We have had a very eventful 40 hours. in Odessa land
Yesterday morning we had the privelege of being the guests at the wedding of Prince Denis and Lady Victoria, (at least that's what the church calls two young people whom they hold in very high esteem). It is not difficult to see why, this was a tearjerkingly beautiful wedding. The Father of the bride is the director of music at the church and a longstanding church leader. He had arranged some beautiful music which seemed fit for a royal occasion. Choirs, concert standard pianist and virtuoso violinst all added to the occasion, but the highlight was the parents of the new couple praying for them in public as a sign of their affection. After the ceremony the whole church (yes all 500+) marched up to greet the new couple and have a photograph.
After Paul preached in the evening service. Rob, John and Charles joined the team late last night. Paul, Paul and Peter went to the airport with a double purpose... to welcome the new additions to the team and to see if there were any clues to the whereabouts of Paul Lewis' case. Things were looking bleak, an officious gentlemen was insistent that we would have to go through some very long winded procedures to progress the "incident".
However, we prayed and then our driver spotted a lady who comes to grace church who happened to work at the airport. With one word of admonition and encouragement, we soon saw Paul's face light up like a little boy on Christmas morning - he had his case (seemingly out of nowhere). Our God is good.
We had a fantastic start to the day. After breakfast and studying together how the gospel changes us to be loving people (philippians chapter 1), we went to transition house and were flabbergasted at the progress that has been made. The first noticeable change is the painting and rendering of the exterior, with a beautiful cobbled pathway and sitting area (the smartest house in the street by a long way :))
As you enter the hallway all staircases are now beautifully tiled.
The highlight of the day was undoubtedly trying to give Pieter the small financial gift we had collected from church. It was greeted with the repeated expression "SLAVA BORG, SLAVA BORG, SLAVA BORG" etc etc) If repetition was the key to understanding the extent of the gratitude and thankfulness I think it fair to say that Pieter is very, very, very grateful for his church family in the Uk and their love towards this project. "Slava borg" means "praise our GOD" :) This is pretty much what we have been saying all day as we've seen again how God has helped his people here achieve something remarkable to his glory, and for the benefit of many young people.
We are humbled and grateful to be part of this wonderful project. Thank you to all of you who have partnered with us in this - I hope you can still hear Pieter from England... I think he is still going, as he drives to the tile shop!
From a Sunny (27 degrees) Ukraine (as we go home for some astonishingly good food)...
Goodnight and .."SLAVA BORG!"
P
