Featured Photo: the Bible Classes continued on Friday night with a good number present and a good number listening to the class on their telephones.
The work in Ivano-Frankivsk for this trip is coming too quickly to an end. Much has been done and much remains to be done! Friday night was the last class in session. I will speak Sunday at worship and then plan to fly to Kherson, then go to Odesa, then go to Kyiv and end the trip in Lviv. So, the next 1.5 weeks will be a constant blur of movement. I was told that because of the bitter feelings of east vs west that all transportation in Ivano-Frankivsk and other cities in the west are going to be shut down in the name of COVID prevention. However, all cities in the east and in Odesa are fully open and enjoying free access. Trains and busses are to be stopped but airplanes can fly. I’m scheduled to fly so I am told there will be no problem. All that is required is a temp check on your wrist. But I was told that since I was coming from a “red zone” I might be quarantined for two weeks. It seems to be a worldwide phenomenon that the protocols for COVID are allowed to change at the whim of each person! (remember how 72 hrs suddenly morphed into 48 hrs?)
Our Friday night classes went very well. We had good crowds at both classes and good discussions. In the How to build a GREAT Church we discussed how personal evangelism is urgently needed and is obligatory for every member of the congregation. There was good discussion about some practical matters associated with talking to your family, friends and work associates.
Friday and Saturday have been spent taking care of some basic maintenance tasks over here. A number of us who work in Ukraine have had problems wiring funds. So, one of my to-dos was to find a bank that would cooperate with us. Bill Wharton helps to feed school children in the eastern Region of Donetsk (the free part). He usually wires funds via Wells Fargo but for some unknown reason that bank had shut down wiring into Ukraine. I was able to help out in getting funds there but it was an unbelievable gauntlet to run. But it was done!
On one of my trips to get items I took a taxi with a talkative driver. When he learned I was an American he became excited talking about the many American cars (Chevrolet; Ford; etc) that are over here. He said, “Those cars are not made to last very long.” He is driving a 1980 Mercedes that has ONE-MILLION 500 THOUSAND kilometers on its speedometer! As we were driving he made this statement, “I hear that the America today is very different from the America in the 1960s and 1970s.”
Tomorrow brings me to my last Lord’s Day in the Church in Ivano-Frankivsk for this trip. I am to depart by airplane on Monday evening for Kherson. It should be an interesting trip navigating the COVID anarchy!
Thank you for your interest, concerns and prayers!
John L. Kachelman, Jr.
(Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine)
