Malcolm Report #2

Report #2 April 3 &4

We had to be at the hospital with Dan at 8:30am for tests to see what is wrong with his stomach. Things are not working right so Oleg and Ola made an appointment for a scan or something. As we had a visit planned to a women’s prison in a village an hour away, Volodia and I went without Dan, after picking a man who works with the prison administration.

When we got there, I remembered being there years ago. We were welcomed by the Director who gave us coffee while they got the ladies together. The prison used to be monastery and the old church is now an auditorium. It was very cold but warmed up as about 100 women filed in. They listened very well as I spoke for about 40 minutes, then about 20 got up and left and I thought I must have talked too long. I found out that they had to go back to work. The other women just sat there and said “Go on, we want to hear more” so I talked for another 20 minutes. It was very encouraging.

We went back to the Directors office and they had a sandwich lunch ready for us. We talked for about half an hour and then left feeling the trip was well worth it. We will  back next week.

We came home and found that Dan had had a colon scope and all they found was too much acid in his stomach. He was feeling just fine and needs to take some medicine and change his diet somewhat.

We had our meeting at 6:00 with a nice number out.

Wed. 4^th. We had to pick up Igor, our contact with the prisons and headed out to a “soon to be released” prison an hour in the country. On the main road, we hit a deep chuck hole very hard but kept going. Once we turned off the highway, the road was unbelievable. First big stone gravel, then mud with potholes, then an old concrete blocks road. I can’t remember as bad a road. When we got there, we looked at our wheel that hit the hole and the rim was peeled right back. We could not understand why the tire had not gone down until we realized that the wheel had been the spare and had a tube in it instead of being tubeless. To God be the praise because we were able to drive home on it still.

We met in a newly renovated auditorium that will be very nice when it is finished; about 50 or so men came with about 6 or so guards. They all listened very well and all were given N/T and John 3 16s,

We had lunch there and headed home again and went to look for 2 new tires and 2 used rims. It is quite a process here to buy tires. You buy them at one place and they take you to another place to get them installed. Anyway, we feel much safer driving now.

We were supposed to go to a school on our way back but had to cancel until next Monday or so.

We all went out to a marvellous new restaurant and met the owner while there. It was hard to believe that the fantastic food we ate only cost $40.00 for the 4 of us. It would have been a $35.00 each meal back home.

Please pray that Dan gets his problem settled. We also heard that our Brother Yaroslav has had a heart attack and has had surgery last night. He was at our meeting yesterday.

Please keep praying, we sensed them with the tire problem today that could have been serious.

Malcolm, Dan and Volodia.