Report #13—October 16, 2019

Photo: This is the Zelena school ceremony to thank Doug, Caleb and Oksana for coming and teaching. In the above photo you see Doug getting up to address the school.

The team going to Zelena every day has done a wonderful job! The road conditions going and coming are bad enough to jar your “innards” so that you are out of place for two-weeks!

Our team has really been troopers in this effort. Today was the last day they would be at the school. The school held a special ceremony thanking them for coming. Doug and Caleb took a number of medical items for the school’s medical cabinet and also took two soccer balls for the school. The school honored them with a feast! After they finished at the school they were going to return to Ivano-Frankivsk and join us for the evening’s assemblies. They wanted to stop at Bogdan & Gaylena on the way back. When they stopped they found a roomful gathered and were asked, “Are we not going to have a spiritual discussion today?” Then there was a table spread with fried chicken, soups, salo, and a banquet of other things. And after that there was cake! Doug and Caleb have done an outstanding job and Oksana was the perfect translator to go with them. Here are a few more photos of their day.

The rest of the team all separated into their ways and spent the day in full activity, We continue to hear wonderful words of appreciation for the teaching and the examples of our team members!

Tonight’s assembly had 30+ in attendance. Gif taught a good lesson on leadership and then I was to present a brief summary of a letter from the Dalraida elders to the Ivano-Frankivsk congregation asking them for their 2020 budget and suggesting possible ways for the congregation to better report, be involved in evangelism, and maintain a paper-trail of the expenditures. These are all learning steps that have never been implemented before, but these are all critical steps to a congregation’s autonomy.

At the end of tonight’s class, we all congratulated Gif on his birthday! In Ukraine the birthday custom is to pull on the ears once for every year of age!