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July 9, 2007

Monday was my busiest day in Rivne. Unfortunately, this was the only day I decided to leave my video camera behind. We walked a few blocks from Sasha's flat to the Hope to People center. I toured the facility with Sasha and then had lunch with his brother Misha, who is a pastor of another church, and Olyona our interpreter. Three churches working together in various outreaches run Hope to People. The center is a huge Soviet era three-story building with three wings. Most of it is gutted and they are slowly working on renovating all of it. They have added a new wing that is going to serve as a larger sanctuary. About 20 ministries, including three church sanctuaries and a Bible Seminary are housed there.

We then drove out to see John Whittemore at the house of Sasha (my roommate at the camp and a church administrator). He runs an orphanage out of their house. He has a beautiful garden surrounding all sides of the house and the boys who live at the orphanage have done most of the work on the house. They did a beautiful job on the house with lots of nice tile and plaster work. He brought me into to a cellar where they had hundreds of cans of pickles. I asked him if they would ever eat them all and he said that in just one church summer youth camp they ate this many.

Then we went to see another building project in a village on the outskirts of Rivne. They had bought an old Soviet-era insane asylum campus and are planning on turning it into a youth camp. There were lots of cherry trees on the land and there was a large fellowship hall that is being restored. Misha was saying that American missionaries come over in the summer and work on the buildings.

Then we went to see one of the sister churches of Hope to People. They had a three-story building project going in one of the districts of the region. This was a church with a lot of young people. This pastor -- also named Sasha -- impressed me the most. He was the one who was most outspoken about being an ardent Calvinist. We went to his home group at his flat. This was the typical Ukrainian home church with people crammed into a small living room with a table in the middle for snacks and tea afterward. I gave my testimony again and answered questions for about an hour. Some of the members of this church have been together since the early 1990s. This went until about 10 pm.

July 10, 2007

I woke up with my nose stuffed up. I felt really exhausted. I decided to spend the morning sleeping and reading. I had not really had a day of rest on the whole trip. In the afternoon, we got a ride to Misha's house and had lunch -- mostly vegetables grown in their garden. We talked about Hope to People and what I could do for them. Basically, they are looking for relationships with Americans who will devote their time to helping with their outreaches. Hopefully these blog entries will serve to explain to missions minded Christians the great opportunity that is there. You can contact me for more details.

I heard about at least 20 ministries related to Hope to People including three churches, an orphanage, various summer youth camps, a Christian ethics department and the ministry to Christian teachers in the public schools which includes a new magazine. They asked me to write one article base on my experiences as an American at the youth camp. That article I published on my blog last August, "Teaching Christian Ethics in the Public Schools of Ukraine."

We then went back to the Hope to People center and I spent some time in Alyona's office checking 10 days of email until we both got a ride home from John Whittemore. I read and wrote some more in my journal and went to sleep early. I spent some more time in the Word today and I felt better.

July 11, 2007

My cold is still raging. I went into the office early we had a prayer meeting and a staff meeting. I talked to the Hope to People sports director -- also named Sasha. That's four Sashas to remember now! He told me about the soccer camps and the need for American Christian kids to come over and spend time with the Ukrainian young people. They had made a

I went with Alyona into the center to get some medicine and we ate some nice cakes. In the afternoon, I was able to talk to Nadia, the mother of Roman, for over an hour about the magazine for teachers. I was able to encourage her a lot by just explaining about my own problems publishing in Ukraine and how we overcame them.

Her story is a lot like Predvestnik in a way -- hard work and frustration in the beginning, but the job will get easier.

You'll see at the end of the video, the Hope to People Center and their bookstore. As someone who was involved in publishing in the Soviet Union in 1991, it's amazing for me to see the number of books there are now available. I am excited to see classics such as the works of Charles Haddon Spurgeon in addition to the usual contemporary titles.