Malcolm's Report #8

Malcolm's Report #8

Friday November 13.

A little overcast but very mild with no wind. Very nice they say, for this time of the year.

We had to leave at 7:45 am to go to Strii and meet Ruslan from Lviv to finalize the purchase of the house for Marie and Michal and their 3 children. We wanted the assessment of a Ukrainian man before finally settling the purchase.

Howard stayed behind and cleaned up the apartment and did some laundry. Volodia an I arrived in time to have coffee then Ruslan and Sasha, a plumber who has done much work for us, met us and we went to the house. Ruslan felt it was a good buy for the money and the plumber thought there was not much problem with the renovation in the kitchen. Ruslan tried to see if the owner would negotiate the price but she was not prepared to and got a little upset that he would ask. I guess she has lowered the price about 9 or 10 thousand dollars since trying to sell it as not many can afford to buy with the economy the way it is. I left a deposit and left on good terms. We have till the end of the year to pay for the house.

We had lunch and came home, stopping at our large Epi Centre to pick up the last pieces to finish the hoist at the apartment.

Volodia then worked on it until after dark and had it welded and able to hoist up our “test box” of 30k.

It will need to be finished tomorrow but will really assist in mainly getting boxes down to the van when we are leaving for a home or hospital. We can also bring the boxes up when they are delivered. I think I mentioned that the only negative thing about this lovely apartment is the badly worn two flights of stairs in narrow halls. The hoist will really help.

And so to bed quite tired tonight.

Saturday woke us with rain which eventually cleared into a nice day. We were planning on meeting a new Christian young man Dema, this after-noon and so needed some house supplies and fruit from the open market before. I must confess that both Volodia and I did not wake until 8:45am, the longest I have slept in to date. This put us a little late getting going after a breakfast of eggs and bacon by our late Chef Malconii. (I burnt the bacon!). After reading we got off at about 10:45. We met Dema And saw his mother at the same time, who invited us back for coffee after 3pm. Her name is Natalia and some will remember 5 years ago when were able to help her have surgery to replace her nose that had to be removed because of cancer. It was a miracle surgery and no one would think that she had had such surgery if they met her. She has four boys and one daughter Tania, who is saved and is working in Toronto. The four boys came in one by one as we ate. It was good to see them all now.

Dema is saved and we had a great time around the table, reading the word and challenging his older brother as to why he is not saved yet. He is very near and is very eager to talk.

Home then and getting ready for Sunday. Two messages for both of us tomorrow, two in Lviv and two back here in Ivano.

Sunday.

We left Ivano for Lviv in light rain that has continued for most of the day on and off. About 7 C temp.

We took Yaroslav, luba and Dema with us and got to the meeting 1 and 1/2 hours early due to the now good road that is almost finished repaving. It is an absolute miracle that this happened but such an improvement to the infrastructure.

We had a nice meeting with about 12 in the fellowship and 4 looking on.

Howard then spoke and I spoke to the children. After a lunch we headed home in time for a nap before the 6 pm Gospel meeting. There were 20 people out, mostly regulars but some missing.

One of the most difficult things is to know how to deal with people who come to meeting only to ask for money. Some show no real interest in the message but are asking for money right after the meeting.

We usually know those in real need and seek to meet their needs as best we can, but we have some who we fear a just beggars.

Please pray for wisdom in dealing with these people.

All for now. We are planning many visits for the week ahead as our time is fast depleting.

Malcolm, Howard and Volodia.