We arrived here around
noon yesterday.
We met our contacts at the airport and they took us to the House of Gospel, a Baptist church located in the city.
Many of the churches here also have rooms to rent.
We ate lunch in the basement which doubled as a fellowship area, as in many churches.
On the menu was the classic Ukranian dish,
borsch, a soup made from beets.
It was delish’.
Over lunch we met with the leaders from Gateway to Life, a ministry that focuses attention on anything dealing with the preservation of life (ex: crisis pregnancy, those with disabilities, care of the elderly, etc…).
We spent the rest of the day getting familiar with our surroundings.
Today we had a
9:00 am meeting with a representative of a Christian university accreditation association.
From there we were invited to their staff worship meeting.
This was the highlight of my day.
We began with a few hymns, they were familiar to us in English so we sang them in English while everyone else sang in Ukranian.
It actually sounded pretty cool.
Brett (one of our team members) was asked to share a quick word from the Word, and that was followed by one of the pastors also sharing a few words.
Afterward (no pun intended), the pastor went to his knees to begin prayer (and we all followed suit).
I couldn’t understand a word of his prayer but I was overwhelmed to tears by the experience and the presence of God in this humble meeting.
We sang an few hymns and then went on to another meeting with the head of the all Ukranian Union of Associations of Evangelical Christians Baptists (yes, that is directly off of a business card!).
From there it was back to the church where we met Alex from TWR (TransWorld Radio). He took us to lunch and then to his office across the river. All six of us crammed into his little car for the 40 minute ride. It looked like that familiar homecoming game at JCS!
On the way we drove through the center of Kiev and the plaza where the Orange Revolution took place.
Next we just happened to (by God’s grace) meet the Ukranina directors of Christian Camping International, who just happened to have offices upstairs from the TWR offices. Did I mention that this whole leg of the trip wasn’t supposed to happen? Our original teaching in Bulgaria fell through at the last minute so we came to Kiev to make contacts for future ministry opportunities. It’s been a full day.
On the way home from our last meetings we stopped off to walk around downtown on the main drag in Kiev. It is very modern but still has that “old city” feel in many ways. Now I’m back in what has become our favorite stop the “Coffee House” (pictured above behind the trolley). Check out this Latte!
Tomorrow we have another full day of meetings with ministry leaders here in town, and on Thursday we leave here at 4:30am to head to Madrid, Spain via Germany.
I am thinking a lot about everyone at home. As I type this I know that school is just getting out but it’s almost 9pm here. I have been slowly reading through the 3x5 cards that several students gave me. I am encouraged by many of them. I hope the Squirrels are safe.
2 comments:
Hey! The 10th grade and 9th grade classes have read this in their science classes and would like to let you know that we are thinking of you too and that pumpkin spice is missing in action!
Hey mr. Neill, It sounds like you have been taking in alot of culture! Thats cool. I envy the opportunity you have to go and plan missions trips etc... It hasnt been the same back here, auction week is crazy, but it's weird having a different sub everyday. Ben was really good I thought. He talked about the relationship we Christians have with american culture. it seems we either 1) condemn it 2)critique it or 3)consume it... neither of these are right but we arent providing anymore options. Then he gave us another option; to *cultivate*. The first thing I thought of was 'dirt', gardening and stuff... but by cultivating culture, we are changing our method of presenting Jesus to the world. we're trying to see what WE see from their point of view. To illustrate this, before he dove in we all got a partner and one was the listener, one was the tapper. Kelly and I paired up and I was the tapper. The object of the game was for the tapper to tap out a well known song on the desk and have the listener listen...yeah; to what we were tapping and try to decide what song it was. We found that as tappers "how could they NOT figure this out! it's so easy.." Yeah, thats what we think. but it is really difficult to decipher what's going on if you dont know where to start for one and you are so confused you give up. It is the same with us. We say the word 'christian' and the same words pop up: Jesus, love, faith, church, witness, salvation etc... But if you say that word to a teen @ j-high, the list is completely different: rules, hypocrites, limitations, lies, commitments, fake, inconvenient, see? We, since we are in the Christian realm know exactly what Christianity should be and Is with some people. But to a non-christian, they see christianity the way we portray it in our own lives, hypocritical and full of rules and 2-faced people. It's a sad reality, i've come to find out... So, the point is to get people to think of different ways to approach people who arent christians by relating to them... Cultivate. Well, I just wanted to let you know what's been happening back here. The squirrels are fine. well, the spice one is still missing but Kristen and Anne are on the lookout. Praying for your family, Amy ODell
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