Busy Fall

Time has flown as we have had many trips outside the Ukraine this fall. Now I have just returned from a 1 week trip to Switzerland and Germany where I was involved in two meetings: One was a 2 day meeting with three other missionaries to look over the new mission initiatives of GBGM which have begun in the last 15 years in order to review their strengths and weaknesses and discuss how we as missionaries could use our experience to help make upcoming mission initiatives better. We met in Interlaken, Switzerland, a very pretty place.

The next meeting was in Braunfels, Germany, where all the District Superintendents of Europe met with their respective Bishops in discussing the future of the UMC in Europe. Assisting us was Bishop Shnase from Missouri Conference who gave us lectures on the Five Principles of Fruitful Congregations: Radical Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Intentional Faith Development, Risk-taking Mission and Extravagant Generosity. The discussions were very much in line with the other conferences and meetings where I have been this fall. Now it is time to implement these ideas! It is great to be home in Kiev. Here is the Braunfels town square:

Here are a few more pictures from the trip. But our trips are not completely over for 2007: Helen left this morning for Moscow to attend the Eurasia Episcopal Area Financial Committee as the Ukraine and Moldova Annual Conference representative.