Destroying the Wall

It’s happened. It’s finally happened. We have started remodeling our new ministry space. We still only own half, but we can’t wait any longer. Two and a half weeks ago, our Thursday evening service (Pilgrims) started in the old space, but soon moved to the new space (they are only two blocks apart). We celebrated with worship, a short message from David and most importantly an inaugural pounding of the first wall coming down. I hope you enjoy the video that our intern Katie has put together.

Illya Onopreyenko

Every year we ask students to join the leadership team at Youth to Jesus.  This team of students is responsible for the planning and carrying out of most things related to the student center.  And most of these students join the team with a true commitment and understanding of what it means to be on this team and to serve the student center as best they know how with their giftings.

Our interns, Nick and Katie, where asked to prepare a short video of one of our students to be shown at General Conference.  I hope most of you United Methodists know General Conference is going on in Florida right now and will be until May 4th (www.gc2012.umc.org).   And for those of you non-United Methodist, this is the four year gathering of the global UMC to meet, talk, celebrate and legislate for the future on the denomination.

The student they chose to highlight in this video to be shown at general conference is one of the young men on our leadership team, who helps coordinate our Thursday night worship service , Pilgrims, and he also plays in the worship band.  I hope through this short video you are able to see his gentle spirit, his humble attitude and his love of the Lord.

He has Risen!

This year our Easter Celebrations once again fell a week later than those in the west. Easter Celebrations in western Ukraine begin on Clean Thursday and finish the Monday after Easter. On Thursday everyone cleans, on Friday everyone cooks, on Saturday everyone takes their Easter basket of fasted foods to church to be blessed, and on Sunday everyone has a big family breakfast before going to church and then having a big lunch. On Monday you rest. We did too, by going out to one of the homes of a church member for a cook out. The weather wasn’t the best (rainy), but we had fun anyway.

Jesse decorating with a Sharpee

We found an Easter Egg tree (construction paper, decorated eggs) on our way to the market on Saturday

Jesse found the cross that had risen from the tomb.

After the service in Easter Sunday

Nastia, Katie, Jesse and Erika out on the swing

Ruslan and Oleg grilling the chicken

Valero playing us a tune

Jesse and Olenka hanging out

Sasha, Artem and Stas playing cards and telling jokes

Vitya playing ladder golf

Ihor, Dmitro, Nick, Katie, Michael and Volodia gathered around the food, visiting

After we returned home - what a day

Feeding Ministry

Our two interns, Nick and Katie, continue to do a good job working within our ministry as well as finding opportunities outside of our ministry to serve.  Currently, Nick has started organizing our students to help with a feeding ministry that is run by some other missionaries in town.  Every other Saturday they meet at the student center, gather the food that has been collected and donated by our students and take it to the rendezvous point.  There, bags are created of mostly non-perishable items and then in groups everyone disperses to their ‘normal’ drop off points and meet with waiting individuals who have significant need.  Below is a video one of our students made of the feeding ministry.  It’s a little long, and mostly in Ukrainian, but just watching gives you a good idea of the ministry.

 

Feeding Ministry from VOVIK Ivanov on Vimeo.

Transitioning to Two

We’ve been back in L’viv a little over month.  Things are going great, and I think I might even venture to say that spring is in sight.  There is so much we’ve missed about Ukraine…the ministry, our friends, the students, the city.  And when you’ve been away from a place for an extended amount of time you even remember it being better than it actually is.  It didn’t take long for us to be back in our reality again…no water in the apartment, not knowing school schedules (Euro Cup is messing with EVERYTHING), Ukraine is currently not sure if they are going to participate in daylight savings time, and my favorite is that the office where Nick and Katie (our interns) registered said it was not the office where they registered when they went back and tried to retrieve a receipt.  Needless to say, they did get away with it because we never were given receipts.

But even with all the ups and downs and transitioning back to life in Ukraine there is also a transition to two babies.  Especially two babies in the winter.  Just when one goes to sleep, one wakes up.  Just when one finishes eating, the other is hungry.  Laundry is a never ending battle with our small machine and no dryer.  And putting on layer after layer whenever we all have to go out is crazy.  Currently Jeremiah is asleep and Jesse is crying in the next room with his sitter.  My parents went home this last Monday, and after being with them for four months, Jesse is not sure why someone else is helping to look after him.

But as I said, we are in transition.  I think maybe the life of a missionary is always in transition, but the trade-offs are worth it, or I wouldn’t be here.  One of those trade offs is being able to sit down and play with my babies when I need to.  Another is being able to schedule playdates with other children during the day because most of our work is in the evening.  I love being around Jesse and Jeremiah and seeing them grow and learn and become real little people.  I guess as soon as I’ve transitioned to having two kids in, we’ll have a third, or as soon as I’ve transitioned to having kids at all, they’ll be headed to college.

But as for now, they are perfect and wonderful just as they are.  Hope you enjoy some recent pictures

Jesse pushed the box to the counter, took the apple out of the bowl, and ate the entire thing all by himself.

We're working on brushing our teeth when we get out of the shower in the morning.

My left-hander hard at work.

Jeremiah learning to be a hunter.

And Jeremiah smiling. This is about all he does right now.

Pastor

Eugene Peterson has for a while been a spiritual guide for me.  Reading first his book of meditations on the Psalms of Ascent, I found someone whose writings uniquely spoke to me.  Peterson was not only highly studied, immensely rich, and full of depth, he also managed to write in a way that was undeniably pertinent and freshly creative.  When I recently learned that Peterson put together a book of memoirs on becoming and envisioning what it means to be a pastor, I knew that for me this was a must read.

I thought I would share my favorite bit of the book up until this point.  In the passage below Peterson is contrasting his experience of being a professor in a classroom to being a pastor in a congregation.  While Peterson’s thoughts here certainly resonate with me, why I have come to love being a pastor, I imagine its descriptions will trace the greater experience of any of us who have gotten our hands grimy in the dirt of living life as God’s people, furthering God’s kingdom.

“….the classroom was too tidy.  I missed the texture of the weather, the smell of cooking, the jostle of shoulders and elbows on a crowded sidewalk.  In the congregation, by contrast, everything was going on at once, random, unscheduled, accompanied too much of the time by undisciplined and trivializing small talk.  Babies born squalling, people dying neglected, and in between the parenthesis of birth and death, lifetimes of ambiguity: adolescents making an unholy mess of growing up and their parents muddling through as guilty bystanders.  Also, of course, heroic holiness, stunningly beautiful prayers, sacrificial love surfacing from the tangled emotions in a difficult family, a song in the night, glimpses of glory, the sullen betrayal of a bored spouse quietly redeemed from years of self-imprisoned, self-worship by forgiveness and grace: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

 

 

Flowing

We have water!  Finally, late Saturday evening a very determined young plumber was able to bypass a set of frozen pipes and get our water partially flowing.  Most importantly partially flowing with hot water in the shower.  The best moment of the whole fix was when I watched this very innovative fellow do triage on the system by pulling off the cap on the faucet in the bathroom sink, placing his mouth over that faucet, and then sucking as hard as he could, trying to determine exactly where the pipe was frozen.  It actually was rather effective, although I am not sure I would want to have all that nasty brown old pipe water rushing into my mouth.  Blah.

Sunday was our first church service back and it was wonderful.  Not only were there some new folks at the service, these were folks from the homeless community in L’viv and it was very evident that our church family at St. John’s was embracing them and welcoming them to join us in community and communion at the open table of Christ Jesus.  Additionally, everyone was so happy to meet Jeremiah and see the return of the bigger, now slightly verbal, and more assertive Jesse.  The best moment of the service was when Jesse, while standing in the isle and attracting far too much attention during the scripture reading, proceeded to pick his nose, look at the fruits of his labor, and them offer them to a young lady in the congregation!

It is so great to be back.