A Day at Home

This weekend was another busy one. We went to Knoxville and spent the night with our friends Jim and Kelly Pryor and their two little ones. I was a little nervous about preaching on Sunday. First service was at 8:15AM. And then I was using Powerpoint in my sermon at 10:30AM which was a new thing for me. I did get up on time and preached. There was, of course, the normal questions about where Ukraine is. One person was glad to here we have McDonalds in Kyiv. But there were many, many encouraging words and it was a pleasure to see so many old acquaintances and friends. We then had lunch with several friends and some new ones. It was a great day. We then made our way to Target and the new McKays in Knoxville. This used bookstore is now huge. Wow. I was amazed. I think they raised their prices though.

We came back late Sunday night and I was really exhausted. Today, we've spent at home all day. My parents asked us to make some Ukrainian salad olivye to take to a sick person. But we faced a rather grueling day of creating a final UEC budget report for the board meeting on Saturday. We hadn't looked at these numbers in about three weeks so it was hard to get back into the mood. And then we noticed some mistakes and things got rough for a while. It was rather frustrating but we think we finished it off in time to watch the rest of the premiere of 24. We had never seen the show, so it was pretty interesting. I can't say I am hooked since someone called in the middle of the show. At first, I was a little frustrated but then I remembered my Sunday sermon. Our culture tells us that personal peace and affluence is what we should want (to use Francis Schaeffer's idea). I was wanting a little personal peace--a night at home without interruption doing exactly what I wanted to do. But that kind of life is really not of the kingdom, the kingdom means there will be interruptions. I had a great conversation with someone we met on Sunday. That was our day. It's going to pick up some tomorrow I think.