Gospel News · May - August 2017

31
Carelinks | Ukraine Bible School
T
hanks to your support and donations, this
major event went off well.
Bro David Welch from Teignmouth ecclesia, UK
came over and he reports as follows: “Four
superb days in Kiev draw to a close as I write.
I had never been to the Ukraine or anywhere
east of Innsbruck in my life and was much
more acclimatised to plus 30 degrees by visits
to Jamaica than below freezing virtually all
the time in Ukraine. However I was assured
that I would not be outside at all and that
proved the case. About fifty brethren and
sisters gathered on the Thursday morning.
Most had come a distance. Three or four from
the war area on the eastern border, and one
or two from Russia, Poland, Belarus and
Moldova, and the rest from various parts of
Ukraine. Kiev is at almost a
central point in the country
and quite near the northern
border. It is a large sprawling
city with the airport well out
to the west. The building for
the Bible School was half-an-
hour beyond the last build-
ings in Kiev on the east so the
taxi from the airport took
nearly an hour-and-a-half.
Each day there were usually
four sessions of Bible explo-
ration. Two or three of the
sessions were devoted to the
early chapters in 2
Corinthians for no better reason than to ring
the changes with previous years, reading each
time of year the same chapters from the Bible
Companion. Because the Bible School falls on
roughly the same date every year, the chap-
ters from the Bible had always been the same
year on year. Hence the slight change this
year, reading the daily readings from March.
The other sessions had the common theme:
“‘Your ways are not My ways’, saith the
Lord”. Alex and Igor turned my English into
beautiful Russian. I was surprised how sweet
the sound of Russian was. The main function
of the building in which we were accommo-
dated was to provide recovery facilities for
the wounded in the war. Some readers may
recognise the irony.
The food was adequate with a preponderance
of rice and pasta. From the menu I understood
that fish was a Ukrainian favourite. As I like
fish, I did not mind that at all. Each session
ended with lively and good-humoured ques-
tions and answers. Brethren
and sisters showed a very
good knowledge of the Bible
and the Truth in Christ.
There were four baptisms in
the bath tub in my bedroom.
No one seemed to mind that
I tidied and cleared the room
just in time. Two were a
married couple, Alexei and
Marina. They had brought
their two young children
with them all the way from
the war zone in the East,
Marina’s baptism
~ continued ...