June 20th, 2009

The weather is nice now...quite nice.
I am spending time outdoors with my friend, Galya. She rides a train from her village for 2 hours each way into Kiev to sell her farmer's cheese and sour cream. Every day she estimates how many kilos of cheese she will sell. Most days she sells about 18 kilos.

It has become my habit to go and spend about an hour just hanging out, talking with her. During this time, we talk about many things. One day, she told me that she really doesn't have a friend. It made me so sad but, I realized that God has given her to me as a friend, and so...we are spending time together. One of these days, I will have a picture of her. She asked me if I had a camera and if we could take a picture together sometime...

While we are talking, she is constantly on the look-out for potential customers. She calls out to people who are passing by, that she has fresh cheese. Some are drawn to her and they ask for a sample. The customers know what they are looking for in the cheese. Some want a high fat content, some want softer texture, others want a harder type. It seems that she has a little of each kind. Sometimes they can't find what they are looking for. It is really interesting to be an observer of this whole process. I am amazed at the number of neighbors I meet while hanging outside with Galya.

I am hoping that this time we spend together will help our friendship to deepen. Usually our conversation touches on spiritual things, I am praying that our talks go deeper into what really matters in life.

Parker is home from BFA for the summer. It is so wonderful to have him home with us. I miss him so much during the school year. He borrowed a few text books from the school library for "light" reading over the summer. The one that I am looking at is called 'AP Biology'. He has chosen a tough academic load for the next school year and wants to get a head start on his studies.

We leave tomorrow for Sevastopol, Ukraine. It is on the southern tip of the Crimea. We are going there to hunt for an apartment for our colleagues. Please join us in prayer as we find just the one that God has for them.

We are also going to take a few days of vacation there at the beach. I will take pictures to share....
Hope you are all enjoying your summer and have great vacations wherever you go, whatever you do!
Happy Father's Day!!!!

In the Village

I saw Pasha today! This will be a rare thing now that it is summer. She will come into the city only about once a week to water her plants. She and her husband Ivan have moved out to the village for the summer. I realized last night that I haven't updated Ivan's status for a while.

Remember we asked for prayer for Ivan several months ago? He was quite sick and in the hospital, needing blood transfusions. We never really understood exactly what was wrong with him. But, all the same, God healed him through the medical treatment he received. Thank you for your prayers for his physical state...now we are concentrating our prayers for his spiritual state and also Pasha's.

So, we will trust God to do the work in their souls and hearts that only He can do.

I have a big bouquet of peonies from her garden... the smell is heavenly!

Last night I went on a stroll with another friend, Galina. We walked arm in arm together around the courtyard by our apartment building. We found a bench to sit on and talked and talked...as the weather warms up, people are outside in the cool of the evenings, strolling.

Every day we ask God to help us to meet up with our neighbors as we are coming and going...He is answering this prayer. We want to be faithful in shining His light in our neighborhood.

Sweet Summer Days?

Hi,
We're back again so soon.

Well, after a Spring which was worthy to be a cautionary tale about the dangers of Global Warming (and this AFTER George Bush was no longer president!) temps have cooled down to what we'd normally expect in early Spring. It's nice to have a break from the sweaty days to come because soon they'll start for real.

We have a lot of travel coming up for the month. Kim has to escort one missionary kid from Germany to Moscow because his parents are having visa issues-not worse visa issues than other times in Russia, just more of the same old, same old.

Then I go to Germany to bring Parker home for the Summer. Traveling with us will be Phil Neilson and Nate Pharr, two fine young men with whom we became acquainted at Crown College the year we were there as Missionaries in Residence.
We look forward to their visit here.

When they leave we travel to Sevastopol (famous in the annals of the Crimean War) to find an apartment for some colleagues who will be living and working there.
Whew!

Through all of this we need to keep up our connections with people here and hope to see some real advancement from friendship with us to openness to organized spiritual discussions.
We'll see how that goes, as you help us with your prayers.

Take care.

Sauna Wars

Hi all,
I can't believe how long we go between updates. There are days when it's fun to write because there is actually news that seems to us that it it will be interesting to all of you. The days when all seems to be 'same old, same old' it's pretty tough to find the motivation.

Well, at least today is one of those 'something interesting to report' days. Yesterday at the sauna the Russians were taking on the Ukrainians in the question of whose government was better. Actually, the Russian guys, while holding Ukrainian passports, are really still Soviets and think 'the old days were better than these'. The Ukrainian guys argue back like kids who know all to well that the big, tough kid on the block can dictate his own terms.

Well, the dispute ranged all over the historical map from the ancient Slavic wars and a guy named Urich Somebody to The Great Patriotic War (WWII, to us westerners) and a guy named Adolph Somebody.
From childhood I've been a WWII buff and was able to contribute my opinion on the correctness of the dates that they were tossing around.

The discussion moved on to the Jews wandering for 40 years in the wilderness. One guy said it was because they worshipped the golden calf that God punished them in the desert. Another agreed with me that it was because of their fear-driven unbelief that God could actually drive out the scary inhabitants of the Promised Land.

The day ended with one guy saying, "Ok, Jerry, next time you bring your Bible to the sauna. We're going to turn our sauna time into a discussion time about the Bible and religion."

I don't know how enthusiastic they'll be when the time comes around but the door is open for some serious discussion. Thanks for reading along and for your support in this work. We couldn't fight our own battles without people holding our arms up.

Next time, sooner...