Visit to the Gypsies

Good evening from rainy Lviv
The day got off to a good start this morning. I made my way to Flora's apartment on foot, since I needed to know how much time I would need on Monday morning to walk to my Ukrainian lessons. 40 minutes got me there. Another thirty minutes got me to Flo's apartment! Oh did I mention that it is uphill all the way?
We were off to Ruka Vitchka, our local wholesaler to purchase the necessary food for the families of gypsies we were wanting to go visit. Some clothing and shoes were packed and off we went.
This is the fourth time we meet with this particular group of gypsies. They are starting to know us a bit and I think are becoming confident that we will return. Flo spoke to them in the gospel for a little bit. Most of the men were out somewhere but there were several younger women there all with children. We distributed the food to each family and they asked us to distribute the clothes for them. I think there may have been problems with leaving the clothing there previously. So we gave out the clothing as best we could and outfitted some of the children with shoes which were badly needed. Some were in sandals and others in boots which no doubt belonged to someone with bigger feet. Every time we leave there, we always have a discussion about the way these people live. It is indeed something which is totally foreign to us. These children are getting no education so even if they wanted another life when they get older, they have no way to make a living....they cannot even read. It really is sad. In fact we cannot even leave bibles there as the great majority do not know how to read. The ones who do know how to read do have a New Testament. We know of one man who is a Christian among them.
I had an interesting experience tonight. Having plugged in too many items at the same time in my apartment, I tripped the breaker and was in darkness! So I went to see my neighbour. Suddenly the language gap grew very very big as I couldn't even ask the little boy who answered the door if his grandmother was in! The puzzled look on my face probably clued him in to the fact that I needed help so the grandmother came to the door. She was very kind. I had met her before since Ruslan introduced us when I moved in last fall. Tripped breakers require the neighbour to call a neighbour who gets in touch with the man with "the key" to open the door to access the breaker. Even in my limited Ukrainian I could understand he was telling me not to plug in more than 2 things at a time. They say French people use their hands a lot when talking....well that sure came in handy for me tonight.
Tomorrow we will meet at Flo's apartment for a gospel/ministry meeting.
God bless you all...... Helene