Layson Update from R
0 comments | Posted by St Peters on 25 Jul 2010 in From Steve's Study ::
Hi all,
Here’s a belated update on all the Laysons have been doing over the last week. I’m sorry I’ve been so slow a getting in contact, but as you’ll see, we’ve been pretty busy.
We’ve had some kind of speaking engagement on each evening this week. Steve has conducted five two-hour seminars on sermon preparation and delivery for up to 10 men from the congregation. These have been really successful times as we’ve been able to talk about things they have never considered, and they now seem keen to form a small group of people who can encourage each other and give helpful feedback, so their talks can get better. We were also able to go through the process of preparing a talk, which gave them some tools they had never seen before that should make it easier for them to write strongly bible-based sermons.
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, Lorna conducted three 2-hour seminars for the women from church who won’t be going on the camp. She was a bit nervous about them at first, but the women have been raving about them. They spent time looking at “women and beauty”, “women and relationships” and “women and intimate relationships”.
These talks have all gone really well, but they have left us pretty exhausted.
On top of these meetings we’ve had a great time with our host family, the Kulikovs. They have been very kind and generous to us and have taken us all over the place. We spent a day out at Lake Baikal , visiting a re-created village from the early 19th century, plus eating smoked fish by the Lake . Today we went to a Museum which showed us the lives of the “Decembrists”, who were basically all the intellectual elite who were sent to S-i-b-e-r-i-a during the communist revolution, just for being intellectuals. Despite the hardships they had to endure, they were able to bring their art, knowledge and culture here to profoundly influence the local people. So you see, all the best people get sent to I-r-k-u-t-s-k !
One of the great joys of being here is being able to spend time with Vanya & Larissa (& their kids). We’ve spent a fair bit of time working on their house with them… “greater love has no man than that he will doing plastering and sanding for his friends”.
Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to get to one of the children’s homes as we had planned. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing as it is possible our visit would have done more harm than good, as we’ll tell you when we get back.
Today we had music practice to get ready for tomorrow’s service. I’m preaching on the importance of love in the use of gifts in the church (from 1 Cor 13) – following up on last wea. But first, we are going to a party for Larissa’s brother (Mischa), who turned 27 a couple of days ago.
After Sunday, we have to get ready for the camp which we leave for first thing on Monday morning. It’s a different campsite to last year, so it’s a little bit of an unknown, but it does at least seem like we’ll have a bed (though the existence of showers is debatable).
Well, that’s about all I can remember at this point, so have a great service tomorrow and know that our prayers are with you (as I’m sure yours are for us).
Look forward to seeing you all soon,
Steve & Lorna.
« Greetings From I-r-k-u-t-s-k! On the way home»
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