Photos of the day: http://picasaweb.google.com/nundabud/20100904#
These long days are incredible. The amount of walking (with lots of upstairs and up hills is daunting) and the length of the days is physically stressful and yet exhilarating at the same time. We met in the lobby at 8:30 to go together to the location of today's meetings. After a morning small group session, we moved into the marriage ceremony for Nikolai and Constantin. Rev. Gard Nielsen, a Norwegian Lutheran priest, presided at the marriage blessing and other priests presided over communion. Rev. Dimitry is from Arkhangelsk in the Arctic Circle and Rev. Maxim is from Kyrgyzstan. It is wonderful that Orthodox, Methodist, Greek Catholic, Christian United Church and MCC priests can all work together peacefully, and, for this short time, in unity. The passage from scripture I recited is from Colossians 3:12 "Therefore, beloved, clothe yourself in compassion, kindness and patience, crowing all these things with love which binds everything together in perfect harmony."
After the marriage blessing, we went to lunch: borscht for the fourth day in a row, compote (the Ukrainian version is fruit boiled in water, strained and sweetened - the fruit is removed and the liquid is consumed.), a cabbage salad and a salmon croquette.
After lunch we went back for another session, except Rev. Gard from Norway and I. We skipped out to relax and have a beer. We came back for the 4:30 session and at 6 Gard and Florin and I left to have dinner on our own. We went to a rather elegant place and had beautifully prepared and served food. We even had dessert and cappucchino before taking a taxi back to our hotel.
A number of us will leave the hotel at midnight to go to a club for a drag show. I have to be back by 2:30 so I can get a few hours sleep before tomorrow's long day. It is the final day of conference. I am in charge of worship at 11. I assigned all the tasks for worship to others except the preaching which I will do. We end at 10 tomorrow night. When I blog tomorrow, I will not have pics of the club but will try to have pics of worship.
It has been another wonderful day.
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