Summer Trip #6

Featured Photo: David Skoleba (youngest son of Ruslan and Maria) is enjoying watermelon at a fellowship meal that was enjoyed by all following Sunday’s assembly.

The Lord’s Day

The Lord’s Day was another time to gather together and worship the Lord God Almighty! The worship period went well and Timothy read another section of Scripture. He does very well and appreciates the encouragement from others. Of course, Ruslan and Maria are very pleased and proud at Tmothy’s willingness and ability.

Following the worship period the Church celebrated three birthdays of July. Having the kitchen finished with the cabinets and sink installed is wonderful. There were enough various kinds of food prepared but the power outage meant that the prepared dishes were sitting out in 90+F temps! Following the meal the “clean up committee” made sure all was wiped down, trash removed, and the floor wiped clean!

Photos of the worship and fellowship meal are below.

The Historic Heat Wave

The rolling power outage has happened when the hottest temperatures have hit the area. Not only is Ivano-Frankivsk suffering with the horrible heat, but I was told Sunday that Vinnytsia had aa temp of 52C and Odesa was 48C. Do not let the “C” make you think in “F” numbers. Go to the internet and search for 52C inn Fahrenheit equivalent and you can understand the historic heat dome that has settled over this area. Especially at night is this heat miserable. At those times no breeze is blowing and the collected heat absorbed by the brick buildings and pavements radiate heat even more. It is like sleeping in an oven. There are air conditioners but remember that during the rolling power outages no electric item can run—so you are baking in the building with no air movement. You go to bed wet and sweaty and you wake up even wetter and hotter!

Travel to Poland

Sunday afternoon I headed toward Warsaw to meet Gif and hand off several items to him. Valery picked us up and we took off. We hit the border at staff change and so were delayed but finally got through. We were moving right along until at 1:34 a.m. we had a super blowout just as we were sandwiched in a line between two huge transport trucks. The vehicle we were in has several special safety features and one is its ability to stay controlled when the tires get blow off. Of course, the driver has a lot to do with this and Valery has proven more than capable in several hair-raising situations. He was able to accelerate and pull off the autobahn. Then we began changing the tire. We had barely gotten off the outside stripped boundary marker and the trucks kept coming. Thankfully the pit crew (of one old man and one young man and one woman who watched) got the tire changed, loaded all back into the trunk and headed out. Driving on the “donut spare” is limited. We ended up overnighting in Lublin. Thankfully there is a good contact there and he was able to get all arranged and we were back on the road, finally reaching Warsaw! Now here is the amazing part…we were able to replace the tire of the special model Lexus with the same tire, mount and balance for $75.00!

Below are a couple of photos of Valery beginning to place the car jack so we could take off the blown-out tire and put the donut on!

Gif’s arrival

Gif was scheduled to arrive at 4:00 p.m. Then he was delayed and said they were now saying arrival at WAW at 4:40 p.m. I just got a message saying, “We were delayed because of a problem with the plane so they had to get another one. Now we are on the plane but the captain says we’re grounded due to bad weather. He says I should be there at 6:00 p.m.” And so goes the logistical process of commercial aviation!