Dear Friends of Eastern Europe Renewal:

The Peace of the Lord be always with you.

Now it is the 2nd. of July already and I will leave tomorrow morning for a month in Russia.  Most of the time will be in St. Petersburg at a SEN Gospel in Society Learning Community, but I will go with a colleague to Moscow for a weekend with the Church I met last month.  It is encouraging to have continuing contact and build relationships with the same people.  There will be about 15 people at the Learning Community in St. Petersburg.  Most of them come from rather far away, so it should be an interesting mix of backgrounds. 

A question that struck me in Moscow is: "Is life what happens to us or what we do?"  Different cultures answer this question on different sides.  It seems to me that the Biblical answer is that life is fully both what happens to us and what we do.  Most people and cultures have a natural tendency to choose one side or the other because that is simpler.  Perhaps a more spiritual tendency is to understand life at its fullest.  I'm looking forward to thinking this through more, especially in Eastern Europe.

It was a joy and an honor to be invited to do a little teaching at the European Leadership Forum in Sopron, Hungary 11-16 June.  They always have an amazing team of great and famous teachers and very interesting participants from ALL over Europe.  I worked in the "Christians in Society" department (or the Art Department, as I called it) and also gave a workshop in the Apologetics area.  Liviu Mocan, a sculptor friend of mine from Cluj Napoka, Romania was there with his wife.  He brought a group of sculptings on the theme of Bezalel from Exodus.  It was a great honor for me to give a little speech at the Vernisage we organized for these works.  At a science workshop on my free afternoon, the professor helped me to solidify the understanding that "chance" or randomness is sometimes part of the way things happen, but it can never be the cause of things happening.  In the question of whether reality is created by God or developed by "chance", it is very helpful for me to understand that things can happen functionally by chance, but not causally.  In the ordinary sense that people mean when they say "happen by chance", meaning without design or will, nothing can actually happen.  Perhaps this misunderstanding is partly caused by the fact that the biologists never have much contact with the mathematicians in the "Universities", but are often in competition with them over funding, etc. 

Mary is doing better.  Thank you for your prayers.  She has a new Lotus Formula One rollator that should have flames painted on the sides and a new fold-up walking stick.  She is getting more exercise and her muscle tone is better with better posture, etc.  We are very encouraged and thankful.   A woman in the Church in Moscow has a handicapped boy and because of Mary's expertise in therapy we were able to order a book for her on how to care for handicapped children at home. 

Most of my teaching in the last 3 months as been in places where they cannot give an honorarium or sometimes even pay the travel expenses.  We are very near zero with the finances, but amazed that God keeps us afloat and we have paid all the bills.  God continues to open up doors of service.  An invitation to Abidjan, Ivory Coast for March seems to be solidifying as well as one for 3 weeks in Australia from the end of May.  The Lord will show us.  Some Christian leaders I met in Sopron are interested in having a visit from me.  They came from Novosibirsk, Zagreb, Lubljiana, Hungary and Slovakia.  It would probably would be wise to travel less next year, but saying "no" is very hard.

Thank you for your support in prayer, friendship and finances. May the Lord bless and keep you all.

Yours in Christ,

Ellis

Copyright © 2005 Ellis Potter.