Bryan Shufelt

  Wednesday morning, Jessie, Josh, Abby, Edgar, Daniel, and I headed out to the Skole region up in the Carpathian Mountains.  (This is the same area that we went to in 2006 and part of 2007)  Once we were able to get out of L’viv (and it’s traffic), we had an awesome surprise!  The roads which they had been working on in ’06 and ’07 were completed!  They were awesome!  It was almost like driving on an American highway (no potholes )!  We made really good time on them and soon we turned of onto some mountain roads, and the jostling began  

  Our first stop was in a village we were in in 2006.  This village was the only place so far that a priest has come to one of our film showings (From some of the answers he has given us, we think he might be saved).  We found him Wednesday afternoon and had a great talk with him.  He remembered Josh from 2006, so that was great!  After a small amount of discussion about the movie (we will be showing Fireproof in this region), he said he would support us and even announce it in his church!  He then compared Jessie’s van with the Apostle Paul’s sandals  With the priest’s blessing we went to the village head and we were able to set up 3 film showings in the 3 different villages the head was over!  One of them will be shown the first week of June, then the other 2 will be back-to-back showings the second week of June.  Praise the LORD, 3 showing set up in the first stop!  It was a great way to start the trip!  (BTW, we generally avoid the village priests, in our experience, they do way more to harm us then to help us, but there are a few exceptions)

  The next village we went to we had no problems setting up the film showing, so we have a village scheduled for the 3rd week of June.  One of Josh’s secret weapons on this trip was…

Children are such a great ice-breaker, esp. here in Ukraine.  The building the Steele’s live in has a guard, and one of them is a grouchy looking old man, the only time I see him smile is when Abby is there  So, Abby went with Josh to talk to the village heads, and we didn’t seem to have to many troubles

Our next village though, we hit a snag.  We hunted up the village head (he was at home), and after talking with him for a short time, he called the priest.  He talked to him for a minute then handed the phone to Josh.  Josh spoke with him for maybe a minute, then was told by the priest, essentially, that he didn’t want us there.  The village head bowed to the priest’s demands, so we had our first rejection.  We will probably try to go to that village later in the summer and do a literature blitz there, but there won’t be a film showing.

After this, we headed to the next village (actually headed back, we had stopped there on the way to the previous village, but the head was out).  He wasn’t there again, so we found out where his house was and started heading in that direction.  On the way, we met the village priest.  As Josh and Jessie started talking to him, the rest of us were praying.  In the mountains, there is distrust between the priest and any missionary.  The beginning part of the conversation was akward, but it became more relaxed as the priest realized we weren’t a sect, and we realized he wasn’t going to campaign against us.  We found out that he had already been showing Fireproof in the village and was continuing to do so.  Josh exchanged contact info with him (we might try to show Light of the World  there in the future).  We were also able to give the priest (Oleg is his name) a Good and Evil, so that was great!

We found a great camping spot, though it took a little bit for the van to make it out there (we took Jessie’s van instead of the train on this trip).  It was right next to a creek/river, it was beautiful!  Here’s some pix:

 

 

 

Jessie did the devotional in the morning.  It was on the Proverb of the day.  Had a good discussion, then pulled out and headed to the next village.

  In the next village (Tuklia), we hit some snags as we were trying to get approval for the film showing.  Apparently, we’ll have to get permission from a center in Skole or Stree to be able to show there.  Josh got all the contact info needed, and we’ll be working on jumping through the hoops soon…

The next village head we went to see was over 2 villages, and we were able to get both village scheduled for back-to-back showings on the 4th week of June.  It was interesting for me to be back in that village, cause that is the place I learned in 2006 how valuable a good tent is (I woke up with a pond in my tent in ’06).

We went to one last village and found out the village head was out of town, and the others in there didn’t want to say we could without his permission, so we got the contact info for him, and we will be calling him once he comes back.

After that we started our trek back to L’viv.  Stopped at a really nice truck stop (of sorts) and had a great lunch.  We had a great series of discussions on the way back in the van.  Made great time with those awesome roads, and we were back in L’viv Thursday afternoon.  Then came the

 

 

Overall, we were able to set up 6 villages with film showings for the 4 weeks in June, we have contact info for 2 more possible showings to schedule in July, and only got shut down (completely) once.  It was a good trip!

Today, I have my language lesson this evening, and we have/will be sending out 10 more Good & Evil fulls.

That’s all from here, for now!  God bless!

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