Sunday Fun

Saturday night around 10:30, for reasons I won't mention, I was asked to preach on Sunday morning. So I continued the theme from last week--money and the biblical way to wrestle with this tremendous spiritual power. The only way to control it is to let go of it.

We had to leave before the closing prayers because we were supposed to meet the carpet people at the UEC. They could only put it down on Sunday. They were late, of course. After about 8 hours of carpet installation, it looks fabulous. Then, we enjoyed putting everything back in its place. Vitaly was still there when we left with Oleg to get something to eat at about 10:00PM. Oddly, at about 5 till 10, someone rang the UEC's bell. She just wanted to check out some books. We have never worked on Sundays, and we have never stayed open past 10. Not sure what she was thinking. I have pics of our moving stuff and some new faces at the UEC.

We also had a good ministry discussion while we were waiting for the carpet people to finish. Ministry is often very hard because not everyone sees things the same way. And that's frustrating. Especially if you think you are right :) But we are learning and trying to be patient.

Slowly, we are getting the UEC repair work done. It's very slow. Saturday we finally were able to purchase new bulbs for our aquarium. They have been out for more than a month. That market is wild, wild, wild. It still surprizes me when I go there. What an incredible conglomeration of just about anything you can imagine crammed together in little booths. Saturday is a big day for the pet market. The one we went to specializes in fish and we brought back 5 new neons to add to our ever aging and dwindling marine family.

I guess I can share the UEC news since (I think) it's 100%. An anonymous donor is giving the UEC a very large financial gift for non-operations expenses. So, we are going to be able to do a lot of things we had hopes to do over the next several years but we are going to be able to do it all in the next two or three months!! It's pretty exciting but also it means a lot of new work. Spending money wisely in Kyiv is not always easy. I am especially thankful we now have funds to purchase a stockpile of Bibles and NTs to give to patrons. I had hoped the money could have gone for salary raises but maybe this gift will give us a little breathing room so that we will be able to keep staff salaries at least moving with inflation.

I recently paid $2 a pound for some not-so-great hamburger meat. Is this not expensive? A regular store. $2. I was in shock when I got up and calculated it into dollars and pounds. I generally never do that so I think I have become desensitized to what things cost here compared to what they cost in America. But this is getting a little ridiculous.