VBS in Ternopil

Thursday July 9, 2009

Ternopil is in Western Ukraine. It is one of the two oldest of the 25 congregations in the Ukrainian Lutheran Church, the other is in Kyiv. Ternopil is also the location of St Sophia Seminary of the ULC and the home for the Gift of Life program that provides mobile medical and dental care to the underserved populations of Ukraine and also 5 pro-life counseling centers. The VBS program in Ternopil dates back to 1995 and has been held in this congregation every year since then. This year there is a total of 27 students in the VBS program, 3 in the primary class, 12 in the middle class and 12 in the upper class.

The VBS team in Ternopil consists of (left to right) Elise Brown, Olya Tkachenko Elertson (from Ternopil now teaching at Wisconsin Lutheran High School), Ihor Kokovskiy (translator), Amanda Burk, Pastor Taras Kokovskiy and Polly Joubert. Polly has been the lead person preparing the craft projects for the last several years for the ToF Ukraine VBS program -- thanks Polly for all of your work!


At the beginning of the class a student brought a bouquet of flowers for Polly Joubert.


Polly Joubert goes over the Bible lesson for the day with the help of a translator.


The students add color to one of the craft projects that helps to explain the Bible lesson for the day.


The students are busily at work on the craft project as the pyramids of Egypt begin to take shape!


Singing is an important part of the VBS program. Here the children practice songs that they will sing for the Sunday service.

Tomorrow is a visit to the Kremenets congregation about one hour north of Ternopil. This will end my tour of five congregations in Western Ukraine. VBS has also taken place in seven other congregations in Eastern and Southern Ukraine. Ukraine is about the size of Texas and would be extremely difficult to get to all 12 VBS locations in only one week. We pray that the VBS program will continue and next year the visits will be to those other congregations.

Thank you for keeping up with the VBS program in Ukraine.

Kermit Traska