I'm Still Here

     It's been a while since I've done a regular "situation on the ground" update. There have been lots of things going on but I've either not had time or had more pressing posts (the Chernobyl tour) to write and publish. Scattered in among all the activity this past weekend was Orthodox Easter. I'm only now getting a chance to write about it.

     Even though the Protestant church made the break from the Catholic and Orthodox church centuries ago, here in Ukraine they still follow much of the same calendar. Christmas and Easter are the two biggest events on that calendar. Back in January, I visited another Protestant church on Orthodox Christmas. This time, I didn't get an opportunity to visit any Orthodox churches to observe their services. But as I understand it, there are a whole lot of little traditions that many people still follow, even if they don't go to church every week.
     What is known in the West as "Palm Sunday" is actually called "Willow Sunday" here. That's because they use willow tree branches instead of palm fronds. All day long on Sunday, you could see families walking around with baskets of food. They were either coming from or going to church. It's a tradition here to have the Easter meal and special bread blessed by the priest before eating it.
     Sunday in church, instead of the normal order of worship, things were changed. The worship alternated between songs and reading the Easter story. This was an interesting variant of of worship that I hadn't seen before. Only being able to understand a little Russian made it difficult to follow everything. The person who normally translates for me was able to tell me which passages they were reading so I could follow along.
     The service for Liberty was much the same, minus Communion. This time, I was able to follow the passages much better, even recognizing familiar parts of the story as they read. After the service, we all ate a huge meal together. The staff of Liberty prepared different dishes. I even cooked my fried rice and ham. There were so many people that we couldn't all fit around the tables we set up. It was a good crowd. The past few Liberty services have had relatively low attendance. This had a lot more. I ended up leaving early so I could get back and Skype with my parents it was my mom's birthday and my parent's anniversary.

     After just coming off of a long sightseeing day on Saturday, I was really tired and needed the chance to rest. I had woken up Sunday with a bad headache. I almost didn't go to church. But four ibuprofen had me feeling closer to normal. I came right back home after church in the morning to rest but it didn't work out. It wasn't until Monday evening that I was feeling closer to normal.
     As for the rest of the week, things have been mostly normal. There wasn't a Liberty meeting on Wednesday in lieu of the missions team. But we did finally have the first Liberty Bible study group of the year. I may have mentioned it a while ago that we were planning on starting it again. It was pushed off due to low interest and wanting to wait until Easter to announce it. For a first meeting, it went well. This time we're doing a topical study on relationships. Not just the romantic kind (as Max has been discussing in Smart Club) but friendships and with God as well. I'll keep you informed as it goes on. For now, I'm glad to be doing it again.
     And to finish things off, here is the video of my visit to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. There are two versions; an edited, shorter version with music and a longer version with every video I took while there. The unedited version includes sound as well as the voice of the tour guide at different points of the trip. You might get some good information out of it if you can sit through the whole thing. It's over twice as long as the edited version.

     Have a good weekend. I'll talk to you again soon.