ home. It was really good to see them again.
Thursday, June 19
In the morning I went Sasha girl’s 9th grade graduation. It was nice and she sang a song in the entertainment part of the graduation time. In the afternoon, I studied. In the evening about 5 we (Artem, Olya and I) went to the Orphan home family village where there 2 twin boys had their 9th grade graduation. If you don’t know, students can either continue in school at this time or go to different colleges or technical schools. Many choose the latter route as all 3 of the graduates today will choose. Afterwards we were all hungry and Artem and I went to a pizza place to eat. I got home a little after 9. I am still working on the money wire transfer and they said that it will take at least 5 more days to work it out – my money is in Austria right now!!!
Friday, June 20
I am spending a lot of time on camp preparations. I spent some good quality time with a couple of my young people – I am trying to spend as much time with all of my young people as I possibly can to encourage them and just to be with them! The main event was school graduations took place this evening all across Kremenchuk and Ukraine. I went to school #11 for the last time for their graduation and one of our girls, Ivanna. When I walked up to the school, my first Ukrainian friend, Natalie – the English school teacher who left Ukraine to get married after the first few months that I was here – was at the school! It was fun and good to see her again! After the graduation I said good bye to several teachers and they were polite and kind. Another good bye.
Saturday, June 21
I haven’t been food or grocery shopping for some time so I went to the grocery store and market – both time consuming events. I had the bright idea of how to better give away my small items in my house. I was putting them in boxes in my living room and trying to get people to take them, but they wouldn’t do it! So I decided on Monday when our Bible Classes begin in the evenings (3 weeks of them before camp) I would do a “Christmas in June!” I had a lot of Christmas stockings left over from the holidays, so I hung them all over my living room – like I do at Christmas and started filling them with things for people to have. Every evening after Bible Classes and Devo, we will open them up and those that come, I will refill again! So some will get a lot more than others, because as they come, they get more! In the evening we had Frisbee and celebrated Nastya’s birthday.
Sunday, June 22
We had a good number at worship this morning. 4 of went to Prostor (like our Wal-Mart) had lunch together and bought a back-pack for Natasha’s birthday which we will celebrate tonight. I had a restful afternoon and then we had our evening worship and celebrated Natasha’s birthday at the church building and played games.
Monday, June 23
I had a busy study morning. Today I hung the stockings and began the process of going through my house step by step to empty it out as much as possible into the Christmas stockings. I sent out a text message to all inviting them to Christmas in June! Artem said it read the text 3 times because he couldn’t believe we were having Christmas in June! We had 10 for our first evening Bible Study. Everyone had fun opening their stockings and I cooked apple-jack pancakes for everyone! These evenings do look like that they will be late nighters!
Tuesday, June 24
I went to the market to buy extra food stuff for making tortias tonight – it is really improvising, because there are no true tortias here, but a kind of bread wrap that is similar, but a lot thinner. As I was starting to prepare supper, my kitchen sink fell apart – the drain rusted through and I had water everywhere! I took it apart and went to a plumbing outlet store that I know of – the ONLY one that I know of in Kremenchuk – and it was 5:15 and it was closed!!! So I washed dished that I had dirty and our evening meal dishes in my small bathroom sink and drained the dishes in my dish drainer moved to my bathtub! We had our devo tonight and Artem led the study on growing in our faith. Again we open stockings with 14 people here and several of us went for a walk after I cooked and we ate chocolate chip cookies! I have one bag of chocolate chips left! Pretty good timing and planning, don’t you think!?
Wednesday, June 25 – A Red Letter Day!
I continue to work on camp – I know a broken record! But it is coming along well and hopefully we will have a great camp! I also finished a chart that I have been working on about worshipping in song in our worship to God. I got to spend some extra time today with Zhenya and that was good. At 2, Yulya, Olya and I went to the Orphan family for our Bible Study! Victor is off from his work today, but the older kids were all working. I asked Inna and Victor if they were ready to be baptized and they said yes. So we went to the river, about 10 kilometers away, found a quiet spot and baptized them into Christ about 3:30pm!!! Yes, it was a great day and afternoon!!! We had 11 for our evening Bible Study that went well. Everyone enjoyed their stockings again. My tortias went over well and I took the last people home around 9.
Thursday, June 26
I went to the bank today and my money is still not there!!! So I wrote and then called the bank in the US, practically begging them to help me get it straightened out! They are not being a lot of help! They don’t seem to care! They said that I should go to my bank here and ask them to help too, which I will do tomorrow. I met Inna, who is the young woman that I first knew in the 9th grade when I was first here and is married and going to Spain to join her husband. We had lunch and a nice chat. It maybe the last time I see her for a long time! I have been sleeping only 4 to 5 hours a night for about a week and it caught up to me today. So I slept about 2 ½ hours in the afternoon. In the evening I was much better. We had 9 for our evening Bible Class. I fixed chili tonight and went to a late movie with a couple of our group.
Friday, June 27
I have been mistaken about the US bank – I have found out that they have been working very hard on this problem. I was telling a friend the other day that it seems like for people in the USA time is measured by weekends, where as we have daily and hourly pressing needs here that are not often realized by American friends and brothers in Christ. Often, we must move forward in actions with faith in God and also knowing that our US Brethren will act faithful in the future. So what about Friday? My life is full of camp, preparations for the future and people right now! In the evening we had a nice evening of Frisbee with 8 of us and 6 of those coming to my house afterwards until about 10:30.
Saturday, June 28
Since I am preaching tomorrow, I have spent several hours working on my sermon and today in finishing it up. We had no planned activity today, but again I was blessed to be with several of my brothers and sisters in Christ. In the evening we walked to the Lenin Square, where a large crowd was gathered to celebrate the Day of the Constitution. I had my sermon outline translated into Russian, so I could share it with the Church and with those that were not able to be there to hear it.
Sunday, June 29
I believe that my sermon went well and was appreciated by the Church. Our worship was good! Afterwards, about 12:15, I left for a couple of days in Kiev. I am visiting one of my students, Lilya who I have known since she was in the 9th grade. I stayed at a decent hotel and met her in the center, traveling by the metro. Today was another holiday – the Day of Youth and the center of Kiev was much more crowded than Kremenchuk’s was yesterday! We had a nice walk and supper together.
Monday, June 30
I rested and read in the morning in my hotel room and then met Lilya at 1pm in the center again and we spent the afternoon together. We said our goodbyes about 6pm. It was so hard to say goodbye. She is such a dear daughter to me! (Just a note, so you don’t have to wait to long to get the message – on July 2nd, most of my money and banking problems have been resolved.)
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