In addition, we mailed out hundreds of Good News magazines and Bible Study Course lessons in Estonian and Russian from Estonia. We arranged for the printing of the new Swedish booklet What Is Your Destiny? in Ukraine, looked for a possible venue for the Feast of Tabernacles in Sweden in 2009 and more.

There is quite a bit of diversity in the area we serve, which includes Scandinavia, the Baltic Republics and Eastern Europe.

We visited Ukraine the first week of our trip and were joined by Dan and Cindy Harper who currently live in Cherbourg, France. For some time they had wanted to explore outreach possibilities in Ukraine, and this was the time to do it.

We spent several days with the Street Children Program we have been helping in Vinogradov, Ukraine, since 2001. Dan and Cindy will be returning in June to help with a camp for the children and will teach English as a second language for which Cindy is qualified.

On the Sabbath we visited and spoke in two Sabbatarian churches in Khust and Rokosovo as we have done for the past 15 years.

The Sabbatarians have been gradually embracing the Holy Days, and last year was the first year that the Feast of Tabernacles was kept in Khust. Pastor Vasyl Mondich held all-day services on the first day of the Feast as well as the Last Great Day. On the other days evening services were held. This was a good start! A challenge in introducing the Holy Days was to educate people that these days are for Christians too, and that they center around Christ and what He has done and will do for mankind.

We left Ukraine back through Hungary and took as much printed literature as we could carry. It's been difficult to ship the literature that we have printed in Ukraine to Estonia, so we use every opportunity to carry out as much we can. The four of us carried out about 150 pounds of booklets and Russian Bible Study Courses.

Latvia and Estonia

Bev and I continued on to Latvia where we spent parts of two days at the home of the Robert and Elita Schulz family. He is a Baptist pastor who has changed the day of worship for his congregation from Sunday to Saturday and is adopting the Holy Days. He and his family came to a few of our Feast of Tabernacles services in Estonia last fall. We discussed a lot about our beliefs and practices.

On the second day of our visit three members of his church also came over, and we talked some more.

Robert drove us 100 miles north to Tartu, Estonia, where we stayed about five days. There Johnnie Lambert, an elder from New York, has purchased an apartment as a base of operations for this part of the world. I visited prisoner Valdur Vesingi in prison. He has helped translate two booklets for us.

On to Scandinavia

We crossed the Baltic Sea by ferry and took a seven-hour train ride to Kemi in northern Finland where we visited Klogay and Margaret Doh. This was my fourth visit to the Doh family who resettled there three years ago from a Karen refugee camp in Thailand.

The Scandinavian countries had been taking in refugees from a number of the camps, and three of these families are members of the United Church of God. They experienced a drastic change from the tropics to the arctic climate where it is dark and cold most of the winter. But they are grateful for the new life and to no longer be refugees.

From Kemi we went on to Sweden and spent three days with UCG members Paul and Kira Spenser. Here we had the special occasion of blessing their baby daughter, Viktoria. They invited their extended families, and we made the evening into a very special event. We visited a possible site for the Feast of Tabernacles in 2009.

For the Sabbath we continued on by train to the Gothenburg area on the west coast of Sweden and spent two nights with Bernt and Olga Saxin. On the Sabbath they invited three new people for a Bible study.

Our last country was Norway. In Oslo we met a very interested young man who has come across our literature and is very committed to living God's way. Our final two visits in Norway were the two other refugee families—the Tha Mweys in Trondheim and Monday Doh in Geilo.

Everyone seemed to appreciate the visits and the boost of spirits they brought at this time of year. It gets lonely, as there are no churches because of the distances they all live from one another. They appreciate the communications from brethren in the United States and other parts of the world that help them stay connected.

This summer we are planning an all-Nordic weekend somewhere between Oslo and Stockholm and hope that most of the families we visited can come for a Friday night through Sunday get-together.

The entire trip is blogged and can be seen through the UCG Web site at www.ucg.org/resources/blog.htm. UN

Victor Kubik is senior pastor for Eastern Europe and Scaninavia, pastor of Lafayette and Terre Haute, Indiana, and a Council of Elders member.