Ministry Update: Springing to Life

As we come into the last weeks of our ministry in Kyiv, the main principle we have used to guide our time is to spend quality time with our friends, who happen to be the backbone of the church. This weekend, for example, we were with people during almost all waking hours. Saturday morning we headed out to the Central Botanical Gardens. We met in front of the train station to take the taxi van there. It was incredibly hot, but we had a nice group. After touring the gardens, which were a little disappointing since many of the exhibits seemed to be closed, we headed down the hill to the metro to meet for a lite lunch at Puzata Hata where we met Oksana. Thanks to Anya Zubkova for organizing the trip. We then prepared our evening meal and Oleg and Oksana came over for dinner. Sunday we were together for the assembly and after eating out with Oleg and Oksana, we went to the Center to help prepare the meal for Olya's birthday party to be held on Monday night. After preparations were finished, I tried to wow everyone with the blender I had secretly carried to the UEC. I made some smoothies, I guess that's what they were. Then, everyone watched a movie. Monday night we found ourselves at the birthday party. Vika Dzuba is in town for the week. She is working on an MBA at Georgetown, and we were glad to hear that her faith is still strong and vibrant. We said good bye to Vanya who left for Work and Travel in Wisconsin and Ira is leaving soon.

Ihave also had several good ministry meetings, and have begun meeting with Oleg to help him prepare to preach. In a sense, I think he is going to take my place in the preaching circle.

Unfortunately, Natalya is not doing so well. She has not been well enough to take the 7th chemotherapy treatment. She had not been able to eat for a while and has had a fever for two weeks. The doctors are trying to decide the best path of treatment. Please keep praying for her. We now have the funds for her next treatments. Now it's all entirely in God's hands.

We have also begun to sell our personal possessions since it's too expensive to ship or can't be used in the US (different electricity).

We are in the season of no hot water. They promise it will be back by the 29th. Thankfully, the UEC has a shower! Our refrigerator also finally died and we were without refrigeration for a few days. Lena found a repairperson who fixed it for $30. We lost much of the contents, though. I guess now the refrigerator won't be so hard to clean out when we leave.

Nothing much going on in politics.

Response to comment since I can't manage to leave a comment on my own blog:
Nice.

It's hotter in Kyiv today than in Abilene. And no air conditioning.

The knee comment--that's why I do all I can to keep from posting pics that include me. I wore the same shirt to church on Sunday and a dear sister told me "You look fat. That shirt makes you look fat." She later told Lena I shouldn't be fat.

Maybe I should copyright those knees and you will have to pay some sort of fee for using them.