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We spent the most time at the Second Church of Brovary; four days. The current building they are using is a small one, but the people there make it really special. The land had been given to the church by the mayor of Brovary two years before, but not much had been done yet; at least by our standards. Work goes very slowly in the Ukraine because building materials are scarce, power tools are scarce, and even simple tools are scarce . There are many reasons, but the bottom line is that work goes very slowly.

When we arrived at the church site, we found that the basement area had been dug out and most of the foundation had been set (shown second from the top) ; in two years. The basic floor space is about four thousand square feet, so it's a big hole. The foundation was built out of blocks of concrete about two feet by three feet by eight feet that were placed by a crane and cemented together. The floor was all dirt and most of our time was spent pouring about a fourth of the concrete floor and building a fence around part of the area.

The plans for the church are shown in the second from the top picture.

The girls were responsible for building the fence. It was a formidable task. Each section of fence was about six to seven feet high and about ten feet long. The actual fencing was sl ices of the outside of trees; like if you took a large carrot peeler and used it on a log. The pieces were irregular shapes and sizes and very heavy. They had a couple of hammers and some nails and a six foot saw that took two men to use; one on each end, just like lumberjacks used to use. As the girls hammered the fence sections together, they got about twelve girls around the section and lugged it into place. It was a big job even for big guys. The girls did a wonderful job.

While the girls were working on the fence, the boys started work on the concrete floor. The first day was a real challenge. There was an electric mixer that was run by a Ukrainian couple that I'm sure were in their 60's. They worked non-stop from before the time we got there until after the time that we left; an amazing couple. By carrying it in sacks on their shoulders and also with a wheelbarrow, the boys brought sand, rock and cement to the mixer and the couple loaded it into the mixer in the right quantities. Then they poured the mixture into a big trough so we could load it into 1 1/2 gallon buckets to carry to where it would be dumped. True manual labor. We didn't get very far the first day because of the buckets.

The next day, as the girls went off to do a three day Vacation Bible School (VBS), we continued with the floor. Now, we could use a two wheeled wheelbarrow to carry the cement mixture in and were able to do about three times the amount of floor as that fi rst day.

By the fourth day, we were approaching what seemed like a natural finishing point for our time at Second Church, but God had other plans for us. It started raining off and on for an hour or so. We finally had to stop our work and we went inside the original Second Church to wait for the rain to stop.

The original Second Church is about the size of a one-room schoolhouse. In the back of the building is a kitchen. Inside the church (second from the bottom), there is about 6 bench seats and a piano. One of the boys is an avid piano player and he started playing some praise music. The rest of us either listened or gathered around the piano (bottom picture), arms on each others shoulders, to sing. We were pretty wet and our voices were not the best, but I think God liked it. It was impossible not to be touched by this scene; a bunch of guys praising God in song 8000 miles from home in a strange land. I think God wanted us there and He wanted us singing. It all came together so naturally. Towards the end of the singing, we sang How Great Thou Art in Russian. The pastor and his wife were there and the Ukrainian couple. When we started singing, they immediately stood up and sang with us.How Great Thou Art is a song of worship and the Ukrainians always stand when it is sung. God had joined all of us, two different countries, two different peoples, two different languages, together. I truly felt as if they were my brothers and sisters. It was my most memorable part of the entire trip

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