KIEV, UKRAINE: JULY 19—AUG. 4 Following Bro. Alan Eyre's exploratory visit last year (read articles from The Christadelphian and The Bible Missionary), a larger group visited Kiselin, Schors and the surrounding villages to develop the contacts he had made. This involved travelling to Kiev by air and then over 2,000 km of varied road surfaces in two elderly cars. With the willing help of the local authorities talks were given to interested audiences in three towns and there were opportunities for individual discussions. We brought away a list of names for further contact. At our base in Kiev 13,000 leaflets were given out on the streets; people talked to us as far as the language barrier would permit. Many wanted to know more about us and asked us to keep in touch. Students on the Correspondence Course were visited with encouraging results for all concerned. The people are a little weary of American-style evangelism, and the Orthodox Church resents this challenge to their spiritual authority.

Kiev, a city of five million people, has a mixture of old Russian Orthodox culture, the remnants of communism and new-found western freedom and enterprise. The gold and green domes of the churches are surrounded by blocks of concrete apartments in a spacious tree-lined city, and a great statue representing the motherland looks down on the river Dnieper dominating everything. It is a beautiful and convenient city in which to work, and we encountered few problems except the time-wasting bureaucratic approach to every negotiation, however small.

The team included brethren from England, Jamaica, America and Korea, who were accompanied by Bro. Victor Sluczewski from Briansk. We are grateful to friends who assisted in the work of translating and printing the leaflets and transporting them from Prague to Kiev. Bro. Victor was indispensable and two of his friends helped us greatly, even to the extent of finding room for all seven of us in their small flat in Kiev. We pray that interest in God's Word will be renewed in this country, and we look forward to continuing the work in due course.—David Whitehouse

(The Christadelphian No. 1551 September 1993, p. 357)

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