Saturday morning, October 8, started out grey and foggy. There were some worried phone calls: "Will it stay like this, or will it change...?", but in the end God gave us a warm, sunny day!

And this is how it was:

The Creator-God gives us a harvest every year, as he promised after the world-wide flood: "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." (Genesis 8:22)

In Old Testament times the Lord God established a feast of harvest for those who wanted to live by his laws. We read about it in the Bible: "Celebrate the Festival of Harvest with the firstfruits of the crops you sow in your field. Celebrate the Festival of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field." (Exodus 23:16) After the completion of the harvest the Isrealites thanked God for the abundant crop. At that time they gave a part of the harvest for the needs of the temple and for charity.

"Summer has passed, as if it never was" - some may remember the words from Sofia Rotaru's song. Yes, summer passed very quickly and it feels as if it was short indeed. Children especially feel this way - to them it feels as if three months of vacation flew past like three weeks.

For us, the child evangelism team, summer went by even faster. We were very busy indeed! We wouldn't want to miss this wonderful opportunity when we can meet children where they live and play, and share with them simple, yet profound truths about God. Looking back on what we were able to do this summer, we want to praise the wonderful Creator, who is more interested than any of us in bringing the news of salvation to children.

On Tuesday, the 30th of August, a new sport was introduced to Poltava - Ultimate Frisbee. The young people who gathered on the square beside the Gogol Theater had the opportunity to practice and take part in a fascinating game. The goal of the meeting was to invite them to a frisbee tournament, where they would also be able to hear, in a comfortable setting, the preaching of the Word of God.

"With faith in the future" - that was the name of the second regional youth festival in the city of Mirgorod, which took place from the 8th to the 13th of August this year.  The significance is that this year in Ukraine has been declared "the year of the Peresopnytsia Gospels" (the 450 year old Peresopnytsia Gospels are one of the first texts written in Ukrainian), and we decided to plan our festival to coincide with it.  The goal of our festival was to show the residents of Mirgorod - not in words, but in actions - that Christian youth (and Christians in general) care about the lives of the people around them.  For James wrote in his letter that faith without works is dead.

"For God so loved the world..." - this verse is very familiar to any believer. Sometimes we read what is written in the Word and we don't get the full meaning. In this case we may read about God's love and not reflect on the fact that:

 

Currently a lot of evangelical churches are experiencing a real crisis relating to the baptism of new members. Just a few days ago a sister from one of the local churches of our Poltava region shared her deep concern with these words: "Somehting needs to be done, because for two years now we have not had anyone baptized in our church!"  In fact, the path a person takes to God is not simple, it is full of real struggles related to thoughts and desires.  There are many temptations along the way, but through it all, God is leading each one.  But He will not forcefully override a person's will, but instead whisper constant reminders of His presence, until the person's heart submits to him completely.

Wikipedia defines this word as "... a ceremony marking the transition of the individual to a new stage of development within a specific social group..."  Different peoples and tribes have their initiation traditions and conduct various ceremonies so that children of a specific age may be considered as adults.  First and foremost this is "... a break, in some cases rather rough, with the world of childhood, the maternal and femine world.  It is breaking away from the life without responsibility, the life of naivete and ignorance."

People who regularly read the news on the Salvation Church web site already know what floorball is.  For those who are hearing about it for the first time, let me explain: floorball is a fairly recent non-contact sport, very similar to field hockey, but not nearly as dangerous because the ball and the sticks are much smaller and lighter.  We play floorball in gymnasiums with teams of 5 plus a goalie.  Floorball was invented in Scandanavia, where it is still most widely played.

People who play floorball say that it is a truly addictive sport - try it once and you won't be able to stop.  That's the way it is with our Upward sports ministry - they tried it and now they're hooked.  They are so hooked that they have been playing for almost two years and have been getting more and more new players involved.  "Passion, commitment, team spirit - all that makes floorball a game like no other", is how the Upward team puts it.