I have been able to hear from Billy a couple of times in the past few days; he has had some stomach problems, so pray that will clear up soon. Otherwise he said it's been very cold (as of right now, it's 6:15 a.m. on Sunday there, and it's only 7 degrees). The highs for this week are only in the middle to upper teens, with snow chances most of the week. They celebrate Christmas in Ukraine on January 7th, and the team plans on handing out 'goodie bags' to the children with various candies in them. They will attend a worship service on Sunday, then help celebrate Christmas (again!) on Monday.

He said the team has been doing really well and asked for prayer for the rest of the week that they may be able to continue helping in developing relationships with those around the area of the missionary's church. They had just got back from helping with a children's camp and said it went really well.

One of their 'projects' was to find a cookie they could make over there and give to a nearby coffee shop, in hopes to start a relationship with the owner. So my job was to find a recipe that did not use vanilla extract. I actually found one, and Billy said they have 'vanilla butter' over there, so he said they turned out okay. Here's what one of the team members wrote about that experience:

"The cookies that we are making today, we are taking to the coffee shop again. This time however we are making them with all Ukrainian ingredients so that they can make them to sell in the coffee shop. The manager of the coffee shop is really nice and it’s cool to see how a small thing can make a big difference. We really feel like we’ve been able to help with the planting of seeds with a relationship with him."

So I'm glad I was able to help with that project!! (they were chocolate chip cookies by the way)

Here is one of the pictures that was posted on their facebook page; it is of St. Andrews's cathedral:

Billy said he has taken lots of pictures, but is having computer software problems and unfortunately cannot get them to download properly. Hopefully he can resolve the issue when he gets back so I can post them.

Thanks for all your prayers.