How Can I Keep from Blogging?

It is Friday morning in Ukraine. Yawn. Stretch. Shake the willies out.

Yesterday, therefore, was Thursday. What a day! What shall I talk about?

Shall I talk about Andrei, a musician who works as plumber by day and in his spare time reaches out to children with boxes of needed items and with the gospel when it's possible?

Shall I talk about Christina, who traveled away from her eight-month old daughter, Shekinah (think Old Testament!), to come to this conference?

Shall I talk about Julieann, who plays guitar and piano and who sings and took a 13-hour train ride to be here?

Shall I talk about Robert who's soon to be ordained as a pastor and lives in a tiny apartment with his wife and 1-year old son, Andrei, so that he can serve Christ in Mukachevo?

Shall I talk about Vitaly, a Baptist pastor well east of Kiev who's been serving his congregation for the last five years?

Shall I talk about Arpy, who is trying to farm the land here though there's so little knowledge and help available and who plans to start an orphanage? (And about whom I dreamt last night was a gang leader fighting another gang to save me from leprosy. Um, no, I won't write about that.)

Shall I talk about Greg, who helpfully wanted to tell conference participants that "in my session tomorrow I will talk about stuff" and when the translator rightfully gave him a funny look about what on earth he meant he shouted at her, "You have to say it! You're the translator!" (Don't worry: he wasn't quite as rude as it may sound on a blog; we were all getting pretty giggly by the end of the day.)

Being a liturgy geek, shall I turn my questions into hymn references? What language shall I borrow? What wondrous love? How can I keep from blogging?

By the way, one reason for starting the blog the way I did is to show that there are so many people I've met here and that it is amazing how much you can talk with a person across the boundary of language! (Of course, this is assuming I understood them.) (And all name-spellings are my best guesses.)

Greg and I each gave three presentations yesterday. Greg on the historical streams of worship (from his illustrious book; buy a copy, feed his children for another day), the Nairobi Statement, and an open rehearsal with the musicians who'll accompany us for our closing worship service today. Greg's presentation on the Nairobi Statement was super. It's all about Christ and culture - which got me thinking about Christ's incarnation. I think I nailed my Advent sermon series during that session! It seems to me that each of the four gospel accounts may have something to say about how Jesus Christ and the gospel is contextualized - or not - in culture.... Come to All Nations Church in December to hear more! : )

I presented on "Vertical Habits," the Psalms, and Meditating on God's Word through Scripture memorization and Lectio Divina. The Psalms session appeared to really get people interested. I talked about different aspects of worship that the Psalms teach us, and together we brainstormed about instances in the Psalms - what joy to search the Scriptures together! (Though there is a challenge with fact that, in the Russian Bible, the Psalms are numbered and versified differently. But no problem for Familiar-with-Catholic-Bible-and-Ancient-Hebrew-Literate Pastor (my new superhero identity): the Old Testament also versifies the Psalms differently than English and the Catholic Bible also numbers the Psalms differently and, from what I can tell, in both instances the same ways as the Russian Bible. So all I had to do was establish a little conversion table with my superpowers. No problem for Familiar-with-Catholic-Bible-and-Ancient-Hebrew-Literate Pastor.)

Today, Greg presents on stuff, I present on leading pastorally in worship, and then we close with a worship service at which Greg will lead music and I'll preach. In the afternoon we hope to see the famous Monastery Caves. I look forward to going out doors again - it'll be the first time since Tuesday. My, my, it's been busy.

Another day in Ukraine, another picture-less blog from Dave,

The Good Twin.