Grand Opening of St. Luke's Children's Center!

The days finally arrived. After a lot of preparation, furniture buying, interior renovations and much prayer, we had our opening of the St. Luke's Children's Center and the first worship service of the St. Luke's United Methodist Church of Kiev this past Saturday and Sunday. Festivities on Saturday night included a dinner, musical entertainment from a musical group from our UM church in Chernovtsi, a slide show on the history of the street children center, congratulations from various guests from Norway, America and Ukraine, an address from our Bishop Hans Vaxby and of course, if a Norwegian has anything to do with the organization, coffee with cakes.

You may notice the name of the center is now the St. Luke's Children's Center. Our organization is called Dosvitok, which is a poetic Ukrainian word meaning daybreak, but it was decided to name the center St. Luke's, the same name as the new church which will meet at the center. St. Luke's was chosen because because when Jesus announced his ministry in Luke 4, he read from Isaiah where it said:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

We strive for this emphasis to be the emphasis of our ministry for both the Children's Center and the new church.

Also, we were so grateful to hear of two gifts to the ministry, one of $90,000 from Blacksburg United Methodist Church in Blacksburg VA and also one of $46,000 from Molde United Methodist Church of Molde, Norway and the Central UM Church of Bergen, Norway. All three of these churches have been active in supporting our work, sending teams to participate with the children and lifting us up in prayer. This gift means that our $150,000 loan has only $14,000 left in less than a year from the time we purchased the center! We thank God for the way God has used these congregations and other supporters as instruments for enabling the St. Luke's Children Center and United Methodist Church to have a permanent home.

Here are some pictures from the events:
Click here for the Saturday Night Opening celebration.
Click here for the Sunday Morning Facility Dedication worship service, the first service for St. Luke's UMC.

Faith and Politics

After the excitement of the first caucuses and primaries in the US with the surprise victors in Iowa and "comeback kids" in New Hampshire, there is a little lull in the action as everyone waits for the February 5 Super Tuesday where half the US nation votes. Similarly, there is quiet in the political action in Ukraine after Julia Timoshenko was finally confirmed as Prime Minister 2.5 months after the elections results.

But in both nations, concerned Christians are confronted with those who feel that religious beliefs should stay out of politics, that religion is a private affair which has no business in the public realm. There is one Baptist denomination in Ukraine which agrees, believing that Christians should not vote since voting interferes with the will of God. Citing Romans 13:1-7 as the basis for this belief, their thinking is that if God establishes the authorities, then voting is humanity trying to supersede God's will. That sure doesn't sound like the rhetoric coming out of many of the churches in the US today, with religion in politics being one of the major issues in the 2008 US Presidential Campaign. What's a Christian to do?

The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City is doing a series of sermons on faith and politics which is really outstanding. The series is entitled "Seeing Gray – Faith, Morality and Politics in a Black and White World." The first sermon was one of the best I have heard on the issue. The sermon series is current and on their website. Check it out, it is well worth your time.

Wedding Bells!

We had a wedding yesterday in our Dosvitok Street children ministry. Sveta Tolstonok, a staff member and daughter of Svetlana Tolstonok, our daily director, got married yesterday! So congratulations to the new couple! Ukrainian marriages are different (to me) in that the civil and religious parts of a wedding are separate. Only the State can make a marriage official under the law, so one must go to the government "wedding palace" or ZAGS, where the couple signs the official wedding registry and receives a certificate of marriage. ZAGS stand for the Registrar of the Act of the Citizens Status, a throwback to the USSR when right after the revolution in the 20's, the USSR banned marriage. Then when chaos erupted, the authorities decided they needed to formalize for legal purposes a union which was occurring and ZAGS was created. There is a ceremony at the ZAGS which reminds one of a somber Las Vegas wedding ceremony in the wedding palaces there. They also do a video montage for the couple and show it to the wedding guests immediately after. Very nice. Afterwards, the couple and their friends go to famous places around Kiev, usually monuments, lay flowers there and get their picture taken in front of these monuments. A church blessing of the marriage may occur the same day, sometime later or not at all. But everyone has a big party in the evening, a big reception.

Helen and I went to the ZAGS, but forgot our camera! We did have a cell phone camera, so here are a couple of fuzzy pictures:

Mother holds the traditional bread given to the couple with Grandma standing by.


Closeup of bread - The words say "Bread and Salt" the two basic necessities to start a home.


The happy couple....sigh, cell phone photos aren't the best...I'll post some better pictures later!

С Роджеством! (Merry Christmas - part 2)

It's Christmas again! One of the great things of living in Ukraine is the long holiday season which starts with the December 25 celebration of the Christmas, western date, New Year's Day, Christmas Jan 7, eastern date and the Old New Year, Jan 13 for those who really want to stretch it out, like shops and restaurants. Holiday lights are on at least through Jan 13, when they take down the big Kiev Christmas tree:

...And they continue on for some places through mid-February. Some places never take them down, just turn them off.

So today is Christmas. Yesterday was Christmas eve (quite naturally) and we had our first worship service in the Dosvitok Street Children Center! Joining us and helping us celebrate was a mission team from Central Pennsyvania, most of the team being from around Hershey. It was especially nice to see familiar friends, some who have come several times to Kiev. Here are some photos from the Christmas Eve worship service and celebration. When you look at the pictures, be sure to roll your mouse cursor over the captions to be able to see the English versions.

And since this is the first post of 2008, Happy New Year! С Новым Годом!