After all the traveling around, we decided to
do something fun just before we left. We enjoyed another visit
to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga. Lena loves aquariums
and they are growing on me. We departed Knoxville February 13
and arrived safely in Kyiv on Valentine’s Day. Thanks to my parents,
Mike Buckley, and Leland Dugger for seeing us off. It’s never
easy to say good bye. And special thanks to Lena for her diligence
in packing, repacking, unpacking, and packing again to get everything
in our bags, to the fullest capacity of the law.
To our delight, our apartment had been cleaned
and the refrigerator was stocked and a big banner was hung welcoming
us home. The very day we arrived Anya and Lena came over to update
us on all that we had missed. We were pretty tired but enjoyed
having them anyway. The next night, Oksana and Oleg came over.
They wanted to cook but I just told them we would order pizza.
Then, on Thursday, Igor and Nastya came over. And it seems we
have been running hard ever since.
Church Outreach
We
restarted the Soup Group on Tuesdays and the English outreach
begins again on Mondays but with a much smaller group. The church
has also organized a group of people who are interested in developing
more church outreach. We met Thursday night for four hours as
everyone discussed their ideas and are meeting again on Saturday
for plans to re-awaken the dormant Student Nights. Pray for blessings
on these efforts. We are also meeting to discuss how to better
organize our weekly church meetings, and the church is now more
actively considering how it should deal with problems and what
kind of vision we will have for the future. All these concerns
need your prayers.
Relationship Ministry
One ministry Lena and I want to develop is mento
ring
relationships among the dating couples in the church. There are
now 5 couples. Just recently, Vitaly Samodin and Lera Cherednichenko
(who works for the UEC) announced their engagement! Lena and I
are doing all we can to help them through this process. They will
marry on May 27 (we think). We also pray that we can equip Lera
and Vitaly to mentor others who are dating or who become engaged.
Most likely this ministry will involve a monthly structured meeting
and periodic informal meetings with the couples separately. We
also hope to help the single people in the church have better
relationships when they do start dating and to be affirmed in
the singleness.
UEC Developments
While we were gone, the UEC manager Sergiy was
accepted to Pepperdine’s business school and will most likely
leave us in July. So now we are trying to decide what to do to
replace him. It won’t be an easy process. Otherwise, the work
of the UEC marches on. Several generous book donations were received
recently, and several Bible study groups meet at the UEC as well
as regular church meetings. David Ralston, UEC board president,
was in Kyiv near the end of February and we spent parts of two
days with him, with much energy devoted to navigating the seemingly
endless bureaucracy.
