Christos voskres! Voistinu voskres!

This past Sunday, Ukraine celebrated Easter. “Christos voskres!” & “Voistinu voskres!” Is the normal greeting given that day, it means, Christ is risen! And the reply is, Truly risen! It is an interesting time here on Easter. Laurie and I were invited to go to a small congregation that is about a two hour drive from Donetsk. We got in a van at UBI along with our mentors, another American couple, a translator and the driver. Half way to the village we stopped and picked up another woman and a few minutes later stopped to pick up 4 more men. It was a little cramped but the roads we took must have been very new because the number of potholes was very low compared to the norm. All morning starting with our walk to UBI and then even as we drove in the van we kept passing people carrying baskets filled with bread. We were told that it is a tradition within the Orthodox Church that people would bring loaves of bread to the Priest to be blessed on Easter. It became obvious to us that many people enjoy this tradition since many were practicing it.

Once we arrived at the village we were warmly greeted but then the service started soon afterwards because we were late in arriving and everyone was waiting for us. Once the service started the pastor of the congregation gave a little talk and shared how Jay Don was going to preach, and then Darryl would share a message and then after him Bruno, our guest from Canada would share. Oh, I thought, this is new news for me, but ok. So I got a little nervous because I did not plan to share a message and Jay Don and Darryl are very seasoned preachers. However a memory verse kept surfacing in my mind so I decided to share about what we are doing in Donetsk and to talk about that Bible verse. It ended up being good practice for spontaneous sharing.

Last Thursday also gave me an opportunity to practice some spontaneous sharing. Laurie and I were invited to go to an Orphanage. It was also about a two hour drive away. We went with some of the students and one of the teachers from UBI. Half way there Dema asked me, “So Bruno, will you share a story with the children...you know, one with a purpose?” “Uhhh, ya sure I can do that...let me think about it” So Laurie and I spent the remainder of the trip brain storming a good story to share. Again, good practice but definably not my preferred method to share about Jesus. (I, Laurie, have to make a comment here about how proud I have been of my moosh [husband] this week. He did such an amazing job in both of these spontaneous speeches. He even did a really good job at adding details to his story for the children to make it interesting and entertaining as well as having a good message about God's plan for making them each individual and special for a purpose. I'm so proud of him.)

The time at the Orphanage was fun. We sang some songs, played some games, and gave them gifts. But the funniest event there was when a girl brought out her pet rat. Oh my, you should have seen Laurie jump in shock when she saw the rat. Dema thought the rat was so very cute and he enjoyed holding her. He tried to get Laurie to cuddle her as well, but Laurie kicked him away, hehehe. (I, Laurie, did not care one bit about being polite at that point. He was not coming one step closer to me with that thing. I was fully prepared to kick him harder if he kept trying. It's tail was as long as it's body ... yucky!)



Oh and we have found a game that is very well received by Ukrainians. Last Saturday was our friend, Lena's birthday. So we had some students and friends over for a celebration. We ate borscht and cake and played some games. We played spoons and they loved it. They laughed for quite a while over it. Here is Lena cutting the cake and Vova being...Vova.



We were very thankful to have the opportunity to share our home with them as it isn't often that they can come together in one home and just have fun like that. But with entertaining and traveling and speaking we are feeling a little worn out and looking forward to a quieter upcoming week.