Monday, May 17, 2010

DAY OF REST, RAIN; EVE OF UKRAINIAN PIZZA AND A MALL! (Monday May 17th)

How is that for a “Day of Rest”?” Well, I’d better begin with the service from Sunday evening since Marilyn could not go because of her cold and therefore did not and could not tell you about it.

Worship? Great! Preacher? Maybe we ought not to comment on him, sometimes he has it and sometimes he doesn’t. But “if” the response of the people and their intense looks have any meaning, then he probably did a decent job. Let us leave that in the hands of the final “Judge of All Things.” But his message was titled: “Dare To Believe And Confess.” It was a challenge to remember believing isn’t enough. We need also to “confess our faith” and then “trust” God though the circumstances do not appear to have changed or the future doesn’t seem any brighter.

The service was at Word of Life, pastored by Dima and Natasha Nemchenko. It is the result of a merger of two Churches from the tragedy of the past into one and then the voluntary submission of one pastor to the other and taking the position of assistant. Dima as a student of the Word and an evangelist at heart. So you can expect him to challenge the Church to become involved in a ministry to their city and to reach the lost.

We had approximately 70 (conservatively speaking – that opposite of “evangelistically speaking” – that should help some of you recognize my attempt at “honesty” with numbers.) Anyway we will be involved all week with this Church including: a meeting with the pastors, the leadership, a cell group, a special midweek service, and then again on Sunday evening. And lest the ladies jump on my back – there is a special “Ladies Day” activity on Friday – meaning: “NO MEN ALLOWED!”

Now a “day of rest” simply means “no services” but it does mean a full day of study and message development. And then it also meant an evening with a former interpreter and her husband. They took us out to supper, excuse me, “dinner” which consisted of a soup, a salad, and pizza. Then we went to see the newest mall in Chernivtsi. It is “SOMETHING ELSE!” You should see it! I was surprised! It had a car dealership, many many restaurants which surrounded the ice-skating rink, a pool hall with approximately 60 billiards tables, a bowling alley – state of the art to boot, clothing stores, a household store with everything you would want, and a large grocery store and then to boot – that means “in addition” in case you are not up on the vernacular of today – a drive in theater. What else you ask? I do not know but I am sure I missed something. Oh yes! A music store full of instruments and it was operated by the husband of one of our former interpreters - Vovo (not Volvo!) The interpreter was Nadya Torubalko since you asked.

We made it home by 10:00 and now we are – well Marilyn is waiting for me to finish this so she – I can see if she has any emails from anyone. Therefore, I must stop and send this to be posted and check for incoming emails.

A SIDE NOTE: IF you send or respond to an email, please start a new email and avoid just hitting reply which will send our original back with your response. We do not have WiFI nor an email hook up and so I must use my Ukrainian phone and ISP which is slow, troublesome. But keep them “emails” coming!

Thanks for your prayers,

Dr D and Marilyn

No comments: