I have a ton of pictures from the three conferences that we held. If you would like to see more, please let me know, but I am just going to post a few. I took alot of pictures of specific people that were at the conferences, but I'll tell you all about them. Tomorrow I will post about the "other things" we did with the missionaries while we were in Kharkov.
In Ukraine, March 8th is Women's Day. It is sorta a combination of Valentine's Day and Mother's Day, except it is for all women. Women receive flowers, chocolate, and goodies from the men in their lives. Women of all ages get treats. It is a national holiday, so everyone is off work for it too. So a few years back, the missionaries in conjunction with some local Ukrainians decided to do conferences for women on that day, and that brings us to now. This being the first year that they have done for than 1 conference.
Ok, so Friday was for Older and Retired Women. Two of the women from our group spoke and then a local woman gave a talk. We had interpreters that interpreted for us while we were speaking as well as while the Ukranian was speaking. On Saturday the conference was for Single and Young Women. Myself and Bev spoke. Bev did awesome really connecting with the ladies and I have no idea what I really said haha!! I spoke on Matthew 15, but what I said will remain a mystery to me:) Then on Monday we hosted a conference for Middle Aged women, where Joanna and Betty (my roomie) spoke at. Again, the women really enjoyed these two speakers. The Ukrainian women come prepared to speak or read a poem or sing. They like to do that and don't mind about time constraints. It is special to know that they are just there to hear the word of God and to participate in worship through various means. We provided lunch each conference for the women.
Here is one of the woman at the Friday conference. Like I said I have a ton more pictures but am not going to post them all on here. I think the people are so pretty but you can tell they have had a difficult life. The Christians are friendly but in general the people look tired, never look you in the eyes in public and use different manners than I am used to. Married women cover their head in church and they stand for prayer.
Don't mind my hair I didn't use a straightener all week:) These two gals were two of five that got up at 3 am and rode a train for 5 hours to get to the conference. Impressive! Again, I am impressed that they are coming not to be entertained, have multimedia presentations or eat good food. They are genuine in their worship and I keep saying it, because I mean it, it was so refreshing to be around. Don't get me wrong, I like to be entertained, etc but I wonder if I would ride on a train for 5 hours like they did? What about you... what do you go to church for? What do you go to conferences or retreats for? I know there are times I could learn alot from these Ukrainian believers.
The six of us, all well. This is our only pictures that we were all feeling well. Four of the six of the women ended up sick. I only knew one woman before going on the trip and had meant the other ladies once or twice. These women are so amazing and I had such a great time with Betty the entire time. We both stayed well, so we'll room together anytime:)
The conferences had approximately 250 women total. One of the missionaries estimated that we probably came into contact with 400 people to share the Good News with. How exciting but we pray the seeds to be watered and lives changed.
Tomorrow... meet the missionaries and what else we did while in Ukraine!
Comments