Wednesday, July 26

Today was spent at the Ukrainian Education Center. This center which serves as an outreach to the college student population in Kyiv, is the primary focus of Chris and Lena Lovingood's work here in Kyiv. Chris was at Lipscomb University during the time that Scott was a student there, and they worked together in Ukraine over two summers. Chris has continued to live in Ukraine since 1994 (minus a couple of years when he got his Master's degree).

The Ukrainian Education Center houses a library that serves as a tremendous resource for the Christian community in Kyiv, with books in English, Russian and Ukrainian. It is a circulating library, that has literally thousands of visitors a year. Our primary goal for the day was to move books to a new shelf that had recently been added, and to rearrange/move all of the other books. Chris believes that the capacity of the library can be expanded to 11,000 volumes now ... and there is not much free space on the shelves. An added bonus for Scott was being able to spend a little time with Dr. Paul Prill, a professor from Lipscomb who is in town to attend a conference that a local church is hosting (the Nivki congregation - which the Lovingoods attend and work with). It was a busy day, with tiring work ... and Katherine and Scott rotated "Abbie Duty" - as she wasn't as good at re-shelving books, as she was at UN-shelving them! But the job certainly went more quickly because of our efforts.

The photos that we had intended to post yesterday did not post ... so we will try to post them today. And maybe tomorrow we can get some pictures of the center up. It really is an impressive place. We have enjoyed getting to know the Ukrainians who work and volunteer there.

Please pray for upcoming meetings with old friends, new acquaintances and more churches. We are at the "half-way" point. It will be three weeks tomorrow. We really want to make the most of our time here in Ukraine, and we need wisdom and guidance as we make decisions about our schedule.

Thanks for reading,
The Broadways