WORD OF THE DAY - Sunday 18 October 2009

I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’ I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’; and they will say, ‘You are my God.’ ” (Hosea 2:23)

И посею ее для Себя на земле, и помилую Непомилованную, и скажу не Моему народу: 'ты Мой народ', а он скажет: 'Ты мой Бог!' (Осия 2:23 Russian)

Oh God, our God ~ Thank you for this new Lord’s Day and the indescribable joy that we experience when we worship with other Christians. We are overwhelmed with love as we consider how we have been adopted into your Family – the Church. Help those who are outside of your special bond of love to be humble, and obediently run quickly into your arms of love and forgiveness and receive Jesus Christ as their new Lord and Master. In Christ name we pray, Amen.

We had one fine young man - Dima, to show up on a cold rainy day for our Saturday Children's Bible Class. He received the same full attention as if all the others were present. His Grandmother wants him to come, and during the week he reads from the Children's Bible that we gave him earlier. Without any warning, when asked if he remembered our last lesson, he recited all details of the story of the Tower of Babel. Yesterdays' lesson was from Luke 2 about the incident when 12 year old Jesus remained in Jerusalem after his parents had started on the journey home. Ivan will leave later today to resume his vacation here in Ukraine. We are hoping to have some visitors for worship today. We met one couple yesterday as we were out doing some errands. Demyan is an artist, and his parents have immigrated to America and live in Cleveland, OH. When I began to invite them to our meetings, he explained that he graduated from some 'protestant' Bible College. His wife Anna speaks English pretty well. We hope to get to know them better. He agreed to help me with my Russian and I agreed to help him with English. Thank you for your prayers.