Almost a month - Holodomor
I'm mostly writing tonight to let you know that we're still hanging in there. I couldn't begin to explain all the things that have gone on since I last posted, but there was a visit by a Navy ship, an American citizen taken off a cruise ship and hospitalized in serious condition (eventually was able to fly back to the US on oxygen on commercial flights in the company of a nurse sent specially to accompany him), and a Thanksgiving dinner with around 40 Americans. (That was at a restaurant, and not at our house, by the way!)
Being swamped by a backlog of translation work is not news, so I'll say no more about that. We have had visitors at our house and in the church, which was a special blessing. We're practicing two or three times a week for the Christmas cantata, which will be sung in English on Sunday morning, Dec. 21, and in Portuguese on Christmas Eve. There just hasn't been much spare time...and little energy left when there was a free moment.
There are now two men at the prison meeting...both Ukrainians. Nikola had attended earlier in the year, but was released on bond, awaiting trial. He has been tried and sentenced to 6 years, so he's back in prison now, and back in the meetings. Yesterday he told an interesting story:
Ukraine recently commemorated the 75th anniversary of Holodomor, the famine of 1933 caused by Stalin's requisitioning all the food in Ukraine, and causing the deaths of an estimated 5-6 million people! Some estimates go as high as 14 million! The numbers are staggering. The Wikipedia link above gives you a brief look at this genocide. The subject came up yesterday at the meeting, and Nikola said that his grandmother and her parents and grandparents went through that period. They were Baptists, he said, and during the famine, they prayed to God. Neighbors all around them died, but they and other members of their church did not. They did not always have much to eat, but there was always something, and God did not allow them to starve to death. "Food for thought" in these uncertain times the world is facing. Where is our faith?
Being swamped by a backlog of translation work is not news, so I'll say no more about that. We have had visitors at our house and in the church, which was a special blessing. We're practicing two or three times a week for the Christmas cantata, which will be sung in English on Sunday morning, Dec. 21, and in Portuguese on Christmas Eve. There just hasn't been much spare time...and little energy left when there was a free moment.
There are now two men at the prison meeting...both Ukrainians. Nikola had attended earlier in the year, but was released on bond, awaiting trial. He has been tried and sentenced to 6 years, so he's back in prison now, and back in the meetings. Yesterday he told an interesting story:
Ukraine recently commemorated the 75th anniversary of Holodomor, the famine of 1933 caused by Stalin's requisitioning all the food in Ukraine, and causing the deaths of an estimated 5-6 million people! Some estimates go as high as 14 million! The numbers are staggering. The Wikipedia link above gives you a brief look at this genocide. The subject came up yesterday at the meeting, and Nikola said that his grandmother and her parents and grandparents went through that period. They were Baptists, he said, and during the famine, they prayed to God. Neighbors all around them died, but they and other members of their church did not. They did not always have much to eat, but there was always something, and God did not allow them to starve to death. "Food for thought" in these uncertain times the world is facing. Where is our faith?
posted by EP | 12:25 AM | Permalink
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