Easter Week

Two Easters in 8 Days! Last Sunday of course was Easter in the Western World, celebrated by the English speaking churches here as well. This coming Sunday is Easter according to the Eastern Orthodox Calendar. I haven't decided yet if I want to go to an English or Russian speaking service. In any case, I do want to go downtown near the Russian Orthodox Monastery just to observe. I understand people by the thousands will be there to have baskets of food blessed in preparation for big family meals on Easter Sunday that will mark the end of the Fasts associated with Lent.

In accordance with the upcoming holiday (Holy Day) I will not have class on Monday and I'm trying to decide what I want to do with a long weekend. I'm waiting on Customs/DHL to clear a package that was sent for a World Racer to me; if it clears by Thursday, then I may book a train for Lugansk on Friday and deliver the package in person while visiting friends down there. I still want to go to Odessa and to Crimea sometime too.

This coming Friday is our 2nd Schoolwide "Cobrania" or meeting. It's a fellowship time for students from all the classes to share a little of what we're learning- in Russian, followed by a traditional Ukrainian meal. You may recall that during our first such meeting I basically said, in Russian, "I'm Clinton from the US, from Mississippi. I'm studying the Russian Language. After that I don't know what I'll do"

This time I'll say something like, "I want to recite 2 verses from the Bible, John 3:16 and Jeremiah 29:11" and then I'll proceed to quote them from memory...in Russian mind you and THEN I plan to sing Matt Redmon's "Blessed Be The Name", also in Russian. Don't be too impressed- I really don't know enough Russian to formulate such sentences; I'm just being a parrot. The trick I guess is to say it all correctly!