Sunday, October 12

10:00 P.M. The day is done and we are “done in.” It has been a good but tiring day! It all began at 6:30 this morning. Get up, get ready and depart for Marinovka and the Church of Christ Savior. I was there first outside speaker and I was really outside – from the US. The Church is a daughter Church of the Church in which I was to minister in the evening.

I was joined by one of the three choirs from the Mother Church. My interpreter was a young college grad with his master’s degree in tourism hospitality. He works in the computer field. He can speak excellent English but is still “green” in the art of sermon interpretation. This was my third service with him and I must say his best yet – the other attempts had been somewhat frustrating. Now I know I am hard to interpret because of the way I phrase things, but he was still “green”. In fact, he has only been attending a Pentecostal Church for about six months. And the Pentecostal Churches in Ukraine over-all are ultra-conservative. Time and space and good sense prohibits me from explaining further. But since this was one of their own, we made it successfully.

About the time that I was ready to begin the final prayer and conclude the message, something that I thought would never happen in Ukraine DID! I got one of those “phone calls from Heaven” – you know – those that come while you are in Church and only God would call during a service. I never considered that someone would call me in Ukraine. So few people who have my Ukraine phone number speak English. But it was someone who knew me! Who? Answer: My wife. She had been told that the service was over at 10:30 when in reality it was not to be over until 11:00+. Svetlana and requested she call me to verify that we had already departed so we would be back in time to minister at 12:00 for the 11:00 service. Anyway I was able to turn the phone off, I thought, but only to discover that it blurted out the medley assigned to it again. By this time I had closed the service and requested the pastor to come.

We “flew” on top of the road back to our destination and arrived with about 20 minutes to spare before time to ascend the platform and preach. This Church is a Charismatic Church and the atmosphere provided for an easier presentation of the Word of God. One young man received Christ and many testified of receiving a healing during the prayer time.

Dinner was in our private dinning room with the Pastor Vladimir and Luda Gorbachev and Natasha, a lady who works for Svetlana here and was our driver for this occasion. I completed my meal, dismissed myself (the pastor had already taken leave) and crashed on the bed for a hour of rest before scheduled to depart for the last service of the day.

The evening assignment was in a Church pastored by Alexander and Vera (last name missing from my mind). They are the parents of thirteen (13) children. Five of them are married and they have provided eight grand-children. That means they still have eight at home or at least unmarried. Six of their children are girls and that leave seven boys. Their oldest son is the second in command. One son-in-law directs one of the their three choirs (they also have six complete worship teams). Another son-in-law was my interpreter for Saturday and for this evening. We got along good and I attribute any problems to my state of mind which was in a tired condition.

They have the nicest building in which we have ministered in all of Ukraine. The pastor spent either fifteen or sixteen years building their facility because they did not hire any professionals but did all the work themselves. It is very–very–very nice! I believe you could place to gymnasiums in it and have ample room for spectators. It has two stories with a balcony. The pastor may be from a conservative group here in Ukraine but his vision is not limited by that relationship. His son, Volodia told me that over 90% of those who attend have been born again in the Church or because of someone who led them to the Lord and brought them to Church. I would guess that there were 400 present and I know that some of them were at a special cooperative service elsewhere in town where they had been reading the Bible aloud and were completing the process.

The worship team for the evening were all youth. They had a beautiful sound and their sweetness totally overshadowed any weakness a critic may point out. After my ministry their main choir entered in their robes and filled the auditorium with some beautiful music. You can tell that many, if not all had trained voices, meaning they had been involved in some type of professional training. The arts are highly valued in the cultures of the former Soviet Union. Oh, yes! Before the choir came one lady came forward and received Jesus as a result of the message.

We closed out the evening there by joining the pastor, his wife along with Svetlana and Olga – a beautiful girl, an orphan and now a consistent believer and worker in a local bank – and is the product of Svetlana’s efforts to reach the orphaned children of Ukraine.

We finally closed out the evening by stopping by a super-market and getting some traveling foods for our journey back to Kiev on the overnight train Monday evening. But you always conclude the evening with some tea, cookies, candies, cheese or whatever you desire. We did and we finished at 10:00 p.m.

God bless and thanks for your prayers,

Dr. D. & Marilyn