Christmas Service at local Church

On Sunday (1/4), Bruce picked us up to take us to church in Lutugino (about 1 1/4 hour round trip so it is much appreciated). The church is actually about 5 miles out of Lutugino in a smaller town still (but I don't recall the name). The church was an evangelical church (I think it is not aligned with any denomination) run by Pastor Roman (Roh - mahn'). I don't recall his last name. We met him briefly at Bruce's the previous Friday.

We had to stop at Bruce's house on the way to get his generator as the power had gone out in the local area (which apparently is fairly common). The church is in a small building about the size of a store. The church bought it a couple of years ago for about $5000. With some improvements they have made (and an increase in real estate prices), it is worth about $20,000. The neat thing about that to me is that a small amount of money can make a huge difference here.

It is especially hard (so I am told) for non-Orthodox churches to be established. Getting zoning approvals is difficult, supposedly due to Orthodox church complaints. But if you own the building already, it is easier to get approvals.

The church has about 85 or 90 members and seems to be full each week. Many of the members are at a rehabilitation center (for alcohol) that the church supports. Bruce told us there were several thieves and murderers there, but had all been changed as they gave their life to the Lord. The age range was well balanced between young families with children and babushkas and dyedushkas. The service was similar in many ways to an evangelical service in the South, but longer. A typical service is about 2 hours. This one was longer as the children did their Christmas presentations (recall that in Ukraine, they celebrate Christmas on 01/07).

Pastor Roman introduced our family and told them we were adopting 2 boys. The entire church prayed for us very vocally. It was really great.

We also got to hear a service we understood by chance. The service was in Russian (though Bruce translated for us). There was a visiting pastor (Terry Burns of Burns Mission) from Kyiv who gave the sermon (in English, then translated into Russian). He was Canadian, but we could understand him once we deleted all the "eh"s he said. Terry runs the mission at the link above, but also teaches 8th grade literature at the US - Canadian State Department School in Kyiv. Mom, I think you were looking into these for a while as I recall. Apparently the school is filled with kids of ambassadors (US and CN), military liaisons (US and CN), and wealthy Ukrainians. Terry and his wife are very nice and have invited us to dinner when we return to Kyiv.

The children's presentation was cute and has some very pretty little girls. As I understand it, in Ukraine, kids always have to recite some poem during Christmas, and then they get their gift. Here are some pictures of the kids (not ours. We can't take them anywhere yet).

After church, we decided to go to Bruce's for lunch and again ended up staying there for about 6 or 7 hours. Pastor Roman and Terry Burns and his wife were there as well. The kids enjoy visiting there as they like Bruce and Pia's kids (Claire really hit it off with Gabby, and Colin enjoys showing the boys all his favorite websites, like Legendary Frog).