...I thought I'd let you know where we're talking. For whatever reason we've gotten out of a rhythm (if we ever had one) of posting here on our main website, but Denyce has been doing much better on her (relatively new) personal blog. To catch up a little with our life from the last few weeks, here is your source:
As a conclusion to this series of posts from our time in Mariupol, I thought I'd pass on some comments Tim Burow made in his recent newsletter. Tim is a former missionary who worked for 6.5 years with the congregation there in Mariupol that we visited. God blessed the timing of our visit to coincide with a return visit he is currently making there in Mariupol to visit the congregation he and his family poured so much of their life into. We've only just gotten to know Tim recently, but have quickly come to love and appreciate him and the work he has done. Anyway, in his recent newsletter he gave his perspective on our team and our visit to Mariupol, and also shared about a neat event that I haven't mentioned on here.
Upon entering Mariupol, we got settled into our apartment and prepared for the arrival of the church planting team from Kharkov, Ukraine. This is the team that Brandon and Katie Price are joining in the spring of 2010. Here is a picture of them from the New Year’s timeframe. I regret that I don’t have a more recent one and had to appropriate this one from brandonandkatie.com, a site that I highly recommend. These four families are some of the best that the body of Christ has to offer. We enjoyed getting to know them better and especially getting to play with the kids. During their stay among us, they were able to meet many of the Christians and learn what the church is doing in this place. Please pray for them as they continue to adjust to life in Ukraine and as they begin reaching out to their new city.
After the worship service the sisters of the congregation had a special presentation for the Kharkov team. They had made a hand-worked bouquet of flowers and had put it into a frame as a keepsake for the new church they will plant. David Nelson went to the front and received it on behalf of the team. I thought that it was very sweet of the ladies in Mariupol to do that. They have a great deal of appreciation for the team and what it has come to do in their country.
And here is the fourth and last of the video clips from our Mariupol trip. This is outside a pizza place where we enjoyed eating a couple of times while there. As you might expect, at 18 months old and as active as can be, Silas wasn't interested in sitting around the table chatting after he ate, so we took him outside to let him do his thing. His thing, currently, is climbing stairs (really, climbing anything, and I mean anything). So here he is having a blast outside the pizza place. Keep an eye out for particularly potent moments of toddler expressiveness around the 0:45 and 1:30 marks.
A time of fellowship one evening in the apartment that the Prices and McDougles stayed in while we were in Mariupol. Present were some Ukrainian friends, both Christians and non-Christians. It was a good time of visiting, especially of doing so in the Russian language.
A youth class at the Left Bank church's building. The young man who is teaching is from the Left Bank congregation and has recently begun studies at Ukrainian Bible Institute in Donetsk.
