A day of worship and fellowship and a day of work

Hello all, I pray everyone is well. After some much needed rest the night before last, we went to worship and teaching at CC Nizhyn. Worship was sweet, while the songs were sung in Ukrainian, I recognized several of them. Margo and the other young lady, I apologize for not remembering her name did and awesome job of leading worship. And Zhenya, one of the Pastors from CC Ternopil was a guest speaker. Zhenya taught on Isaiah 40:28-31, conveying the message that even when we don’t understand why bad things happen in our lives, we can trust that God is in control and everything is going according to His plan. Zhenya, Sasha (Alex) another pastor at CC Ternopil, Vadim (pastor of CC Nizhyn) and many other pastors throughout Ukraine are trying to teach the people here that Jesus says we are to “love our neighbors “ when some of their neighbors are actively trying to kill their people on a daily basis. They are trying to help the Ukrainian people understand that a vast majority of the Russian people don’t want to harm them, they don’t want this war, they don’t agree with what their government is doing to them. But it is difficult many Ukrainians to see past their hatred and bitterness and see the truth. So please pray for the pastors for wisdom and discernment on how to navigate these things and pray for the people to understand truth and let go of bitterness. We also had the privilege of being part of a baby dedication.

After worship, we were blessed by lunch prepared by some of the ladies from the fellowship, two of which are students at a “cooking school” as they call it. One of them makes some really beautiful cakes. They are feeding us entirely too much but they work very hard to bless us so I don’t want to insult them but I’m not going to fit on the plane if I keep eating this way.

After lunch we spent time getting to know the people who attend CC Nizhyn, talking and playing games, including a highly competitive and slightly violent game of Uno (they have different rules in Ukraine, very fun and loud).

Later, we had dinner at the hotel and talked more then bed around 10:30 ish. We were awoken sometime around midnight, I’m not really sure, by air raid sirens. I woke up, slightly, and said to Simeon, my roommate, “Is that air raid sirens” to which he replied “Yes”. And we both proceeded to fall back to sleep without hesitation, lol. When you are in God’s will, doing Gods work, there is no safer place to be. No worry or fear, just a peace and calmness that can only come from God. We don’t know why the sir raid sirens went off, as far as we can tell, we were never in any danger.

Monday morning, we got up and met in front of the hotel at 7 for the 15-20 minute walk to CC Nizhyn. It was a beautiful crisp morning with lots of people out and about. We started working around 7:30 am and with exception of breaks for breakfast at 9 and lunch, we worked until 8:30 pm. It was definitely a hard work day. The eight of us, along several locals, managed to get the old roof stripped off and almost half of the new roof put on. We finished installing all of the outlets and roughing in the wires for the lights. We also got walls marked and partially framed for the bathroom, closet and entryway. Again, a long day and we are all really tired, I’m pretty sure that I am the only one still awake at just before 11 pm. The day was also truly a blessing to everyone involved. We are building relationships that will last through this lifetime and continue in heaven.

For now I must sleep. Tomorrow morning will come all too quickly.