To meet death. That is, the tire of our taxi! I think our taxi driver was proud of himself he chucked quite a bit. Yesterday was an interesting and tiring day. Our plan was to visit and speak at a small congregation about two hours west of Donetsk and then to join in their fall harvest celebration lunch. Last time we went we had a friend drive us in his van but this time he was unavailable so we rented a taxi instead. The village we were heading to is called New Gregory. Jay Don had been there many times before but wasn't sure how to get there exactly. Our driver had a map and found the town on it so we figured we would head out. We also had another option of following a van that was taking another congregation there as well but we were early and they were late so we decided to go on our own. That was a mistake.
About two hours later we find ourselves on a rough looking road in the middle of nowhere. We were suppose to be there then but in fact we had no idea where we were. Our translator called the Pastor at the New Gregory congregation and through him we learn that there are three villages/towns in our province named New Gregory!!! And of course we had set out towards the wrong one...in fact we drove almost 100 kms in the opposite direction of the town we were trying to get to.
Five and a half hours later we made it to our destination. Everything was finished, the celebration lunch was over and many people had already left. So we just visited with a few there and they were gracious to us and fed us. We had to rush though because another small congregation about an hour away was hoping to see us. We arrived there near the tail end of the service but in time for Jay Don to give a message. We visited and took time to see the Pastor's house. The Pastor and his wife recently bought a big home with the intention of having a congregation meet there.
We then headed out to Slavic's rehab center. Which is basically three homes being used communally for addicts trying to get dry, away from the city. Slavic is a graduate from UBI and had a vision to help addicts recover. When he inherited his grandma's home and bought the next door house he invited addicts to come live with him to recover. He sets them up with a program of work, study and devotionals to keep them busy during the withdrawal. I don't know how long his program is or the details of it but he has had a fairly high success rate from my understanding.
It was interesting to visit the center because it is in its primitive state right now. The buildings are old and they are in the process of remodeling them to better suit their needs. I think we saw it at its worst but I'm sure it will be a lot nicer when the work is done. We would have liked to stay longer but we still had another two hour drive back to Donetsk. In total we spend almost eight hours on the road and had some excitements. We saw many chickens cross the road and one that didn't make it. While we were lost we passed a big truck hauling a John Deer tracker and because we kept pulling over to read the map or trying alternate roads, we passed that same truck and tractor four times. And we saw many...many farm fields. It was quite the scenic tour, but we feel like we have seen quite a lot of the Ukrainian country side now.
The rest of our week wasn't as eventful. On Tuesday we went and delivered some toys we bought for a children's AIDS hospital. Our timing wasn't so great because we arrived during nap time but there was one group of toddlers who hadn't gone to bed yet. So we visited with them and gave them the toys. They were very cute and you could tell some of them were confused while others were happy to have new toys. This hospital currently has eighty two kids from six years old to newborns. Half of them have been confirmed to have AIDS while the others are tested continually because the disease sometimes takes up to 18 months to show up in the tests. If the child is found to be free of AIDS they are given back to the parent or placed in an orphanage. They said they have fourteen kids there who were true orphans with no relatives at all. Laurie and Mary Lee would have stayed there all day with the kids but it was their nap time so we had to leave.
We also continue to open our home to the teenagers and college age people we have met here. We had several of these friends over Wednesday night for dinner and games. And on Saturday we had a small English class and then hung out with some of our students afterwards. I have been making progress on my assignments but I also have been asked to speak in chapel and church this week so I'm being occupied with that and planning our last few weeks here as well.
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