Dan's Reports: #8

Tuesday 3 of January

We went in the morning to try to meet with the women at the Board of Education; unfortunately she was not in so we will try again tomorrow. We had our evening meeting, not many out, still some away for the holidays but still had a good meeting. Afterwards had cake and ice cream to acknowledge the New Year together!

Wednesday tried again to meet with the women at the Board of Education and waited for about a half hour, when she came out of the office she told us she was too busy so we made an appointment for the 23rd of Jan., hope this meeting will go well!

Then we headed to the printing place to have some tracts and texts made, hope to have them by next week.

Friday visited Oleg at his shop and as always had a good conversation, his English is getting better and better with each visit and he is not shy in trying to speak English, wish I could say the same about my Ukrainian! Oleg then invited me to his house for a Christmas dinner with his family (orthodox Christmas in on the 7th of Jan.). The food was good and the company was great, each of them prepared a dish of their choice. Oleg and his wife, his two sons and is new daughter in-law were all at the table as Oleg opened the Bible and talked about God fulfilling his promise in sending his Son, Jesus Christ.

Saturday Oleg called me and asked if I wanted to do a Ukrainian tradition, not knowing what it was I said, sure. As I picked him and his wife up on the way to meet others, he then told me what it was We were going to go house to house singing carols and they gave me a tambourine, not knowing what to do with it I just raddled it as they sang. After a few hours we had a break and I thought it was over but in the evening they got ready to do it again. I thought at this point I should end my singing career and turn in my tambourine, so I took them to their next location and thanked them for the experience and for the fun, as I headed home.

Sunday had our evening meeting, about 15 out and they listened well. Had to do some homework as I asked in the last meeting why the difference in the Christmas dates? Few could answer so I volunteered to do my homework on this subject.  It’s all based on two calendars, the Julian and the Gregorian. Then I looked into the Scriptures and spoke about the two calendars of generations we see first in the beginning of the Old Testament with the generation of creation and its vastness and marvel, then in the beginning of the New Testament where we read of a greater generation. We marvel and wonder, when we see that God fulfilled his promises of a plan of salvation in sending his only beloved Son, born in  Bethlehem and gave his life in a place called Calvary.

The full Christmas story must be told for in it we see how great a love God has for us his creation! After the meeting we had cake and ice cream for those who were not at the last meeting.

Pray for this meeting on the 23 of Jan. that God will be honoured and for our weekly meetings, that the Word of God would be taught by the Spirit of God to exalt the Son of God!

In Christ our Lord

Dan