Sunday

By the time I settled down at 11:30 pm on Sunday, I was exhausted and didn't blog about the day.  Sunday was wonderful here in Donetsk

I got up and had coffee and bread with butter and cherry preserves (a kind of sour cherry that I learned to love in Romania).  Roman and Svitlana came about 10:30 and we made a video to send to my church.  Never were able to send it because the internet was too slow for a large file and our prepaid usb broadband account kept showing 0 Hrivnas even after we put money.  Finally we gave up and I let folks at church know that we wouldn't be able to send it.  I will send it when I can find an internet cafe.  We went to the public market (you should see the warren of alleys and shops and meat markets and bread shops and incredible fresh vegetables and organic fruit and dried fruit and Orthodox religious stores and and and......  We bought a number of things to fee the group after worship and people started drifting into my apartment around noon for a two o'clock service.  We put everyone to work cutting bread and kielbasa (different from at home) and pork sausage and a couple of kinds of aged cheese and a couple of kinds of halvah for something sweet after the service.  When we finally started service, we were 14 people, of whom Svitlana was the only woman and a straight one at that.  There was also a straight young man. And one even calls himself half-Orthodox and half-Buddhist. Service was good.  People felt free to ask questions and make comments during the service which I very much appreciated.  We had communion together.  Before the service was finished, one young man said he wanted to be baptized and a second said he did too.   I suggested that we finish service, send everyone off to eat something in the kitchen and the boys would meet with Roman and me to talk about baptism.   I was blown away by their ability to articulate what it was they were seeking as a spiritual life.  We told them to choose a sponsor/godparent.  One chose but was refused and then asked another.  The second boy chose the first boy so we had to baptize him first so he could sponsor the other.  We went out onto the balcony and I half-drowned each of them.  They were greeted by heart-felt applause by the other members of the community.  We then ate and visited for several hours. Every single scrap of food and drink was consumed.  Roman and I drove Svitlana home and hung out at her house for hours.  It was well after eleven when we got home.  Svitlana must be related to our Roza because she just says whatever she's thinking.  It's kind of refreshing, if occasionally shocking.  That was Sunday.