Sunday 27th May
An awesome
day in Odessa.
Today we
have been entertained by our wonderful friends at grace Baptist church.
On a
beautiful sunny morning it is quite a sight to see over 500 people arrive at a
vibrant church all in their best outfits. We are sleeping in the orphanage
itself, where it is impossible to go anywhere without being hi-fived or someone
shouting “ghellow” (good morning in Ukrainian English). Here are some of the
orphans marching off to church...
There are
130 children in the church, they all love singing, (even the boys) and seem
very happy to be there. During the
morning service there are usually 2 sermons, today some weird Worcester chap
was spouting.
The translator is Pastor Igor Bandura, senior pastor at Grace. He
is a very influential man in the Ukrainian Evangelical church network, spending
much of his time travelling back and forth to Kiev (where he returns tomorrow).
He helps many churches and has been very strategic in starting many new
churches. The church is full of flowers and you will see that behind the
preacher there is room for a full choir, who sing to an exceptionally high
standard.
The church
had invited some English language students to spend some time with us over
lunch.
We found out that Ukrainians are quite keen on keeping their distinctive
culture and language for future generations, and rather offended by their
Russian speaking president who pretends to speak Ukrainian (with humiliating
consequences).
During the
afternoon as we visited Old Odessa we were struck by 3 things
- There is such a community feel to the parks, boulevards and public spaces. The older men gather on Sundays to play dominoes chess and cards, with a passion that resembles a Samoan prop forward .
- The architecture is stunning. Although many of the government buildings strike an imposing shadow on the walkway, the most stunning building (the opera house) is surrounded by flowers in a bright open space.
- The market stalls sell everything... from Ukrainian dolls (with David Cameron, Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher on) and tea-cloths to tooth pick holders, statues of Lenin and guns.
We feel very privileged to be here with great people, we are in a great
city, loved by a great GOD. We’ll catch up tomorrow but now we need bed so
Paul
