We had some delightful (and not so delightful) conversations this week. I'll go in reverse order. With our friend Oleg, I made an apple pie tonight. We were at church for a long time. Misha preached a great sermon about our general unwillingness to be around people who smell bad. There was more to it than that, but that point in itself was powerful. We then had difficult conversations with someone who we are removing our fellowship from for habitual divisive behavior. It's sad but necessary to protect the body. The New Testament very much begins to breathe in mission contexts, where first-generation Christians encounter Christ. I will always have this battle with interpreters of the New Testament. It is not enough to surmise the historical, linguistic, and social contexts to better interpret holy writ. There is the missiological context, contexts in which faith was just being born and this is what shaped and even conditioned what was written.

So we enjoyed a relatively calm Saturday. Our regular 24 viewing and much needed rest. Friday Lena enjoyed ministry conversations with 2 people, long stories. We also invited Vitaly and Lera over last week, and the Wednesday cell meeting was good but difficult at moments. I went to a ministry meeting that had been cancelled. I was even starting to complain why the person hadn't shown up yet, and then he walked in only to remind me that the meeting had been cancelled (or postponed).

I finally finished reading a history of early America to prepare myself for reading a theological history of early America. Alexander Campbell's name has been tossed around a couple of times. Pictures include a recent Kyiv sunrise, strawberry shortcake, and apple pie from Chris's Kitchen.