Doug's Journal for May 1-15 2007

Tuesday, May 1, 2007
No Schools again today – holiday until tomorrow. The holiday is like a Veteran’s Day. At 9am I left for Bugkivka to get 4 of our 10th grade girls to come to Kremenchuk and spend the holiday with us. It was a terrible rainy morning with mixed snow in my drive to the village and back. We got back around 11 and went to my house where people began to come, fix food (I cooked sloppy joes for them – I hadn’t fixed this before for most). I end up using over 3 pounds of hamburger to feed 16 people! It was a big hit, along with other good food that others brought. We spent the afternoon together, playing, walking and then at 4:30 5 of us went to Prostor (our Wal-Mart type store) and bought birthday presents for Lera, our 11th grade girl for her birthday party after our devo at 6 at the church building. We had 29 for the devo and most stayed for the party afterwards. As you maybe could imagine, the singing was great and James had a great lesson. Lera, started coming with her mother, Nadya, when she was 5. She is really growing up and is a delight to all of us! I got home about 8:30pm to eat supper.
Wednesday, May 2
Not a lot happening today and it was good because I had a pretty bad sinus headache and cough – yes my cough won’t let go of me! By the afternoon, the headache was gone and I was able to get some studying done for Saturday Bible Clubs and for my Rev. Study tomorrow night.
Thursday, May 3
Again, a strong wind is blowing and my sinuses hurt pretty badly. I know I didn’t mention it before. On Monday of this week, Victor Nikolivna, the preacher for one of the 3 churches of Christ here in Kremenchuk died of a sudden massive stroke. It was a shock to everyone! He was 65 years old and had been a very active and strong preacher. His funeral was today. I went to the funeral. People do it all the time, right? It's never fun. He actually lived longer than the average life span for men in Ukraine which is 63. There was a LOT of people there for a Ukrainian funeral. They meet outside the house (apartment building) where he lives and they bring the body in a wooden casket - very simple - can't afford more I am sure. Everybody gathers around the best they can. Since it was for a member of the Church there is at least no morbid music playing. Several of us from the church sang and then Peter, our preacher, preached a sermon, we sang some more. People were placing flowers on the body as the preaching was going on. Then 4 men put the casket on their shoulders and take him to a large van that is waiting and the immediate family all get into this van with all the wreathes and flowers and take the body to the grave site. The friends that I was with said that the equivalent 1/3 the population of Kremenchuk (250,000) are buried at this cemetery. There is some preaching and praying and then 4 men lower the casket down into the grave after the casket is nailed shut. Then they covered the casket with dirt, with friends and family putting 2 or 3 handfuls of dirt on the casket before leaving. They were to have a dinner, but I didn't stay for that. It was hard. I cried some. Then I went home, ate lunch about 3:30pm, prepared for my evening class and we had 12 for that and 8 stayed after and I fixed hot tuna sandwiches afterwards. We studied Rev. 5 about the Lamb and the throne scene. I made the application of the funeral and having to always be ready to meet our maker! It's now about 9:40 and all have gone home about 30 minutes ago. I just wanted to write about this tonight.
Friday, May 4
I had 4 girls in my 6th grade class at School 1 today and that was good and fun. At 1:15 we went to the village (Oksana, Max and I) and we had 12 in class today. We had 2 boys that were just terrible. There is often little or no discipline in the homes I think and it is seen in the boys more than the girls. We have some good boys in our younger classes at school, but these two! Finally, I was actually getting ready to get the director of the school when they finally settled down some. 8 of us played Frisbee and then 5 came to my house for some snacks, games and a movie until about 9:30.
Saturday, May 5
I had prepared my Bible club materials earlier in the week and James was to teach the Adult – 1 came and thus no class. Artem and Oksana taught my Parent’s Club but just 2 came. I left with Alina and Olya to go to the airport to go and get Kelli, who is returning after being gone for about 6 weeks. She will be here until Dec and then go back home. We got back to Kremenchuk about 3:45 and we had a surprise party planned for Kelli, but she expected it. We had a good time anyway. She and I were both pretty tired and so all were home and gone by 6:30pm.
Sunday, May 6
Worship was good with good attendance today. Afterwards 7 of us made sandwiches for the Boy’s prison work and then fixed and ate spaghetti together. It was good and fun afternoon. Then we watched a movie together, some going home and I worked on my evening lesson. We had 14 for our evening services. I got home about 8 and ate another late supper.
Monday, May 7
I did pretty well about having a day off today until later afternoon when things got busy around my place with different people. In the evening we (Olya, Kelli, Ksusha, and Artem) went to the Bible study at the Orphan’s Home family and I gave them a survey to take about what they believed in God and then we started to discuss it and will work on it more next Monday. I got everybody and me home after 10.
Tuesday, May 8
Had a meeting with James and Kelli about camps from 9-11. At 1:15 Max, Oksana and I went to the village to have our class with the 10th grade girls and that went well. They are so much warmer and friendlier since coming to spend time with us in Kremenchuk! We had a good singing night/devo with 15 people present and the singing and fellowship was good. I got home around 8 for supper.
Wednesday, May 9 – V Day – Victory Day – the End of WWII
Or as they call here, The Great Patriotic War! You would too if your city was completely destroyed except for 6 buildings during WWII, over 95,000 people died during the war from your city and 37,000+ died in a concentration camp right in the rubble of your city. Well there were parades, carnivals, speeches, etc. honoring the vets from this time – there are still quite a few remaining. Mostly just a pretty day to have another holiday for the rest of us – no schools today.
Thursday, May 10
Nadya is Ksusha’s Mom. Her dad was unfaithful to her mom this spring and so they divorced. The income has been very low for them. Nadya started coming to our Parent’s Bible Club as one of our founding students. A few weeks ago, I asked her if she would like to cook for me and of course I would pay her. She said she would love to! (She’s a great cook!) She’s done it for 3 weeks now. Today, through her daughter, I asked to if she would like to have a personal Bible Study and she said yes! So that is my greatest news for today! We went to the orphanage in Svetlovodsk at 3:30 and that went well. We had our Rev. study at 6 with 16 people present and that also went well. People went home after 9:30.
Friday, May 11
Normal study stuff in the morning and errands, etc. At 1:15, Ksusha and I went to the village to have our study with the 5th and 6th grade kids. We had 12. But the exciting part is that several of them are getting really excited about coming to camp with us at the Black Sea! This is such an exciting thing as we have been trying to get them to come with us for 2 years and now finally the parents are trusting us enough for them to come! We got at 4. At our Frisbee tonight only 5 came, but we had a good time.
Saturday, May 12
Today was the last day for our Bible Clubs until fall because of other activities coming up. At 10am, I went out and bought Anya O. (Vaughan – James new wife!) a birthday present, took it over to her and they had a meal fixed at 11 – Max came too! It was nice to celebrate a bit with her. We had 7 for our Adult Bible Club with 2 new people that promised us they would come back in the fall. At 2, I tried for the 3rd time to have an Men’s Leadership Meeting from all the churches in the area and only 2 came. I was terribly disappointed and discouraged. Several told me they would come, but it didn’t happen! At 4pm, we had the first blank with our Parent’s Club – I know some are out of town. At 6pm, we had 9 for our Bible Club and that was good.
Sunday, May 13
Not a great day for me. I was still hurt pretty bad about men not coming to the meeting, so it was hard for me worship. I know that I should have let it go, but I didn’t. I did have lunch with a couple of Missionary couples that are here teaching at the Bible College (they around 70 or so) and they were encouraging to me. We had 12 at our evening service and that helped me some, too.
Monday, May 14
God’s Word and another book I am reading both spoke to what I needed today and it brought me to my knees in repentance for allowing hurt feelings stay in my heart, so I repented, prayed and wrote to some people about being sorry for letting anything like this stand in the way of our relationship to God. Of course today is supposed to be my day off. But from about 10 to 1:30 I worked on a report that I am trying to get ready to send to my Elders. Well, it is my day off and I can do what I want to do on it, right? And I wanted to get this done! At 5:45 we went to the Orphans family again for a Bible Study and it went really well with some really good questions coming up from them! They just found out that the Regional Govt. in charge of their kind of work is going to build them a larger home so that they can reach their goal of 12 orphan home kids! They are doing the blue prints this week and will start immediately to build! That’s so great for them. We were there until nearly 10pm! It was a really nice evening!
Tuesday, May 15
It doesn’t seem like it can be the middle of May! I worked very hard all morning on Black Sea Camp stuff and finished printing it out as I ate lunch. I use old formats, etc. but still you have to figure out who is going to teach what, when and where, who will translate, who will do devo’s etc.! This was just the teaching part! At 1pm, Ksusha, Kelli, Vika and I left for the airport to get Frankie. His flight was supposed to arrive at 4:50 – it did, but he lost a suitcase and he didn’t get out of customs, etc. until 6:30pm! Then we drove home, arriving about 9:50pm and by the time I got everyone home and back again it was 10:45! It’s great having Frankie here again – he worked with us for 20 months with AIM and had returned home in Dec. So, it’s great having him back!