Dan and Pris Gollan

  The thing dominating our lives right now is the weather.  Right now, with temperatures reaching –25 C, the living area of our home gets down to 13.  Our water pipes have frozen in the ministry center.  And our heating pipes which contain water have frozen on the first floor.  (This is the first year that has happened.)  It means that at full heating capacity, we are “holding”.  There are a number of people who are watching the temperature and keeping an eye on their furnaces.  If you lose your heating, you lose your pipes and your toilets and radiators when the water freezes.  It is… not exactly convenient.  This is a photo of Marie and Elle snuggled while Marie tests her new ipod.

I just went for a walk with Elle and Clarke and discovered that in the sun, it is quite pleasant… assuming all of the appropriate body coverings are in the right places.  We are not expecting any let-up of these temps though.  Thursday night we are meant to drop to –30.

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Four times I’ve heard this statement or one similar over the last month or so.  It just challenged my position yet again… and in hopes that God is the reason behind me being faced with this flurry of stupidity from different sources, I write:

If God is the Unfathomable, Almighty, Creator of the Universe, Jehovah - revealed in Scripture… then the thought that God is ok with me SINNING A LITTLE BIT, or ok with me WALKING THE FENCE A LITTLE BIT, or ok with me BEING A BIT REBELLIOUS, is just plumb stupid. 

I think I know what it is with people who want to make up their own God instead of believing the God of the Bible.  It isn’t as if it is something new, even for Christians.  But four times in one month verses 1 time in the last 40 years… is it the start of some new pandemic?  Are we about to hear this statement FROM CHRISTIANS more and more?  I think so.  And I hate it.  “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap.”  This verse comes to mind.  Today, I rebuked someone for using the Name of Jesus lightly.  He didn’t understand how it could be wrong to sarcastically say that doing such and such would make Jesus cry.  As a generation, we have lost a lot of respect for the REAL God… and it is definitely not because He has become less or more worthy of criticism.  We have become BIG in our own eyes to the extent that we twist logic and truth to make it be what allows us to keep on being good Christians while doing exactly what God hates.  God is not mocked.  We have reaped what we sowed years ago as the church.  And we will reap what we sow now as individuals. 

May I encourage self-deception never.

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Finally we scored with the snow today!  It snowed all day, but snowed heavily all afternoon.  I’m going to need to get a couple of new tires for the van tomorrow in Kiev because the ones we have on now, even though they still have tread on them, could not get me up our hill this morning!  I think I must have made the attempt 20 times and on the 20th, got there!  I think of the purchase as an investment in insurance.  I reckon year-old tires in a Ukrainian winter raise your chances of having an accident at least 50%. 

We were again at the worksite today… snow notwithstanding.  It surprised me to realize that the snow actually gave us MORE traction as we walked around on the beams.  I tried a few different pairs of gloves and eventually gave up on warm fingers.  They are fat and red now.

Pris went to Kiev to be with her Mom again as Diane went to the doctor’s.  Seems like things are going well there.

The kids did school-work by themselves and Jesse cooked a good stew which was waiting for us all when we arrived home at about 6:00.

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Ultimately, the result for Vlad was that the judge upheld the original verdict.

As it happens, this appeal wasn’t as important as we at first thought.  Vlad’s accusers have already appealed to the Supreme Court, so even if he’d won this appeal, he would still need to appear there in two to three months.

Only family was allowed to be present at the hearing.  Vika, his wife, said that he was pretty discouraged about the result.  He’ll be in jail at least another two months.

The lawyer talked a good talk regarding the supreme court.  But I feel like they were just words to bolster morale and trust in him and not necessarily the truth.  Guess we’ll see.

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Vlad’s appeal date is tomorrow.

Recap:

He was a driver involved in an accident several years ago.

He was unjustly accused and unjustly sentenced to six years in jail and $100,000 fine to be paid to the family of the lady who died. 

They bribed the judge to find him guilty, ALL evidence to the contrary.

He has spent over 2 months in jail already.

Tomorrow is his appeal date.

We’ll go in, but probably won’t be let into the court room.  There is a chance they’ll let us in, so we’ll take our passports.

Please pray for the whole situation.  I think it will start at 8:30 in the morning. 

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