Singing and Witnessing in the Chernivtsi Park

Saturday is always a mixed-up day as we meet the local mission team members in the morning and do something in the afternoon. After six trips I think we've done something different every trip.

Today the Odessa youth team hit the central park in Chernivtsi with some singing and others witnessing and handing out the plan of salvation bracelets. Sandy and Samantha joined us with their interpreter as our interpreters for the camp are already there. They brought Pastor Victor along who is one of the local pastors.

That's Keenan from DuQuoin on the guitar with Aubrey as the other major vocalist. They're joined by Vitalic, one of our drivers lip-synching at one point as well as Sandy from Second and Natasha of Chernivtsi, a member of the Source of Life church who's helping with music playing the piano with a messianic Jewish congregration. I'm the one behind the iPad shooting the video.

It's pretty early in our visit and everyone was still getting warmed up. At one point you'll here Sandy ask someone, "Do you want a bracelet."

Other groups went downtown and some I think were heading to a market to witness.

The youth teams leaves in 27 minutes for Odessa. We're driving overnight to stay cool as the van lacks air conditioning.

Eva and Peggy Sue got a surprise today when they learned they will be a witness team with Pastor Nicoli and will be visiting probably some of the Romanian-langauge villages in the area. Tom and I went with him a few days last year as did Ron Ellis. They thought they were doing a backyard Bible club.

I got a surprise today. One of the 15-year-old interpreters helping Sandy and Samantha told me I looked familiar. I told him I'd been here two years before. Later he told me I went to his parents' home last year with Tom and we gave our testimonies. I remember that visit. We had three or four families with at least 10 or 12 listening as we sat ourside in the backyard. He's now a member of the Source of Life Church that's our major partner over here.

I think I've got Sandy set up to use Blogger as she brought her iPad as well. If everything works out she'll be able to provide updates as to what's happening with the crews in Chernivtsi. I'm not sure our connectability will be at the camp, or if we will get into Odessa much so I can update. Right now I'm in the santuary at Source of Life church charging the iPad and using their WiFi listening to Keenan play some more music. Our vans should arrive in nine minutes now.

Derek, I know, was heading out to one of the villags like he did on the last trip. He's got the same interpreter as well. I'm not sure if Bettie and Larry are going to be staying out in a village or using the hotel as homebase.

Everyone's doing well. Keep us in your prayers. We're keeping the new minister preaching in the morning at Second Baptist. May he be the one God has planned for our church.

Ready to Start Day 1 in Chernivtsi

There's nothing like a good's night sleep in a nice hotel - and we certainly did experience it last night at the Hotel Andinna here in Chernivtsi.

For everyone reading who's been on earlier trips and stayed at the Cheremosh. There's certainly no comparison.

Breakfast this morning was eggs sunny-side up, ham, bread and something to drink, including Pepsi-Cola in a glass bottle if you didn't want juice, coffee or tea.

Today we're scheduled to go to the big church here in a few minutes to meet the other pastors, interpreters and drivers. Some old faces we saw last night when we arrived at the hotel.

The Odessa bunch leaves later today for the camp. It's about a 10-hour drive we're told.

Keep all of us in your prayers.

Russian Language Bill Causes Riots

The English-language version of the Moscow Times reported today that Ukrainians are rioting over an official language law rammed through parliament that would make Russian the official language in 13 of the country's 27 regions.

The law is actually a compromise of sorts from previous attempts to make Russian a co-equal official language with Ukrainian on a national basis. Under Soviet rule prior to independence Russian was the only official language.

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside a government building in Kiev where Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was expected to give a news conference that was then reportedly canceled.

Demonstrators hurled bottles and sticks at the police, and both sides used pepper spray, reports said. Police also used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

Yanukovych is expected to soon sign the bill into law, allowing Russian to be used in courts, schools and other state institutions in the selected regions, mostly in the nation's east. Ukrainian would remain the only national language.

This could become interesting for us. In Lviv where we are flying into a week from Friday, protests have already started with activists blocking entrances to the regional government building and are calling for long-term protests, the paper quoted from Interfax.

More ominously, "politicians pledged to block roads and railways if the bill is not scrapped."

President Yanukovych is regarded as pro-Russian. Our mission trip is in the western part of the country where he's not well-liked and residents want greater ties to the West, both Europe as well as the United States.

In Kiev, the speaker of parliament resigned claiming the vote was illegitimate. His deputy stepped down as well.

Ironically, supporters of the law claim it follows principles set forth under the constitution for the European Union as it applies to ethnic minorities. The bill gives official status to any language spoken by 10 percent of a region's population.

That means in the Chernivtsi oblast, Romanian would be recognized as an official language. That portion of the country actually was a part of Romania between World War I and World War II.

Ukrainian and Russian are Slavic languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet. Romanian is a Romance language closely related to Spanish and Italian that uses the Roman alphabet that we use.

Road signs in the country already use both Russian and Ukrainian for place names where both languages are spoken. In Chernivtsi, Romanian names are also used.

New Hotel Selected for Chernivtsi

Brother Bob has confirmed that we will be staying at a different hotel in Chernivtsi this time, but he didn't remember the name.

But thanks to Oleta's interpreter Wally Vasylovych who's been translating our testimonies into Ukrainian, we now have the name. It's the Andinna Hotel, or Hotel Andino.

If you have a Google toolbar, or if you're using a Google Chrome browser you can get their site translated from Russian into English. Even without a translation you can still check out the photos.

I think I remember seeing this hotel before while it was under construction, but I don't know why we would have been in that neighborhood unless it was to visit someone. If I've got the right spot and AccommodationBook.com says it is, then it will be much closer to the churches than the Cheremosh where we've stayed in previous years.


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If you want to see what we will be missing this year, check out these photos of the Hotel Cheremosh from TripAdvisor.com. The Andinna will definitely be an improvement.

160 Decisions for Christ

According to the figures compiled by Brother Bob there were around 160 decisions made by Ukrainians this past week to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour.

While Larry Avery and Bettie Dugger saw the largest and most impressive outpouring of the Holy Spirit with all of the decisions made in the villages where they worked on the northwestern edge of Chernivtsi, all of the teams who went out on home visits saw immediate results.

What won't be known for some time will be the fruits of the seeds planted this past week.

Dealing with the youth this week I was disappointed in not seeing immediate results, particularly when I found out that we were going to be dealing with kids more than teenagers and young adults. I haven't helped with Vacation Bible School since I took part in it as a kid myself.

Needless to say they nearly wore us out, especially the imp on the left of this picture from some of the kids from Anadoly, a small village downriver from Khotyn and about an hour away from Chernivtsi.

We were there most of the day on Monday and Tuesday, playing games, teaching songs, and just generally telling kids about God. It wasn't called Vacation Bible School, but that's the closest description if take a normal 4-hour VBS schedule and triple it to 12 hours.

On the previous Friday and Saturday we went to the home of Brother Simon, one of the assistant pastors at First Baptist Church in Chernivtsi. His family was hosting the equivalent of a Backyard Bible Club in his garage with games at a nearby park down the street.



Like I mentioned earlier, I was disappointed at first when I learned that we had missed the week of youth camps and would be present for a week of kid camps. I didn't feel like what we were doing was as important as the other teams.

No matter how many times Jesus' words kept flowing through my mind - "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these (Luke 18:16 NIV)" - I still didn't see the connection until we all started comparing notes on the van ride to Lviv yesterday.

Oleta Arnold told of a visit she and my mother Betty Musgrave made to some friends of Brother Simon a day or so after we worked with the kids at his house. After witnessing to the family, including the two kids, repented and accepted Christ.

Later she asked the man of the house who had not wanted to sit down long enough to listen, why he finally did and made the decision he made. His answer was surprising. It was hearing the songs about Jesus and God his children had come home singing that they had learned from us and Brother Simon's children.

Welcome to the Cheremosh

These aren't the greatest images but simply the best I could find online.

This is the Hotel Cheremosh in Chernivtsi - our base of operations in the city so far for every mission trip since 1993. It's located on the south end of the city — "not far" from the city center as they advertise, but certainly not close.

It's 11 stories with 326 rooms. Each room as a TV, phone and private bathroom. Other amenities that it offers but which we've never used except the currency exchange is a hairdressers' salon, sauna, post office and secure parking service.

Sometime between our trip two summers ago and last fall it opened a business center on the main floor with high-speed internet which I plan on using to update this blog.

Here's the lobby. The front desk is on the right and the bank of elevators down at the end of the hall.

You can barely see the open staircase on the right side of the picture. That goes up to the in-house travel agency and the currency exchange which overlooks the lobby below.

Between the stairs and the front desk is a hall that goes back to the business center.

Here's the type of rooms that we've used every trip. As you can tell they are pretty basic. They also (usually) include a small refrigerator as well as a private bathroom.

We're cheap and we get the basic rooms. The hotel does provide better accommodations, though they are just as dated.

When I was here last fall I was told they were upgrading some of the rooms and trying to go from a three star hotel to a four star hotel. They even had a red carpet running up the front entrance and the staff were in new uniforms. It also seemed that there were more of them who spoke or at least understood English.

I'll leave with you with one last picture. This is the pool, which I had never seen until I ran across this picture.

We Have Arrived!

We have arrived.

Here's the satellite view of the city.


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Chernivtsi Ranked as Best City in Ukraine

I always knew Chernivtsi was special, but Focus magazine has just ranked the city the best city in all of Ukraine, ahead of the capital Kiev which came in second.

The Ukrainian Journal has part of the story.

The editorial staff of the magazine, jointly with the experts, rated participants according to 15 criteria, in particular: the development of infrastructure, the level of criminality, the ecological situation, tourism and investment attractiveness, and the average salary.

Chernivtsi ranked first due to high points on all criteria. The highest marks were given to the city for its business activity.

Just from my time in the city and some of the surrounding communities including Lviv which is three times the size, it looks like Chernivtsi has as much if not more business activity. It's become a city of entrepreneurs and small businesspeople.

And while secular magazines may not notice, we shouldn't miss the fact that Chernivtsi and the region around it is the Bible Belt of Ukraine. Divine blessings play a major role in the life of believers and that area has a bigger percentage of born-again Christians than other parts of the country.

On that subject here's a video from a 2004 Christmas musical at what we refer to as First Baptist Church in Chernivtsi. It was just posted online last week by "bodanik", the soloist in the video who now lives in Portland.

Why Ukrainian Churches Don't Have Steeples

If you notice in this picture of the front of the First Baptist Church in Chernivtsi, there is no steeple nor cross on top.

First Baptist isn't the only one like that. None of the Baptist churches do.

At first when I was here in 2001 I thought it was a relic left over from the officially-atheistic Soviet era, but it turns out it may not be.

Finally in my role of historian I had a chance to ask Brother Benjamin, the superintendent of the region's Baptist association, why there were no steeples.

He repeated to me his story of being beaten by his village's Orthodox priest using the crucifix around the priest's neck. Apparently his tale isn't the only such story passed down by the generation that still remembers the Orthodox persecution of Baptists during the time between World War I and World War II when Romania ruled the Chernivtsi region and Baptist churches were suppressed.

Between the negative reinforcement of crucifix-carrying priests and active destruction against minority churches in pre-war Romania and all churches during the Soviet era, there has never been any desire to build steeples.

It's also worth noting that the large Pentecostal church that we pass frequently also does not have a steeple nor cross over it.

Only the Orthodox and Catholic churches have them, such as this Orthodox prayer chapel located just a block away from First Baptist Church.

Source of Life Church Stays Young

Source of Life Baptist Church, formerly Fourth Baptist, is the outgrowth of a evangelism crusade in 1995.

For years afterward its pastor Brother Vasily was the eldest one in the church.

A four person band and worship team led the singing Sunday morning and the style of worship is noticably different than in the more traditional First Baptist Church.

Even today, with its new location on a hill overlooking the southern outskirts of Chernivtsi, the church is very young with most of church leadership consisting of men in their 20s and early 30s.

The church "elders" are shown in the second picture with me standing on the right. Wally, my interpreter who is one of the assistant pastors at this church is on the right in the first row.

The church reaches the lost in many ways, but particularly through an intensive effort of summer camps. The church provides leadership for a variety of camps that run from the end of May to the end of August.

There are camps for the physically handicapped, for children, families, youth leaders, teenagers and the blind with a goal of about 50 percent coming from the Baptist churches in the region and 50 percent from unchurched families.

The church subsidizes about half the cost of the camp to help keep the price affordable for students and families.

After the fall of communismn the church was able to acquire a former Young Pioneers (Communist youth) camp out in the country that they have been slowly renovating. While I haven't been out there on this trip, I were able to see a big difference last year compared with what it looked like on my first trip in 2001.

Church No. 4 Changes Name & Location

Wally belongs to what used to be called Church No. 4, or 4th Baptist in Chernivtsi.

In March they moved to a new building which is much nicer than the old one. They've also changed their name over the last year to Source of Life Baptist Church.

The church is located on top of a hill overlooking the edge of town. An apple orchard surrounds the church.

Apparently another church began constructing this building about a decade ago, but it turned out that the pastor was a better carpenter than a preacher.

Once they finished the building the church had not grown enough to support it so 4th Baptist was able to find a new home.

The top picture of inside Sunday morning. I took it about 10 minutes before the services began. The next photo Wally took of me while I was singing.

The church's previously located was off of an alley downtown in what had once been a Jewish synagogue before being turned into a meeting hall for young communists.

New Trip Planned Next Week

It's been 14 months since we returned from Chernivtsi and I plan to take my vacation there next week. It will be part vacation and part preparation for next year's mission trip in the summer of 2008.

It's neat to see how much technology as grown over the last few years. In 2006 we had cell phones and this blog. Now I can find Chernivtsi videos on YouTube.

Here are a few. The first is scenery and street scenes from what appears to be a Russian native as he uses the Russian spelling of Chernovtsy.



Here's another one of street scenes posted this June with better music and more interesting comments. It's titled Chernivtsi (the Ukrainian spelling) but check out the spellings used in the comments. They really show the history of the city. There's the Russia "Chernovtsy", the German/Austrian "Czernowitz", as well as the Romanian "Cernauti".



A third video focuses on historic photographs and postcards of the city.



Another video posted a couple of months ago shows the city's more recent history in 2004 during the pro-democracy Orange Revolution.



One of the churches that we've visited in the past has been Church 4 which was originally built as a Jewish synagogue and later turned into a Communist Youth Hall after the Holocaust.

The city once had a large minority population of Jews in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. This clip posted in July by a German appears to be a retrospective of part of the lost Jewish history of the city.



On a lighter note this one shows how much American culture - particularly Californian pop culture - has found its way back to the homeland of many Ukrainian immigrants. This one is break dancing, and yes, white boys can dance, particularly if they were raised on soccer and gymnastics. These guys are impressive.



Here's another one.



And finally, the drivers are somewhat wild in Ukraine, but at least not all of them are as bad as this Chernivtsi driver.



I hoping that the presence of these and other videos on YouTube means there's more high speed internet now in the city. The dial-up connection at the Cheremosh Hotel is extremely slow and the internet cafe we visited in 2004 wasn't much better.