Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. (Acts 13:1)
В Антиохии, в тамошней церкви были некоторые пророки и учители: Варнава, и Симеон, называемый Нигер, и Луций Киринеянин, и Манаил, совоспитанник Ирода четвертовластника, и Савл. (Деяния 13:1 Russian)
Lord God Almighty, our Holy Father in Heaven ~ Thank you for the mysterious and enlivening gift of life that enthuses our mortal bodies for greater service on this new day. Give the leaders of all churches who have many people with teaching talents in their congregations, the wisdom and courage to send out preachers and teachers into all the populated areas of this world while we still have time to warn lost souls about the danger of not believing in Christ when He comes again. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.
It is Friday here in southern Ukraine, and the sky still looks like it could snow again. We were unable to conduct our Thursday night Bible study yesterday evening due to the large drifts of snow that have accumulated all over this region of Ukraine that is not accustomed to such large snowfalls. Many people were stranded on the highway between Nikolaev and Odessa and Nikolaev and Kherson. It was very bad for many people on buses that could not move as they had to sit for long hours without water or restrooms. Galina and I pretended we were in Magadan and began to trudge out in the deep snow and began to fall from trying to high step our way through it. After we managed to go about four blocks, we called our members to see how they were doing, and they were not venturing out because public transportation was at a standstill. We cancelled the meeting last night and returned to our apartment and suggested some scriptures for our group to study at home. This morning however, as the view from our apartment reveals, I see encouraging signs of traffic moving and it appears that the roads were plowed overnight. Maybe the reason they didn’t plow more yesterday and the day before is because it was constantly snowing with strong winds. The main factor is that this area does not have all the heavy equipment like in the northern areas of Ukraine where such snowfalls are commonplace. One funny mistake we made was to send our boots and some heavy winter clothes ahead to Magadan when we left Montgomery in July. We will likely go shopping today for some boots and warm socks and we can have it here in Nikolaev in case there is another such snow storm in the future. We simply have been spoiled here with such fantastic weather up until last Sunday when it suddenly turned cold. It is that time of year, so we will just adjust to this and we don’t expect it to slow down our activities. Today, we hope to make contact with the Director of one orphan home that we have helped in the past. We met one young boy on the streets yesterday evening and he was hungry. We know Sergey from precious encounters. He is a little too old to live in the orphan’s home. We helped him with some food and we hope that he will sometimes come to our meetings and learn more about Christ. He and others in his predicament often sleep inside any entryway to an apartment building. We know this from much experience with such young people and older people in Magadan. Thank you for the many prayers and encouragement.
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