Saturday turned out to be cloudy and cold and wet, still not spring. We were going to visit in town once again. First we went to see Maria. She is an abandoned wife and mother of five children. The oldest is in university and still lives at home with his mother and a younger brother and two younger sisters. These 5 sleep in one room off the kitchen on two flip flop sofa’s that were ripped apart when the husband left. The sponge is all exposed. The eldest son has just gone into the army but also sleeps in the same room when he is home. They have to go outside to use a toilet shared with other tenants. There is no bathroom. It’s hard to believe in this day that people have to live in such circumstances. We would like to buy at least one new sofa bed if the funds permit.
Next we went into a village a few miles out of the city to see another sad case and give a little encouragement. Natalia is a teacher of Ukrainian language and culture and lives with her two young sons in a hovel of an apartment. Her husband left her while she was having the youngest boy in hospital. She came home to see he had left, taking the furniture and anything of value. He then denied that the new baby was his and refused to support her charging her with infidelity. Now one of his relatives is trying to get her evicted from her apartment as she wants to sell it. The boys are lovely boys the one could speak good English and is also learning Polish, he is only 9 years old. His brother is 12.
Natalia is not saved but is very interested and we had a good conversation with her about the need of salvation and blessing of having God as our Father and Friend. We left her with some supplies and some funds as she has had to hire a lawyer to help with the apartment problem.
We were close to the place we first had meetings in the home of Stefka in the village of Nesnevachi. When we first came with Ross Vanstone and Seed Sowers, we had meetings each Sunday for several weeks. It’s sad to see the people getting so old and needing serious surgery both Stefka and her son Orst have had serious surgery but seemed to have benefitted so far. Flo also visited another friend across the road. We brought garden seeds to all these people, so greatly appreciated by them all. We thank Brother Jim Solomon for donating so many seeds for us to distribute.
Sunday March 20th
We had a good breakfast of Flo’s special crepes. (There goes the diet!) We got things ready for the Breaking of Bread meeting held at 12 noon. About 15 in fellowship and 3 unsaved watching on. It was so exciting to hear each brother pray so intelligently and thank God for giving His Son to die for them. All except one are from non Christian backgrounds. I gave a word at the end on Acts 2 and what was expected of each one who was formed the first new-testament church.
We all had a nice cold lunch and fellowshipped for a while before going out to visit one of the families and having supper and a nice time round the scriptures. Then home in a taxi and started to get ready to leave for Ivano Frankivsk tomorrow at 10am.
A great week in Lviv. I omitted to say that Dan got his lost bag on Tuesday ok.
Thanks for praying for the work
Malcolm & Dan
No comments:
Post a Comment