Bits 'n Pieces

It's snowing quite heavily here in Kherson tonight. Wonder what it will be like in the morning. We have guests arriving on the morning train from Kiev. Mel will be in meetings most of the day and I'm supposed to meet with the women on our team and Tracy, the woman on the train, sometime in the afternoon. Could be an interesting day. I do NOT like to walk in the snow here because I have no idea what is under the snow - ground, a crack or a hole. Sigh. We'll see. I would rather stay inside and work on my embroidery and weaving! (Still have to warp the loom again. That sounds so cool to me - "I still have to warp the loom." heh heh)

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In my reading around the net tonight I came across some articles about "loud booms" that people are hearing. Most are reported in the States, but they've been heard all over the world.

A few months ago, while I was sitting at the dining room table in the evening up at my parents place, working on Eithnee's baby blanket, I heard a boom. No one else heard it. The television was off or I would never have heard it myself. I actually thought there had been a gas explosion down in Woodland Park or even in Green Mountain Falls. It sounded far away and "deep". I even wondered if it wasn't deep in the earth beneath the house.

Years ago my dad was digging under the main part of the house, thinking about making an area to store some home canned fruits or something (he likes to dig, says it's his Welsh heritage) and he came across a crack in the earth. He shined a flashlight down it and dropped a couple rocks but never saw nor heard the bottom. He stopped digging. I figured it is just a space between a couple boulders - their house is on the side of a mountain after all! When I heard that boom, I wondered if something had dropped down there somewhere, way down. The house didn't shake, the dogs didn't react, I didn't see the cats so I have no idea if they reacted or not. I asked Mom later if she'd heard it, but no, she hadn't. Considering she is almost deaf, that did not surprise me. I watched for the newspaper when it came out (a weekly) and there was no news about an explosion in it. Nor was there on any of the television stations the next day.

Now I wonder. Is the boom I heard similar to the booms other people are hearing? If so - what are they??????? No one seems to know what is causing them, according to the articles I read tonight.

Strange.

I've not forgotten that boom, nope I have not. In fact, that's part of the reason the first article caught my eye. I thought it was really weird then, I think it's really weird now. {shivers} ha ha!

Most people have music playing all the time, or the television blaring away, or kids yelling and playing around. Very few people listen to silence any more. But I love silence. When you listen to silence you hear things - like unexplained loud booms far away!

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Mel reminded someone today that we are in a spiritual battle. I needed to hear that. Several things have been said or have happened since we got back to Ukraine that I am really struggling with. Because I already struggle with depression in the winter, and because I'm convinced that we are on the verge of some very, very difficult times in our world and possibly even the Great Tribulation (which I think the Church will go through), I am always processing things in my mind through those glasses. I needed to hear again that it is a spiritual battle, not a physical battle, that causes me so much struggle. I need to keep in the Word more, I need to pray more. It's not "I should", it's I NEED to do these things.

I listened to a sermon tonight and I listened to 10 chapters of John from a free audio download I found on Biblegateway.com. While I work on the embroidery or weaving I try to remember to pray. I pray for the person the item is for, and I pray for family and friends here and at home and anything else that comes to mind. I do my level best not to just sit and think. When I just sit and think I often end up going over and over and over and over in my mind things that were said, things that were done, hurts, angers, and so forth. Why is it I can't sit and think of lovely, peaceful, calm, holy things naturally?? Sigh. But that's the way I am. So, I'm going to try and download some more of the free Books of the Bible and find a way to listen to them as I work. I found it very interesting to listen to John as I played a simple game that didn't require paying attention to.

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I should get ready and go to bed. I don't think I'm going to go to sleep very soon (too much coffee too late in the day), but I am tired and I just need to think. Of course, I need to remember what I wrote in the previous section about "just thinking"!

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Last night I dreamed a dream. Someday I'll start a book with that as the first sentence.

Last night I dreamed a dream. It started out with me being John Wayne, driving a herd of cattle and one lone buffalo to market. It morphed into me, the me me, not the John Wayne me, teaching a bunch of kids all about buffalo at a Visitor's Center at some National Park somewhere, but there were no buffalo in the Center, altho I went from exhibit to exhibit explaining in detail what everything was to those very interested kids. Poor kids! Then I suddenly was trying to find a gift of a buffalo to Mel, but ended up giving him one of those bobble-headed dolls - a penguin bobble-head doll. Little gray penguin body, great big very round bobble-y head. Looked a lot like this guy, but without the blue hat:I have strange dreams sometimes.
(I'd never seen this photo before I went searching for a picture of a bobble-head penguin, so I didn't dream about it! ha ha ha)

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I would love to dream about a new house tonight. Wonder if I can convince my mind to do that. I have some of the most wonderful dreams about exploring new houses. Houses that have long corridors with lots of rooms opening up and windows to look out of and staircases to climb, and warmth. I've had several dreams of houses like that over the years. The houses go on and on and on and I'm going to live in it and make it my own and I love them. Strange since when I'm in a big house I rarely use more than two or three rooms on a regular basis. Shoot - even in this tiny flat we live in now I only go in the bedroom whenever I need to get clothes to wash or put away and at night to go to bed. Maybe if there was better light/bigger window and more room I'd go in there more often, but as it is, I spend 90% of my time in this office room or the livingroom. The rest in the kitchen with a bit in the two "little rooms".

Someday I would love a big house like that, tho. One that never needed cleaning, of course!

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I love this music, especially the piece, Ancient Spirits. I could listen to it over and over again.

Paganism

Here is the Mary idol here in Kherson.

L'viv - September 2009, Part 3

One of the things that totally astounded me this time in L'viv was the prevalence of Catholic and/or Greek Catholic churches. I'm not sure we saw or went into an Orthodox Church at all, and I'm certain we saw no Baptist or Pentecostal (or other Protestant) Churches anywhere. Of course, we were in the city center, in the oldest part of the city, and the history of L'viv is Catholic - what with being a part of Poland for years, and the Austro-Hungarian empire, and so forth. Really, that part of Ukraine has been part of Western Europe much more than a part of Eastern Europe over the centuries. Mel was meeting with the other team leaders on Monday afternoon (a week ago! wow does time fly by fast) at a local coffee shop. I and the wife and 3 girls of one of the other team leaders met them there. The guys were still meeting, so she and the girls left to go rest, and I decided to go over to the church that was literally right beside the coffee shop and 'check it out' again. Photo found here.

I sat inside for a long time, probably half an hour. I watched tourists come in, look around, snap some photos they were not supposed to take inside, and leave. I realized after a few minutes that there were workmen very quietly doing repairs behind a couple of barriers in two of the side chapels. Five or six other people came in, crossed themselves, sat on a bench or knelt down and began to pray. A woman mopped the floor, finished and then went back behind the fenced off area, went into a little door and came back out a few minutes later dressed in very nice street clothes, and left. An elderly man brought out a step ladder, climbed up behind the altar and removed the tops of several huge candlesticks, placed them on a tray, climbed down and left.

All in all very peaceful and mostly very quiet. The outside world was left behind. Everything was centered within the church. Quiet. Peaceful. Cool. Other-worldly.

I sat and looked at the paintings on the ceiling - amazing artwork, done with a lot of pink here and there. I realized that the pink 'marble' columns were really just painted expertly to look like marble. I noted that the original artists were expert at perspective and shading to make painted vases and flowers look real. I stared at the statues located along the walls, high above the congregational area and back behind the fence that kept the public out of the most 'holy' area. I noted that most of the religious paintings had to do with Mary. There were huge statues of popes and bishops and other church people. Mary here, Mary there. Photos of Pope John Paul II, flags with beautiful Ukrainian embroidery and religious embroidery. And more stuff about Mary the more I looked.

I started to feel sick. Disgusted. Sad. I had hoped to experience quietness in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the city center. Instead I felt the weight of idolatry and heresy on my shoulders.

When I had looked my fill at what was really around me - I got up, stiffly from sitting on a hard wooden bench in a cool building, and made my way out the door.

It is hard to explain exactly what it was like. I have been in a number of Catholic and Orthodox churches here in Europe. In fact, I've been in this particular church before at least twice. This is the first time I have been so very aware of the 'wrongness' of my surroundings.

I think part of it is I have done some study on Mary worship and what is going on within the Catholic church. I've also seen and read reports on the apparitions happening all over the world (I wrote about that before just a bit) and I have recently learned that Pope John Paul II actually worshipped Mary above Jesus Christ.

The crucifixes have always bothered me just a bit, but they are so common I hardly even see them any more. I've never been offended by the religious paintings of Jesus, the Apostles or the other saints. But Mary worship - that offends me deeply. More deeply than I can say, actually. There is very little difference between Mary worship and the worship of Ashtoreth or Isis or a host of other female deities from ancient religions.

There is very little difference between Mary worship and making the character in a book a big black woman named Papa and saying that is "God the Father". Even the Protestant Church is beginning goddess worship.

It all makes me want to gag.

I left that church and walked through the streets of the city center for several more minutes.

Sadness.

Knowing the history, at least a bit of it, of the Catholic church in Europe and around the world. Knowing what is taught, at least a little bit. Seeing what is taught by pictures, statues and furnishings of the Church buildings. Old man begging outside of the church. He looked Jewish to me for some reason.
The last morning we were in L'viv we heard loud chanting and praying. At first we thought it was coming from the statue of Mary that is in the park across the street. I was actually glad to see that it was coming from the area of the cross with Jesus on it instead. I have no idea what they were doing. It went on a long time. My only hope is that they were actually worshipping Jesus Christ. Just recently, within the last three or four months, the group that put the statue of Mary up in L'viv has put one up here in Kherson in one of our parks. Goddess worship. Plain and simple - goddess worship.

It makes a true Believer ill. But it no longer surprises me. We live in the Last Days and I expect to see more and more of this kind of thing happening all over the world.

(As I look up the name of the church in our guide book, I understand why all the Mary stuff. Doesn't change my thoughts, feelings and opinions, however: Arch Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

You Meant It For Evil....

”Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. Genesis 50:19-21

We had an interesting English class today. The English ability of these students ranges from barely able to understand simple sentences, to one of the best translators I have met here in Ukraine. When this class started several years ago, the students were given the choice of what they wanted to read and discuss as a way to practice their English. Mel was willing to read through some of the classics with them (English/American ones of course!) but they all insisted they wanted to read the Bible. Over the years, several of the students have left for one reason or another, yet several of the original students still attend each week, and we had new students even today. We have read Romans, I and II Samuel, a combination of Kings and Chronicles, Acts, and now we are working our way through Genesis together. Today’s lesson was not a pretty one as it was all about Jacob’s two wives, Leah and Rachel, in terrible jealousy having a race to produce the most children. There were several new words for some of the students (such as jealousy, vindication, borne, etc.). After vocabulary and phrases were studied and discussed, there was a very lively discussion about the story.

As we did last week, Mel and I left afterward and went for dinner at a pizza place. This week, however, there were only a few people in the little café. The music was also quieter much of the time, which meant we could talk without having to practically shout at each other, and no one was nearby to listen. Our discussion started with the lesson and progressed into current worldwide events.

I am glad that I believe in the total sovereignty of God. I am also glad that we are not left with only part of the story in Genesis. Oh yes, I know that we know very little about the every day lives of anyone in the book. We only know the highlights, and sometimes the very lowest points of their lives, but what God chose to reveal to us is really what matters the most. I thought ahead to “the rest of the story” and found myself feeling somewhat blue over it. I did not feel much better the longer we talked. To look back on history from our time, to be able to read what others said about the patriarchs throughout the rest of the Bible, and to see what is happening in our world today – I ask myself many times: “How do people mentally survive without faith in a sovereign God?”

Jesus answered, “Watch out that no one deceives you.
For many will come in my name claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.
You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed.
Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.
Nations will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
All of these are the beginning of birth pains.”

Mel and I talked about what it must have been like to live during the time of Jacob. His family was so very dysfunctional – in fact, that word seems very inadequate to describe them. Lying, cheating, murder, attempted murder, sexual sins – the list goes on and on! And during it all, great changes were taking place all over the world. There is no way Jacob or his sons could have known of the famine that would come in just a few years. None of them, including Joseph, could have foreseen the period of slavery in Egypt or their miraculous freeing 430 years later. None of them could have dreamed of the results their actions would produce many generations later, even down to this very day. Yes, these men lived in times of great change, in fact – they were the main characters in those changes and did not know it.

Our world is in a state of great change today. I realize that all of the news we get via internet and BBC is biased, usually toward the extreme negative. Yet, I read what is happening in the Middle East, I read of the changes happening in the United States (moral decline at such an accelerated rate and the growing influence and total acceptance of Islam as being good are two examples). I see what is happening in different churches, both here and in Western Europe and the US. I shake my head in disbelief and cry out (silently, in my mind and prayers) – God protect your people! God have mercy on us!

At a recent Bible study a person was in attendance who began contradicting what the leader said during the first five minutes of the study. This person was openly antagonistic during the whole lesson and refused to listen to anyone other than me, and then in open disbelief. And I wondered – why is this person doing this. This person is very new to the study, has only come to church a couple of times, is a “new believer.” What is the ultimate purpose here – to really search out the truth, or to cause division, confusion and ultimate destruction?

After dinner this evening we came home and settled in for the night. Mel downloaded email and was hit with an email that took some time to translate. The result is that we realize again that we have “an informer” within the church. For those who live in the West, this may seem like something out of a fairy tale, or something from out of a movie set during the Cold War. We forget that a ‘war’ is still being fought – it is a spiritual war and it is raging all around us, but that spiritual war has a physical side as well. We have been aware of this situation for quite some time, knowing that this person exists, just not knowing who he or she is. We may never know for sure. But God knows. And ultimately we can rest in that.

Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death,
and you will be hated by all nations because of me.
At that time many will turn away from the faith
and will betray
and hate each other,
and many false prophets will appear
and deceive many people.
Because of the increase of wickedness,
the love of most will grow cold,
but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.

But it is hard. It is hard to look back over our conversations with different people, our meetings with people, to remember those we have had in our home and at our table, to remember the faces of our loved ones here. And know that one of them is not who we think they are. One of them is a Judas. It is very hard.

So, what does a person do in a situation like this? Confront and take all your friends to task, searching for The One (but what if it is Two)? Distrust everyone we know? Barricade our hearts and our home from others? Give up and go home?

And this gospel of the kingdom
will be preached in the whole world
as a testimony to all nations,
and then the end will come. Matthew 24:4-14

I am reminded of Jesus in this situation. Oh how often I am reminded of His words of warning and encouragement. If these things happened to Him, the Son of God, will they not happen to us, His children, as well? Yes, they will – and they are.

I am also reminded of His prophesies of the Last Days, of Paul’s words to Timothy and to the Thessalonian church. These things happened to Paul. They happen all over the world, every day.

But God is sovereign! “They” mean it for evil, for our failure, for the church’s destruction – but God means it for good.

How sweet those first two words are to me! But God I must rest in Him.