The church started as a bible study of just a handful of people back in 1991.  Over the course of time, they began to hold services in a hall in a local municipal building.  This is where the church was meeting when we began to attend in 1998.

The rooms we met in were on the back side of a building where a government-run grocery-type store and other small shops were located.    [At that time, there were no grocery stores as are common in the west, and as are now common here in Ukraine.  This type of store was often a large room with counters lining the walls, various types of products sold by a woman who would select the items you requested from shelves behind her.]

The rooms we met in were on the second floor, so we would file in one side of a double door (the other side was kept locked), head up the narrow stairwell, and down a long hallway into the one open door for the large room we used as an auditorium.  Try to imagine a long, narrow room filled with skinny, backless benches.

It’s really hard to describe it adequately, but I must say that at one point I had a flash of a thought about those locked doors and all of us in that building, together with the words ‘fire hazard’… it was the first of many times where I needed to learn to just turn those thoughts completely off!

I do no have any digital pictures from that time, but I’ll keep hunting for them!  Because our children were pretty young, we wouldn’t often wedge ourselves into that big room, mainly because it was kind of hard to inconspicuously get out again in case of some urgent need, settling most often on a bench up against the wall in the open space at the end of the hall.  [Mary was 17 months old when we arrived in Ukraine, Benjamin turned 4 just after we got here, and Anna was about to turn seven.]

We used to joke with each other in those first years that nothing was worth doing at church unless it went for 2 1/2 (or more) hours, and with three small children, in a language we were sometimes grasping very little of, church was a very different experience from what we had been used to.

Over the course of time, we began to plug into the life of the church, not merely attending on Sunday mornings.  There was a fledgling Sunday School program with a couple of different classes, so Anna and Benjamin began to interact with the kids and take part in programs and kids events.  Mark would occasionally preach, and in a short while, began to lead a small group for prayer and Bible study.  Our language and understanding of the people and the culture grew a ton in those days, even though there was still so much that we didn’t understand.

So here goes:  I’m going to try to write a little bit for each post, and hopefully, once a week. We really do want this to be a place where you can keep up, at least in some small way, with what the Lord is doing in our lives here in Kiev.  Oh, and there may or may not be fabulous pictures (or any?!) each time…

I thought I’d take a minute and tell you about the wonderful church we have a privilege to be a part of here in Ukraine.

When we arrived in Kiev over 13 years ago, we knew our primary ministry here would be at Kiev Theological Seminary.  As we looked for a place to live, we also looked for a local church to be a part of.  You may know that two languages are spoken here in Ukraine, Russian and Ukrainian.  As our mission asked us to focus learning Russian first, we began to look for a church in our area where the primary language spoken was Russian.

Do understand that there were not a lot of churches on our side of the city at that time, and compared to what we see back in our home state of Texas, there are still far, far fewer churches here relative to the population of the city of Kiev.  Kiev is now almost 3 million, but then was closer to 2-ish, and there were 2 or 3 non-Orthodox churches on our side of the city.

We settled on a church that is relatively close to where we were living, and where, at least for the first couple of years, what we were learning in language school would be reinforced.

As we did not have a car then, we were also thinking in terms of building a church into our lives that would be a fit for us and our three young and very small children.  Being pedestrians, using public transportation for everything, and just walking a LOT was a huge adjustment!

So that is the short version of how we came to be part of Преображение or Transformation Church here in Kiev.

opening session

The seminary hosts this conference every couple of years – in recent years, every other November – for all of the women associated with the seminary.  This originally meant the wives of our students, and the purpose was to encourage them in their ministry alongside their husbands, to provide teaching and resources, and to just give them a rest and some time for fellowship with other women in their shoes.

Over the course of time, we’ve expanded it to include all of the women who have any connection with the seminary, whether they’re the wife of a past or present student, or they have been students themselves. Our purpose remains pretty much the same, even though those in attendance are now serving in a rather wide variety of ministries.

When I say, ‘the seminary hosts,’ that means that our conference in held in the name of the seminary, but the planning and pulling it off has been done by a diverse group of faculty wives, faculty, staff, and just those who are interested in serving the seminary family in this unique way.

Lois and Luda

This year, I served as co-chairman of the planning committee alongside Lois Thorpe, a missionary teacher at the seminary serving with SEND International.  I always knew two brains were better than one, but in this case, I know I get the better end of the deal!  Lois was an amazing person to work with.  She and I have both been part of the planning in the past, but it was really cool to implement some of her ideas this year, and to see them work so well.

Tanya as emcee

One of those ideas was to have as many of our guests also participate in the ‘doing’ of the conference as possible.  She felt like this would help create a special atmosphere of ‘we’re all doing this together’.  So our worship leader, our emcee (a very, very important role!), and our craft lady were all from our group of attendees, as well as all of the small group discussion leaders.  How wonderful it was to see everyone adding their own strengths to this project, multiplying greatly what we as the planning committee started out with.  One of our desires was to also help these women see that their giftings in use, Lord willing, giving them some experience and confidence and, ultimately, work ourselves out of a job!

Another blessing was to have our first ever Ukrainian as the main speaker.  We have been very, very blessed in the past with some fantastic speakers, but we felt like it was time to tap into the riches of those women God has raised up here in Ukraine.  Every conference we ask the women to fill out an evaluation, and we’ve asked each time, ‘Who would you like to see as a main speaker in the future?’  Again and again, one name came up, that of Nadezhda Kommendant.  How blessed we were when Nadia agreed to be our speaker this year.  And wouldn’t you know it, on the evaluations, the ladies were asking for her again!

craft time

Zhenya provided a craft I don’t think we’ll be able to top!  She makes handmade greeting cards and special occasion stationery, so when she showed us the design she prepared for us to make, everyone was really impressed.  (And we were blessed by the countless hours she put in preparing for us!)  We’ve always aimed to have something the women could use at home, or could use in their ministries in their churches.  We’ve done everything from making Bible covers and gift bags (before they could be bought ready made here) to how to put photos together as part of a ‘Remembering God’s Working in our Lives’ theme one year.

Oh, and I don’t want to forget.  We hold the conference at a wonderful little place outside of Kiev, so the ladies travel to Kiev from all over Ukraine.  We ask them to pay for their travel and for a portion of the cost.  All the rest is funded by people giving to make this a reality.  We had asked prayer for this earlier in the year because we really just couldn’t see how it was going to work.  The Lord blessed mightily and we were able to finish in the black.  I’ll close with a couple of remaining pictures, but if you want to see more, check out this link: https://www.facebook.com/donna.mcdonnel?ref=tn_tnmn#!/media/set/?set=a.10150415401747513.351528.102344852512&type=1

Donna and Kellie, decorating

Kerri, coffee house lady extrordinaire

I recently finished six weeks of teaching at Kiev Seminary, a series of three two-week courses back to back.  Each two-week session consists of teaching four hours each afternoon, Monday through Saturday the first week, and Monday through Thursday the second week.  I was blessed to team-teach with a colleague in the second session.

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole time.  In the first session, I got to teach Genesis again, always a treat, and the second class was a course on Biblical history and culture.  Each class was interesting and the students were engaged and interested.

The last class was Introduction to Biblical Studies for first-semester students in the Biblical Studies major.  I enjoy teaching this class because I get to talk with students about where they are from and how the Lord is leading them [I am the director of the Biblical Studies program at the seminary].  And then for two weeks, I get to introduce them to the huge and amazing subject of discovering the presence of God in the study of the Bible.

What an incredible time! We talked about where the Bible came from, how to study the Bible, and just a lot of amazing things that are in the Bible.  We talked about many subjects that were new to them, like looking at the Bible in Hebrew and Greek. This opens up whole new realms of both understanding and challenges.  God really blessed all the way through.

In this particular group, I got to meet and talk with a group of students that were pretty amazing.  Usually, our students speak only Russian or Ukrainian, but three guys in my class, Alexei, Timothy and Vitalik, also speak English. When I talked further with them, they told me they had American passports and had graduated from American schools in the States.

I was completely confused. It turns out that two of them had been born of Ukrainian ancestry in Latvia.  The other was of Russian ancestry, but born in Kazakhstan.  Their families three immigrated to the States when they were younger, and these three later met up with each other because of a church ministry in Washington State.  This last summer they moved to Russia to serve the Lord in a small church there, and they have come to the seminary in Kiev to get training for their ministry.

They are fluent in Russian, so they make great missionaries language-wise!  But the character of these guys, and their commitment for what they are doing in Russia is amazing.  Three weeks ago, the three of them, along with the pastor of the little church and a few other people, got into a large van and set out for Kiev.  It took them a couple of days, but they made it.  They have a hunger and a joy about the Word of God that was infectious.  The Lord really blessed.

One thing that really resonated with me was their complex life stories.  For my own children, it is sometimes difficult for them to answer when people ask them where they are from.  My kids were each born in Texas, but they have grown up in and spent the majority of their lives in Ukraine.  And so with these guys; ask one of them where they are from, and they just smile and shake their heads.

But the wonderful thing is, they know that God has led them and has been with them every step of the journey, and they are confident that he is always with us, leading us on a journey to an eternal home, in his presence.

-Mark

Some students and I discovered this last week in a class I was teaching in Biblical Studies here at the seminary.  The guys are required to take  a course in Biblical History and Culture.  They learn about biblical culture because so many of the details of the Bible can only be understood by being aware of the things that they were concerned about.  And giving us an understanding of the chronology of the Bible gave us insight into certain characters inthe Bible that may not surface when we look only at a single episode in their life.

One example of this is Isaac.  In Genesis 27, we read that Isaac had grown old, and that his eyes were ‘weak’.  This is the chapter where Jacob deceives Isaac and gets Esau’s blessing.  Then starts the long story of Jacob – going to his uncle’s house, spending years working for his uncle, marrying the uncle’s two daughters.  And then in chapters 32 and 33, Jacob returns and meets Esau after all those years.  Everything is fine.  Jacob’s children grow older.  Rachel dies.

All this goes on up through chapter 35.  And then at the end of chapter 35, it was long about this time that Isaac died.  After all these years!  This man has been ‘dying’ for more than 20 years!

This is not like a situation with modern medicine.  With ancient medical conditions, you don’t usually stay a ‘little bit sick’ for a long time.  But I have these visions of Isaac, people walking past him for 20 years, and he just says, ‘Oh, I’m dying over here, any day now!’

It just seemed a rather strange discovery after the urgency of the birthright business back in chapter 27, back when his eyes were weak and he couldn’t even tell one son from another.

Another example is from Ezekiel 33.  Ezekiel puts dates on many of his prophecies.  In Ezekiel 33:21, he says, “In the twelfth year of our exile… a man who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me and said, ‘The city has fallen.’”  Jerusalem had been destroyed.

The next six chapters are about the sins and judgment of Jerusalem.  And then in chapter 40, he begins what are some of the most hopeful chapters in the Bible.  It’s a vision of the future, of the new temple, of the new Jerusalem.  What’s interesting is, he begins chapter 40 by saying, “In the 25th year of our exile…”

This is 13 years later.  There were 13 years of silence.  And what must those 13 years have been like?  But after 13 years, God brings a message of hope and a vision for the future.

This just renews in me the joy of discovery.  The Bible is an ocean.  It’s always exciting to explore new places that give a greater understanding of the whole.

-Mark

Each year, the planning committee gets together to map out the 8 or 10 meetings that will happen during the year.  I have not been part of this group, but have been a speaker a couple of times over the years.

Mark and I were invited to a cookout at the pastor’s house back in July, not knowing that it was a meeting of the planning committee!  As we began to discuss possible topics for the coming year, we settled on looking further into some of those subjects we already know a good bit about, but which seem to be pretty hard to ‘do’ effectively – forgiveness, humility, conflict, fear, respect, gossip (ok, ‘not do’).

We have, I think for a couple of years now, gone through a book which talks about various women in the Bible, lessons we can learn from their lives, etc. and had been actually looking at continuing through that book.  This is not a bad approach by any means; I love seeing what applies to my here and now life as I read through, studying some of these people who lived in a very different place and time.

I’m glad for these lessons, and for the rehearsing the truths that so richly abound.  Often, however, I find that we know the truths of Scripture, the how we should live, and I have felt kind of guilty when I felt a tinge of boredom as we consider going through them yet again.  It seems like we’re having trouble applying these truths, and in our desire to really change, we repeat the lessons again, and again, and again.  I’m all for the repetition.  Rarely have I ever gotten something down the first time.

I find, however, that I am eager to ask a different question: if this is what the Bible says, and if we love the Lord and want to honor him, what’s keeping me/us from doing it?  As I ask that question, it has led me to see that not only do I need help seeing where I’m not ‘getting it’, but also in seeing why I’m not doing what I should be doing.

If forgiving is a clear command in Scripture, why don’t I want to forgive, even after all the books, the Bible study, the prayer? If I am afraid of something, why am I giving in to sinful responses when I know the proper ones?  If I am being disrespectful, why do I feel like this is ok, when I know what Scripture says?

So that’s what we decided to delve into in this year’s meetings.  I’ll be teaching in October (the 30th), and I’d be very thankful for your prayers.  It’s one thing to sit and talk about these things over coffee – where I have most of these kinds of conversations – and quite another in front of a large group (and without the coffee!).

-Donna

The ability to love, rejoice, progress, and flourish must not depend on our being in control.

In situations that are difficult, control and faith are two completely different choices.  Grasping for control leads to self-centeredness.  Just ‘giving up’ (in a relationship, in a job, or in something else that means a lot) and feeling powerless because we’re not in control generates bitterness and anger.  Viewing ourselves as a victim means that we have surrendered control to the situation, whether to other people, or to circumstances.  Surrendering control to God means living by faith, means that whatever situation I find myself in has been organized well in advance by a sovereign God who understands me and my situation, and loves me.

Joseph found himself in three different situations that just grew progressively worse.  In each situation, he experienced pain and hardship that were out of his control.  In the first situation, his father’s favoritism caused his other family members to be bitter.  His father’s lack of wisdom in raising his children created a painful family situation.  In the second scenario, he was sold into slavery, becoming a slave in a foreigner’s house in a foreign land.  And in the last scenario, he got as low as he could get:  he was falsely accused and put into prison.

In each of these situations, his plans were disregarded, his rights were violated, his dignity was disrespected, and any sense of control over his life and activity was taken from him.  Yet in each of these situations, he flourished.  He loved.  He served.  He suffered.  He was out of control.  But everything that he did, gives the impression that he was free, in the most meaningful sense of the word.  Faith gave him freedom.  Faith gave him hope.  Faith led him to be able to focus on the needs and wants of others.

We can apply these ideas in our own lives as Christians on a personal level in our families, in our churches, and in our jobs:  we can have a confidence and a joy and a hope that even if our experience is like a prison, we know who ultimately holds the keys to the cell we feel like we’re in.  So don’t allow your family members to hold the keys, your co-workers to hold the keys, or people you’re upset with in church to hold the keys.  If you feel like you’re in a prison cell because of other people’s actions, have faith that God is the one who actually holds the keys, and flourish where he has you.

And on a national level, what is our message as Christians?  Is our message as Christians that we are victims?  Is our message that our rights are being taken away from us?  And what should we do in response, even if that’s the case?

Should our message be one of complaint?  Should we complain about all of the people who hold the keys and are preventing us from doing what God has called us to do?  I think not.  I think the best response is, by faith, to proclaim with joy that God holds the keys.  Paul, in Philippians one and two expresses the same idea.  He says, “yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance.” (Php 1:18, 19)

And so whatever our situation, our message is Christ.  Our attitude is joy.  And our activity is service and love, looking not to our own interests, but to the interests and needs of others.

-Mark

Looking carefully at the whole, Genesis is an important book to study because it talks a lot about beginnings.  But if you jam all of that beginning stuff from chapters one through five – you have to stay on schedule you know – into one day and move on, the question stands, have you effectively talked about some pretty significant things?

This particular group will have not had studied Hebrew yet.   (Lord willing, they’ll have it in a one-week session in January – we won’t go into the logistics of cramming any amount of Hebrew into one week…)

Not having Hebrew may not seem like a big deal, but being able to study Genesis in the original Hebrew enables the reader, in some ways, to have a clearer understanding of what Moses was saying.

For example, to say something very strongly in Hebrew is to say it three times, ‘holy, holy, holy.’  But saying it three times is to make it the maximum of that thing, sort of like ‘holy, More Holy, REALLY HOLY-THE HOLIEST!’  Not reading the Hebrew, a reader of a translation would not really feel that without help or additional notes.  It’s merely a repetition.

Also, if you read the text in Hebrew, all of a sudden you know the meaning of everybody’s name.  Adam means ‘man,’ Joseph means ‘being added to’, and Isaac means ‘laughter,’ which really underscores the story of Abraham and Sarah and their being astounded at having a child so late in life.  cThere are a lot of other cool things, but I think you get the point.*

The class will be pretty small, all third year students, coming into Kiev for this two-week session.  They’ll have Genesis in the afternoons, and will be immersed in Theology 3 in the mornings.

So back to the pacing of the book, Mark has decided to look at the whole in four chunks, chapters 1-3 covering those really big beginning things, chapters 4-11 looking at the genealogies - what they mean, and how they function, chapters 12-26 looking at Abraham’s life, and chapters 27-50, looking at the lives of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.

Mark loves it when his students ask questions, and as he often says, ‘I’d rather have them disagree with me than fall asleep.’  It gets to be a challenge to balance the questions with time remaining, but it’s a challenge he enjoys.

When the students walk away with a lot of questions, eager to dig even further, eager to share what they’ve learned, that’s what it means when we say, ‘Mark’s going to teach a class on Genesis.’

*If you’d like to know some more, just say so!  We can start a conversation on facebook, or can trade emails.  You’ll have tapped into something Mark really, really likes to talk about!

The last night, during the evening service, we were just enjoying a last evening together. The weather had turned cold – not completely unusual for here – so we canceled our plans for the campfire and improvised indoors.

There’s one camper who hadn’t been able to participate very much in the various activities because of his physical disabilities, but Kolya has come to camp each year, and he and his mother seem to really enjoy the time at camp.  Kolya cannot speak in the ordinary way, and few other than his mother can understand what he does say.  His limbs will not do anything he wants them to do, and he has to be lifted in and out of his chair.  He cannot do anything for himself, not even eat.

Artur (yellow shirt) hugging Kolya

Kolya is not limited intellectually, and has finished high school.  As he watches and listens, he’ll grin or frown, following closely whatever is going on.  Pastor Sasha knows Kolya really well and I guess had just wanted to do something a little special.

Ilya giving Kolya a hug

So that last night, during that evening time, he and another young man lifted Kolya out of his chair (mom ok’d it), and carried him around so that the other campers could give him hugs.

Kolya’s face was plastered with the biggest smile, and it was a real delight for the other campers.  Lifting Kolya lifted us all.

Once she had a filled a huge box full of goodies, including those soft, spongy half-page sheets that can be used for about a million different projects.  She had also picked up packages of every possible color of pipe cleaner, and even some packages of extra fluffy pipe cleaners. Another time she gave me about a thousand small shapes of the same spongy material, in such bright colors that they would be useful for all sorts of projects!

I can’t bring her to Ukraine, but I can bring her love and share it liberally.  It is so cool how God uses his kids to do his work!