|
Staff Reports
Reports of recent Trips and Work by Godspeed Missionary Care
|
|
|
Staff Missionary Reports
Reports and Experiences of the Godspeed Staff
"Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made
my life secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in
pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance"
Psalm 16:5-6, NIV
Ukraine, December, Continued
Sometimes the rough translation of another language says more
than would the exact: "Life was not good. Then I started the
long period of warm Christian life..." these the words of a
young Ukrainian missionary who describes his earlier days of
rebellion and what his life is like now that he is serving
Christ.
View from the train - the trip from Dnepropetrovs'k to Kharkov
takes about five hours; while there are several brief stops in
larger towns, most of the journey is through long stretches of
bleak, snow covered landscape punctuated by isolated small
villages. There may be less than thirty homes in each village,
few improved roads, fewer still automobiles, several inhabitants
meeting at the town well to bring water back to their homes.
One older man walking with a cane has trained his dog to carry
the water pail; others are pulling sleds on the icy paths. It
all looks rather simple, even primitive. I wonder how the
villagers spend their time, what they think about as they go
through their daily routines. My life seems so much more
complex, certainly at times excessively so. And as I watch the
villages pass by my window, I recall that several thousand years
ago in another small village in winter there was another
seemingly simple event that has made it possible for us to
experience the blessings of these two weeks.
Thanks to His coming into such simple surroundings so long ago,
we have been able to sit around a table in a small Ukrainian
flat, sharing the chicken and potatoes and cabbage prepared by
the members of a missionary team. In the time we have been in
Ukraine we have met people of different ages from a different
culture with different backgrounds from ours and different daily
lives who still cherish the same things we cherish: love,
laughter, marriage, children, even the teachings that come from
the hard times. We are in fellowship, more so than I could
have ever imagined or asked for. How incredibly pleasant are my
portion and my cup.
We leave in the morning to return to the U.S. As we celebrate
what happened in that simple village centuries ago, we would
wish for you that this season would find your boundary lines
in pleasant places, and that you and those you love will
continue to enjoy the long period of warm Christian life...
Godspeed,
Barney, for Karen and the Godspeed team
|
|
