Weather
I often pick up neighbours on my way to work and if someone was willing to bet me, I’d put money on the first thing talked about being the weather. It is one of those subjects that is safe and gives no surprises. We can be fairly certain that the conversation will continue along lines that we have walked countless times. And if we are lucky, there will be something extreme that we can express some emotion over and take a quick venture into the territory of “the adventurous”. Complex and fascinating are the workings of the human mind.
So… Yesterday we were working on the roof of the building project. We saw hot periods where we wanted to strip off, rain, snow, hail, wind, calm, and cold periods where we were glad we hadn’t taken too much off. Talk about a colourful day weather-wise! Adventure over. :)
There are a number of guys who we are working with on the site. Igor, Kolya, Sergei, Sergei, Alyosha, Dima, Ura, Vitaly, plus others. The contact with the students is great. A few of these guys are regularly coming out Friday nights. The senior year of students have gone away to do work experience for these last couple of months of the school year, and it’s given us a good opportunity to work with the juniors and get to know them better. Yesterday, we knocked off during a warm period and it felt so good going home in warmth! 
We decided that we liked spring. :)
Alyosha and Natasha have two kids. They are cuties. Alyosha has been working with us on the work-site the last two weeks when he is not selling electrical goods from a stall in the local market. He would appreciate your prayers. He is going through the withdrawals of nicotine addiction at the moment. He loves the Lord, but… it has been a long process getting to this point where he wants Jesus to be Lord of every area of his life.
The family is well. Pris is slowly recovering from what must have been a body-builder-virus of the flu variety. It hit hard and has taken a few weeks to kick.
Tonight, the ladies are putting on an outreach themed “Bali”. They are expecting about 40 ladies from the community to attend. They’ll have a lot of fun as well as be challenged to give their lives to the Lord. The room just outside my office door looks spectacular with colour and creativity! I look forward to hearing/seeing the reactions of the ladies!
Tomorrow, we finish a series on Gal 5:22-23. The Holy Spirit desires to work with us on our character producing Christ-like men and women. Often, we wish that a snap of the fingers would produce results. More often though, God uses time spent in His Word, troublesome circumstances, and the good (sometimes very imperfect) character of other people to develop these fruit in our lives. You, man or woman with the Holy Spirit living within, can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.
An interview was done with a Ukrainian TV station last week regarding Vlad’s situation. It is doubtful that it can do any harm, but I’m not really optimistic about it doing any good either. I’m continually having my sense of justice slapped in the face as I hear more and more stories of gross injustice in this country of Ukraine. An amusing situation occurred a few seconds before we were due to start filming the interview (pictured). The ancient truck that empties our septic tank drove up and began noisily sucking away just outside the window. Heh! We waited.
I took the guys to Kiev again Saturday for the monthly session of Bible teaching. I am continually inspired as I see many young people gathering to understand better how to understand God’s Word. They are being empowered for life!