leaving today

We will be leaving nikopol tuesday eveneing - our flight leaves early thursday morning, and arrives thursday evening (local time) in minnesota.

On the Ukrainian Christmas (Jan 7th) We had our Christmas/New Year program. First, the children performed a short "play" - a five minute nativity skit. They concluded with a song (in Russian) which Benjamin also sang. After the skit I gave a slideshow presentation of the events of the last year. Some of you will probably see this presentation.

Joseph and Mary - Adele and Benjamin

The angels, Naturally - Veronica and Alina

our shepherds, Ephraim and David

We had a number of visitors for the play. Nastia's mother came and enjoyed our program very much.

New Sister!

Lena was baptized this afternoon after services. I had to arrive before 8 to start to fill the baptistry. There were some difficulties getting warm water, as our electric service to the building is only 20 amps! This makes it dificult to decide what we want to heat. We finally got it filled, but a few of the ladies thought it was inhuman to baptize at anything less than 80 degree water. Fortunately, Lena was not one of those women! Since it was so cold, and she has health problems, we did not waste any time with formalities, but did everything ahead of time and baptized her promptly as soon as she sat down. She will have to go to Dnipropetrovsk for surgery, and so it may be a little while before we see her again. please pray for her.