Today is best described as a “fruit-basket-turnover-day”!
But it was a fantastic day and the mission team adjusted as needed and all turned out super…except we needed about four more Americans to fill the requested spots.
We started the day with the school visits and the first stop was at the Village Ugornyky. This is the village that gave the property to the Church to build a building. We first went to Mayor Lubov’s office and then presented the Village Medical Center with a laptop and printer. The next stop was the two school’s in the village. We had assigned three of our team to this school (Gif, Maggie, & Elizabeth). Because of the great work by last year’s team the schools were excited about our coming and had requests for SEVEN to teach in the two schools! They were greatly disappointed when I told them only three were there. At that time the teachers began pulling our team members with them and I thought Gif was going to be pulled apart!
We also had team members at Lysets and they presented the school there with a laptop and Simba and Nick Revels went there. We also had a request for more to go to Lysets so we pulled Nick Berryman and Chip from their assigned duty and put them in Lysets.
Doug and Caleb returned to Zelena and were to teach private studies and speak in the school.
After the classes started I had a good meeting with the Mayor and the two School Directors in Ugornyky and then ate a quick lunch and hurried to Lysets where Vova had arranged a meeting with the kindergarten age facility. About that time we received a call that a truckload (17 metric tons) of lumber was heading to the construction site and needed to be unloaded. So, I grabbed Nick & Nick and had to plug in Chip to go with Simba for Julia’s class. We had also planned for Chip and Nick B to go to Anya’s class at 4:00 but now that had to be changed and Doug and Caleb were rerouted from their return from Zelena to Anya’s class. With
the unloading of the lumber taking place the tabletop discussion groups needed to be rearranged. If your head is spinning just reading this imagine trying to communicate it via translators!
And ALL went well!! Except Doug and Caleb did not make it to Anya’s school because they were to leave Zelena by 3:00. But at that time Oksana said they were deep in conversation about Christ’s death and resurrection and the necessity of immersion. They concluded at 4:00. Oksana told me, “You could not have sent a better person than Doug for this situation—he was perfect in his answers!” You will read Doug’s good report but here is a teaser,
“One of the teachers pointed out some seating that they had received from one of the shipping containers sent by the church. I think one of the most significant moments was when one 9th grader asked a question about the church; he asked, ‘how do you worship?’ True New Testament Christianity is almost completely unknown here; except for the benevolence they have received.”
The evening sessions went well and there were three discussion groups led by Caleb, Chip and Doug. Gif presented the evening lecture. After the evening sessions the team went to share an evening meal together.
What a full and wonderful day! See a few photos below.
Pray for our on-going efforts!
John L. Kachelman, Jr.
(Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine)
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