Whilst Poltava itself is a very green city, Lyesnye Polyany, which means "Forest Glades" is even greener, lying deep in the heart of beautiful wooded countryside. The buildings themselves were extremely dilapidated, with distant echoes of former Soviet glory portrayed in the few pieces of artwork adorning the otherwise stark and gloomy interiors.

The brethren and sisters, numbering about 54, met in a very comfortable room and enjoyed talks and question sessions dealt with very ably by brethren Trevor Maher from Scotland and Stephen Palmer from Wales.

Adjacent to this was another spacious room where the children, numbering 14, were able to meet for their Bible lessons. They ranged in age from five to fourteen. Their lessons were taken from part two of the Bible lessons supplied by the Christadelphian Save the Children Fund. There were just sufficient books for each child to have one each to work from. They really appreciated this and took their books home at the end of the week with great pride. Even the three children who were fourteen years of age enjoyed the lessons. Ukrainian children do not normally enjoy such luxuries as felt tip pens, pencils, glue, scissors, let alone the extra bits and pieces which came with the lessons and helped them create lovely artwork, such as feathers, shiny paper, card and gummed sheets.

One evening, the children mimed scenes from various Bible stories, the origin of most of which the brethren and sisters were able to guess!

The children also enjoyed various leisure activities, playing volleyball or football, and often going down the crumbling concrete steps and overgrown pathways to the nearby beautiful river beach. They enjoyed looking at the tadpoles, fish and various molluscs that they found in the water. Their favourite activity, however, was swimming in the leisurely meandering river. Not even the discovery of leeches put them off this. One of the boys even learned to swim, having been coached by a fourteen-year-old classmate. Five-year-old Zhenia especially needed to be watched, happily disappearing underwater with unnerving regularity.

It was good to see friendships being forged between children of similar ages and even better to see the eagerness of the children to learn about the Bible. They were sad to see the summer school end and wave goodbye to us and to their friends. We were equally forlorn, but departed with a mental resolve to continue to do what little we could to help these children learn more about God and his purpose, limited though this might be by the barriers of time, distance and language.