Happenings in Ukraine, 2009.

At the moment I'm home for 3 and half months in Tasmania.

I went to a conference at a place called Yellow Water. A lot of people go to Yellow Water from all over Ukraine to this conference. I enjoyed this conference as it was really well organized and had good topics. I spoke at this conference last year and Cassie, an American girl from our church, was a speaker this year.

We started Home Groups in our church. We divided the church into two. It was good to meet together through the week and study God in more depth than at church on Sunday.

This year was a combined church service with all the other churches in Rzhishchiv. Once a month we would meet at the centre of town. I think this is good for the Ukrainians to mix with other Christians from their town. We are all Christians with the same God but with a few different views.

We also started having a day for handicap kids in the town. We went horse riding for the kids that could ride horses. After that we gave them dinner and we showed them a short movie. Sveta (a girl from church) talked to them about God. This was very special for them. Handicap kids here are really just forgotten, and never really taken out into society at all. Their parents stay home and look after them all day. So this day was just as much for the parents as for the kids. We are going to keep this day going for each month. So please pray for these days.

We continued growing strawberries but more tomatoes. We had heaps of tomatoes so during the season I sold many at the markets on Friday mornings. Most of the season I had 4 workers all from the church here which was good. It was disappointing that we had a lot of strawberries and tomatoes stolen from our farm. We saw most of the people whom we thought were stealing our produce and threatened them with the police. After that it was much better. Another thing I did this season was make good old tomato relish which turned into a bit of a hit. A lot of the Americans here love it. And a lot of the Ukrainians like it also. So I think I will concentrate a bit on tomato relish next season. Here in Ukraine sauces and mayonnaise are just about a food group by themselves and relish seem to be just different enough from other sauces here. The people love it.

I bought a scooter. It was worth its weight in gold. I wish I had bought one earlier. When my bus is at the mechanics I can still get around, which seems to be far too often. Here in Ukraine I don't need a motorbike license to drive a scooter and I don't need any paper work either so that is good.

I also played cricket. It was good. It's only a short season of about 8-10 weeks. So every second Saturday I would go into Kiev for cricket training. I mainly played with Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankan's, and Wayne Zschech, another Australian pastor of a a neighboring church in Kaharlyk. Wayne and I made a lot of new friends and hopefully made some sort of impact in some of the lives of the people we play with and against. They know that we are Christians and would ask us all sort of questions.

Wayne also has a biodiesel factory which he runs. I've been buying my diesel off Wayne this year and it seems to be very good. It would be good to pray for Wayne and his church and the biodiesel factory that he is running.

I had the privilege of going to Crimea which is south of Ukraine near the Black Sea. I have been wanting to go to Crimea all the time I have been in Ukraine and this is my first and probably only time there. So Jono, Jon, Ruth and I decided to go for 6 days. I had a great time down there and it was good to see heaps of fresh blue water again and the smell of salt water. I miss the fresh blue water as in Tassie that I could see every day. In Rzhishchiv I had not seen it for almost two years.

A group of us from the church got together and started an English speaking club. On Tuesday nights we would go to one of the colleges here and teach basic English. It has been very successful with about 15 people coming. We are hoping to get some of these people to church in the near future.

Thanks for your support through the year that was. It will be good to catch up with people while I'm here is Tassie.

Gaven Ollington