Naomi was kind enough to share with us a little of what she wrote in her diary on Sunday. Below is a picture of Naomi and Noelle standing in front of the opera theater in downtown Odessa on Sunday.

We had a great time yesterday at our first Zhatva (thanksgiving) It rained on Saturday so we weren’t sure what the weather would be like.

This morning we were invited to attend the wedding for our secretary at the CMI. The wedding cerimony took place as part of the morning worship service in their church.

This morning I snuck out before sunrise and took a walk down to the Black Sea shore in Yuzhne. I was pleasantly suprised by the beauty of God’s creation.

The village of Shamanovka is about 25 km outside of Odessa. The only way to get there is by driving throught the fields following the dirt path left by tractors and a few cars.

Pandemonium broke out just a block from our house in our local market when the market guards began to violently beat people.

Our Sunday turned out a bit longer than expected today. After the regular service we had a members meeting that lasted about 4 hours.

Noelle and Anastasia spent two weeks with Christina’s parents in Cherkassy while the rest of us came down to Odessa,

We went to the Kuyalnik estuary for a picnic to celebrate the first day of school. We found out that Israel really has nothing on Ukraine when it comes to salty bodies of water.

Yesterday I visited the new church plant in the village of Lemani. This is a medium sized village just off the Black Sea coast between Odessa and Nickolaev.