March 26 & 27th

Thursday March 26

One thing I have to clarify from previous notes. Yesterday I said that Malcolm had rated Flo’s Diner at a 5.5! That wasn’t out of 10…it was a 5.5 star rating. He was more than satisfied with all the food, especially all the goodies Flo baked for him even as he balked at the amount of butter she bought (Shortbreads require butter Malcolm! A cook knows what she needs in her kitchen Malcolm!....Flora’s replies to Malcolm’s protests)
Also, you might have noticed (or you might not) that I changed the word Gypsies for Ramoni on the Facebook postings. It was unknown to me that the former terminology is not right and considered rude. My apologies to anyone who might have been offended by this.
Today we decided to stay in Lviv and visit some of the people we know here.
We picked up some groceries for the ones who would have difficulty getting their own and off we went.
We found a gem of a lady in her apartment on the third floor of a very old building in the center of Lviv. She lives here with her grandson as she is unable to live on her own anymore. She suffered a minor stroke last year and now has difficulty walking and is completely unable to get out. We made arrangements with Anatoly from Lutsk to bring up a walker for her when he and Jeannette come for a visit next week. She also is in need of reading glasses as she cannot read at all without them. We found a pair for her in the glasses we received last year. Ivanka was a regular at all the meetings we had in the past and she is also in fellowship with the assembly in Lutsk. She was very happy to see us as we were happy to see her also. There are three girls who board there also, so that provides her with some income. She was telling us that they cannot afford to buy meat anymore because of the price. We had purchased a chicken for her(along with other groceries) and she said they don’t even buy that. We stayed for awhile as Flo chatted with her. Finally it was time to go see Maria and Oxana so we prayed with her, said our goodbyes and promised to return soon. She said she would love to go spend a few days at her sister Stephka in the village. We are trying to figure out a way to bring her there. The stairs present a great challenge for her.
Off we went to visit Maria and Oxana. Some of you might remember Maria…the sixteen year old girl with cerebral palsy. Maria is in a wheelchair and they live on the second floor and have to handle a spiral staircase to get downstairs. She rarely gets to go outside as her mother has to carry her down because there is no elevator. Here again money is scarce because medication takes up the bulk of whatever comes in. We usually bring quite a bit of groceries here because it is very difficult for Oxana to get out to go buy anything. She can’t leave Maria and when she does have someone to look after her, she has to walk quite a distance to get anything. We stayed with them for a bit, talking about the bible and salvation and heaven. Maria gets quite excited when we talk about Jesus and heaven. Her body is in very bad condition but she has much of her understanding. I tried a bit of my Ukrainian with her and had her laughing quite a bit…..She is a sweet girl and we just wish we could do something to alleviate the pain she is enduring. Her condition is deteriorating. Flo had a good talk with Oxana and was commenting on the strong faith that Oxana has in God. We pray that she has put her trust in the finished work of Christ at the cross. We prayed with them and went home. It seemed like a short day but we had started a bit later than we expected. The third family we wanted to visit were not home when we called there.

Friday March 27, 2009

We headed out after our daily devotional reading to visit Lecia who we couldn’t see yesterday. Lecia is in a wheelchair due of MS. When her family leaves for work/school they lock the door as they leave and Lecia stays inside alone, unable to go out even if fire broke out in her apartment! Flo, Louis and Malcolm went to visit her as Ruslan and I had to return to the center to my apartment to get something I had forgotten. We also had to pick up some piece needed to fix Flo’s toilet. Getting to the center of Lviv is not a problem, but getting thru the traffic to where you want to go once you are there is something else altogether. Repairs to some portions of the road complicated things a bit as well as a Lexus with a major front end problem which was blocking the road completely. So over an hour later we returned to Lecia’s apartment in time to pick Flo, Louis and Malcolm who were waiting.
We were running on a tight schedule again today because we had to be in Ivano Frankivsk for four o’clock for a gospel meeting. Today, Malcolm and Louis were going to move to Ivano and it was their first meeting there.
After lunch and filling the van with the boxes of clothes and suitcases, we were off and only half an hour behind schedule. Well, if I thought the road to Lutsk was bad on Sunday, the road of Ivano proved to be just as bad if not worse. However we had a beautiful sunny day to travel.
We arrived in Ivano with just a few minutes to spare and there was a room full of people waiting for Malcolm and Louis. There must have been at least thirty five or forty people in that room. Louis spoke in the gospel as did Misha from Lviv who had come along with us. Afterwards Malcolm gave a little word and put out a challenge to everyone to learn the books of the New Testament. He had something to give to whoever learned them. We hope many take up this challenge and learn the books of the Bible. It was very encouraging to see all these people out and we pray that it will continue and that there might be a real interest to continue on even while there are no visitors present.
After chatting around a bit afterwards and bringing Malcolm and Louis to their accommodations for the two weeks they will be there Flo, Misha and myself got in the van and Ruslan drove us all back to Lviv.
The end to another week. Tomorrow we will sort out some more clothing and get ready to head out to the Carpathians. We have some schools lined up for next week as the spring break will be done.
That's all for now.......Helene - for Flo, Malcolm and Louis