Day 10--May 22--Sunday: Sun, Sermons, and Sweets

(Left)On the way to Sykhiv, a recently-built Catholic church. (Right) The group of people who attended at Sykhiv on Sunday morning.

I preached twice today without an interpreter, and there were no pastors present in either church. In the morning we were at Sykhiv, on the outskirts of L’viv, where we are staying at Volodya’s house. Ivan, the pastor at Sykhiv that I met two years ago, emigrated to America in April. He went to San Francisco, where his brother lives. Tonya said there are 5 Ukrainian Baptist churches there. Ivan wrote back to say that he's having difficulties getting adjusted, and he's not felt well. Probably the climate or the food, or both. I asked Tonya if they had any other pastor. She said they didn't, and it was going to be hard to find one. "The pastors are going to America," she said. I don't know how many actually have gone, but Volodya told me before we left Madeira that one of the pastors of the Central Church in L’viv had also gone to the US.

"What about seminary students?" I asked.

Tonya admitted that there are students, but the church needs older, more experienced men. She suggested me as a possibility. “Why don’t you come and be our pastor?”

"But," I replied, "that would leave Madeira without a pastor." I don’t think that would resolve anything.

(Left) Tonya and Abbie at the front gate: "Why don't you be our pastor?"
(Right)
Tonya with daughter, Yulia, and son, Dima.




We went to the Central Baptist Church in L’viv (left) for the afternoon service. No pastor in the service here, either. The service was being conducted by one of the deacons in the absence of the pastor, whose father was in the hospital. Again, in the absence of a translator, I gave a brief introduction in Ukrainian, mainly apologizing for having to preach the rest of the message in Russian. Of course, it was the same message I had given in Kyiv the week before, and in Sykhiv in the morning. Well, it was supposed to be the same one, and in my mind and heart it was the same one. I leave it to God whether it came off the tongue as the same one.

In the afternoon between services, Volodya’s son, Dima, took us to a park where old traditional log houses have been transferred from various places around the country. Some of them have grass roofs and the oldest ones date from the 1770's. What surprised us was that some of the log houses are only 100 years old. (Above) One of the oldest houses and the explanatory plaque. Surprise! It has an English translation! (Left) A wooden church, popular as a setting for wedding pictures.

We took a taxi to the park, and on the way we were speaking with Dima in Portuguese. In the 4 years he worked here, he learned to speak Portuguese very well. To our surprise, the taxi driver joined in! He lived and worked in northern Portugal for over a year, being one of the more than 60,000 Ukrainian immigrants in the country at one time. I’m not sure how many are still in Portugal, but many have left Madeira in the last year.

After church, we took one last walk through town. We stopped at the restaurant/pastry shop where I ate with two American friends, Phil and Steve, two years ago. Today we only had cake and coffee. The expresso coffee with milk was 5 UAH ($1), about the same price we would pay in a normal restaurant in Madeira. Cake, coffee, and tea for three came to a little under $10, a good price when compared to Madeira. One thing is different about the restaurants here: the price listed on the menu is for portions by weight (usually per 100 grams) so you can't be exactly sure what you will be paying. We made sure we asked for small portions, because we didn't need too much of those rich sweets anyway. In truth, we didn't NEED any of them, but they were really good.

Odds and Ends

(Left) One of the most interesting pictures from my trip in 2003. A young girl on her way to church. She looked intently out the front of the bus as if she were trying to peer into the future. (Right) Now you know how to write McDonald's in cyrillic characters.