Sunday, July 11

On Sunday morning we went to Pastor Galina's church. Pastor Gregory is the pastor of the "Mother Church". The attendance at Church of Praise (Gregory's church) has an average of about 1000 in attendance every Sunday. His wife, Pastor Galina is the pastor of the second largest church, which has about 600 people in attendance every Sunday. Different people prefer the different churches. I prefer Pastor Galina's church because the worship there is incredible! It's really good both places, but Pastor Galina's is slightly better. (The seats at Pastor Gregory's are more comfortable. :D) It takes about 15 minutes to walk to Gregory's church, and it's about a 30 car ride to Galina's. Sunday afternoon Tim, Brooke, and I went to a youth service at Pastor Gregory's. The worship there was really awesome too! (And loud!) Then we went back to the apartments for about an hour and went back to Pastor Gregory's again for the evening service.

Renae preaching at Pastor Galina's church with "Blond Hair" Julia translating

It was Pastor Galina's birthday, so there were a lot of balloon decorations, and she got a lot of cards, chocolate, and even a cake (with which I rode back on a very bumpy road with it on my lap!).

Brian preaching at Galina's church with Julia

My dad and Alice went to a village church to preach for the evening service, and they returned with these - their spoils of the war :) - eggs, a coconut! (all the way from Russia), and goat's milk (which unfortunately spoiled during the night so I didn't get any).

See these flowers?? They were made with hard boiled eggs!