Well our "tour" of Ukraine for this Spring is almost over, we head home tomorrow. This week is not the best of weeks for visiting institutions as it is Paska or Ukrainian Orthodox Easter. It started on Friday and some people are still not back to work. Most people are visiting relatives in the villages AFTER they have stood in large crowds at the churches, holding little baskets of produce, waiting for the priest to bless their garden and home for the next year. For these people, to not attend the Mass at Easter is a mortal sin and must be confessed if they ever hope to go to Heaven. People who have no interest in church or anything religious, except at Easter and probably Christmas. It is so sad to see the multitudes of mislead people.

On Monday we made our way to the village of Nesnevachy where we first met for meetings in Stefka's home with the Seed Sower group. We went to renew friendships and of course, have a large Ukrainian meal. Every home will serve huge meals to whoever comes to visit during Paska.
We hoped to meet with Volodima and his parents in the village but they had gone to visit in another village. Volodima is saved and I baptized him here in the dirty swimming pool years ago. Sad to say, his mother married an unsaved man and they seem to keep him away from meetings on a regular basis.

On Tuesday once again everything was closed up except the big Metro store and so we went to get supplies for our visit on Wednesday to Bookva, a home for mentally challenged girls. In the afternoon we went out for supper with one of our first drivers we had, Slavic. He and his wife put on about a 6 or 7 course meal, we thought it would never stop??? They showed us a video of their daughters wedding 4 years ago. After the sixth DVD we were getting a little tired but it was very informative and interesting. The daughter now has two lovely twins, a boy and girl.

We headed for Bookva early on Wednesday, loaded with large Pampers for the incontinent patients plus other necessities that there are never enough funds for. The system is so corrupt and unfair, as to be hard to be believed. Inspectors come to visit the homes, not only this one but every orphanage, and they look for something to fine the Director for. The director was fined recently because of the way the dishes were being washed, even though we had bought them all the new stainless sinks they needed and were told to get. That may not be sound too unreasonable except for the fact that they do not give him ANY money to make the required changes, he is entirely dependent on outside help. So goes the Ukrainian government.

Each girl was given either a shoe box full of goodies suited to their intelligence. The more severely retarded ones were given a toy. It was so good to see the joy on the faces of these unfortunate ones. They are well looked after and everything is spotless since funds became available for major renovations. Most of the funds, I might say, were not from the government but from private sponsors such as many of Christians in Canada and the U.S.A.

We head home in time to get ready for meeting at 7:30pm. We had decided that the meeting format should be changed on a Wednesday to a Bible study. There were both saved and unsaved coming to the meeting but we felt a conversational Bible study might be profitable as the christian helped in the reading and expressed their thoughts. We had a good crowd come although we were sorry that Misha was sick and a number of regulars not there. We decided that we would look at John 3 and it proved to be a very good meeting with some good questions asked and answers given. Flo intends to continue with type of meeting and we hope that Misha will get the idea of the meeting.

Well that is all for now, I'll finish the last day when I get home. God bless all who have prayed for us.

Malcolm.

P.S. Both men arrived in Toronto, with Malcolm arriving in Winnipeg at 12.20 a.m. after getting the luggage and driving to Portage la Prairie it was 1.45, not the best of times to arrive home, but we are thankful for good flights and good connections.