Friday Nights

Every week we have an English Bible study with the Nigerian brothers (sorry, no sisters yet...). We get together, sing, pray, study the Bible, and have a good time. The last several weeks we've been working our way through the book of Mark. This was a great subject, and all the guys took turns leading the discussions. The Nigerians really love to sing, so we belt it out with them. I really appreciate this time because we get to sing in English and no one has to translate the lessons for us. We move through our studies at twice the speed as in any other group and then we have long discussions about the week's lesson.

Our brothers know all the songs that we know, so we really have a time of it. Sometimes we sing slow, old songs; and sometimes we sing the newer upbeat songs. Just whatever we feel like at the moment. Every now and then we'll sing a song twice and do the second round in Russian, but only if it's a song we're all familiar with. We really love to do this with "This is the Day" (Called "вот это день" in Russian, pronounced [vote eta den])

At the end of the lesson, we have some cookies and juice. Everyone makes sure to contribute every so often to keep things fair. There are so many kinds of cookies in Ukraine, we never have the same kind twice! Sometimes their great and sometimes their awful, but regaurdless, we have a good time.