Our last post from Kiev for while is today's, as Helen and I are traveling to the US for a couple of Conferences. The first is the Living Faith, Seeking Justice Conference in Ft. Worth TX, sponsored by the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, where we hope to get some ideas and inspirations for the street children ministry. After the conference ends, we will be in the Dallas Ft. Worth area, then going to Georgetown, TX, to visit folks at the First UMC Georgetown, generous supporters of our homeless children's ministry. Then on Nov 14, we travel to Leawood KS near Kansas City to the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, which is hosting the Russia Initiative Consultation, a gathering of all the US United Methodist churches who sponsor UM churches in the former Soviet Union. A delegation of 11 is coming from Ukraine, so I think we are going to lobby for a change in the name to be a little more inclusive of the countries involved which includes Belorus, Modova, Russia and Ukraine. We also hope to visit St. John's UMC in Houston if we have the time, a UMC church of 9,000 - 3,000 of which are homeless or former homeless. We hope to learn some of the unique characteristics of having a church which stretches across economic classes, like the one we hope to plant in Kiev.

So, on our last day before departure, we took a stroll down the main street of Kiev, Khreschatik, which is closed to cars and open only to pedestrian traffic on Saturdays and Sundays.


A popular live broadcast karaoke-type singalong TV show is filmed here on Khreschatik on Sundays. People are picked out of the crowd to try their luck and people were having a good time as we passed by.