A lot has transpired since the last newsletter: A change of country, work and marital status! This newsletter is only part one, part two should arrive in a month. Please forgive the long time period between newsletters. A bad winter of 96-97 delayed my moving to Kerch until around the first of February. Then in mid-March, only six weeks after my arrival in Kerch, I was called home by relatives for 6 weeks to help my father make the decision to place my mother in an Alzheimer's Care center. I then left again at the end of July to get married, hoping to return to Kerch at the end of August but my father had a major heart attack in mid-July, along with triple by-pass surgery at age 83, necessitating another trip to the US to see him after the wedding. Complicating matters, in my first 5 months in Kerch, I was without phone, fax, computer or even a reliable mailing address, and my email company where I used a computer went bankrupt in July. But as you can see, the situation has changed for the better and I now have a phone/fax and email again, turned on just 5 days ago. If you have email please send a brief note (or more!), so I can have your email address. I plan to have a monthly email update to those who have email, I am truly sorry for the long delay in communicating, please accept my apologies.
Many people have complained to me that my newsletters don't contain much about my personal life, so I will start with that first. Since the last newsletter, I have moved from St. Petersburg, Russia to Kerch, Ukraine, assumed the role of a Superintendent as well as pastor, became engaged and then married, a husy time! My wife is Helen Synnove Byholt (Thorsen) Lovelace, a citizen of Norway. She is the General Secretary for the Norwegian Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church and is taking a leave of absence to join me in Kerch. We met while serving together on a committee of the Northern European Central Conference discussing ways to combat alcohol and drug abuse. Helen is a diaconal minister, one of the first five in Europe, and will be ordained next year as deacon under the new ordination guidelines. Helen is a board member of the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society in Washington DC and a member of its Executive Committee. Before her leave of absence, Helen was responsible for visiting all of the UN churches in Norway (52) to encourage Christian social action in the community and was responsible for many of the Norwegian UM church's institutions. She established a women and children's center in Fredrikstad, a large regional city in so them Norway. In Kerch, Helen will work especially with women and children's issues, substance abuse problems in the community, as well as be a co-worker in the general ministry. As an added bonus, Scandinavian efficiency has descended upon the Lovelace household, so newsletters should get out more regularly.
The wedding was August 9th, in the beautiful Norwegian seaside resort town of Kragero. Helen's hometown. The ceremony took 45 minutes, and the dinner afterward 7.5 hours. Norwegians seem to know how to properly divide the time. Afterwards, with the members of the wedding party who came front the USA and Russia, we went on a tour of western Norway. Though a honeymoon while traveling with friends is a bit unusual, we had a great time.
In this part one of a two part newsletter, I'll concentrate upon my role as pastor in Kerch. Pastorinig in Kerch is much different than in St. Petersburg. The main difference is the lack of hope. In St. Petersburg, people are proud of where they live, and have hope that St. Petersburg will become one of the leading cities of the world. If you ask the average person on the street in St. Petersburg about the situation, he or she will reply they believe their future, and the future of their families will be better than the present. In Kerch, the vision is one of despair. Many people have come to me and said that "Kerch is a dead-end, a dying city." They have good reason to believe this as all of the factories in city have shut down, leaving a population mostly of work, Doctors have recently been paid in produce, or not at all, and teachers have not received their salaries since October of last year. Two weeks ago, they went on strike, threatening to strike more than 45 days, which would make this year not able to be counted as a valid school year.
Why do people work without receiving their salaries? Because with no viable alternatives, employers (usually the government) can say, "if you don't show up to work, you will be 'fired' and lose all rights to back pay when it will be paid." So poople continue. to work, hoping against hope that someday, back wages will be paid. How do people get money to pay for everyday expenses? The lucky ones receive rnoney from relatives in Russia, or abroad, some sell what little they have on the Street, or take a second job, usually selling in the market, or an unskilled postion in tht few private firms. Everyone sees their lifestyle getting worse and worse, with no outlook for improvement. As a result, more than 50,000 out of a forrner population of 200,000 have left to find work elsewhere. The rest wish they could leave.
Depression is rampant. One of our church members told me her daughter, who is 27, divorced with one son, and unemployed for the past 4 years, has said several times, "I feel like killing myself and my son, just so we will be free from this." At least 3 widows in our church are so as a result of their husband's suicide. Young men are mostly out of work, with nothing to do but drink, take drugs, or gamble with money they don't havc. Unfortunately, the best job a young man can get is with the local "brigada" or organized crime gang, the "'Mafia" you hear so much about in the media. one church member who was invited to join was told, "You may die young in a shoot-out, but at least you will have lived, and your money will go to your family." Often, entry into the "brigada" is not voluntary, but to work off a gambling debt.
Where to start work? one of first things we can do is to build a strong community of faith. For when people support one another, hope is built, and so much the more when they have Jesus Christ at the center of their lives. When the Spirit of God is present, miracles can happen.
We can also help materially. Kereh UMC fortunately has several very active partner churches in America who have been sending shipments of food, clothing and nedicine, along with supporting the church's budget and the former pastor of Kerch UMC, Natasha Chernova in the Moscow seminary.
We can be "salt of the earth" by working in the community, with no strings attached. So much of the criticism of Protestant mission work in the Russian press is that yeople are "bribed" away from "traditional" Russian faiths by humanitarian aid. It is important that humanitarian aid, our work with substance abuse, women and children's issues, etc. be seen as a substantive benefit to the community, not just a temporary rust: to increase membership.
Prayer requests:
In closing, I would like to announce that I have finally reached a goal I have been pursuing sinice I began as a missionary in St. Petersburg: I am preaching in Russian without a translator. My Russian is far from perfect, but people say they like it better "straight" from me. My preparation time is more than doubled for a sermon, but it is worth it. I took the plunge when one Sunday my translator was suddenly ill, and I asked an English teacher in the congregation to substittite. This scared her so much that though she agreed, she became sick just before my sermon and ran out of the service. (She was sick for two weeks!) I had no other choice but to proceed. Bishop Minor said his first sermon in Russian was also when a translator didn't show up. Crisis times can sometimes take us out of our comfort zones to meet new challenges. I pray that the crisis times in Kerch. will also bring about a positive growth in faith for our church.
C Borom, (be with God)
Bill and Helen Lovelace
This page last updated on April 12, 1999.