Dear Friends, Family, Supporters, & Congregation members,

As the holiday season is quickly flying by I am reminded of how grateful I am of your continued support. I want to give my thanks for all of the emails, letters, and messages of care and concern especially during the election turmoil and the holiday season.

It was odd not being home for Thanksgiving for a second year and it strangely snuck up on me and I seemed to almost forget about it. It has been different not having the mass media/marketing blitz of the holiday season. Here in Ukraine and Hungary they seem to break up the season a bit. They celebrate St. Mikolas (St. Nicholas) day and he comes and brings a gift for all the children though each community celebrates it on a different day in December. The Hungarians celebrate Christmas on the 25th of December, which is the main gift–giving holiday. The Orthodox churches celebrate Christmas in early January, which makes New Years the big gift-giving holiday for most Ukrainians. As many have asked me, the weather is making it's slow decent towards winter. The days have gotten shorter and the temperature sits around 0º Celsius until nightfall and having the darkness fall completely by 4pm makes for an enriching experience.

This month's program focus is on one of the newer programs I have become involved with. The Roma Reformed Church in Munkács is currently allowing a Roma Charismatic church to use its sanctuary and rooms for their programs. Through this semi-partnership I was asked if I could teach English to their youth group. I teach this class two evenings a week after the Roma Reform Church School. At first it appeared that it would be a large number of youth from the older teens and mid twenties but is has dwindled down to one woman from the group and a few others who I invited to join from the other groups I work with. I have had my reservations about working with this group but so far I have found it very enjoyable. I am hoping that by enabling a few of these individuals that they can in turn use their skills to help better both congregations. I also am hoping that this will allow for more development of people who can better represent their Roma community and articulate their situations to a wider audience. One different aspect about this class is that they challenge me a whole lot more in their desire to learn English, which is encouraging to me.

On November 21st the world in Ukraine changed forever. For once since Chernobyl, Ukraine was in the world spotlight. From CNN to BBC to local stations it appeared everyone in the world was watching. I have been told that in many newspapers Ukraine was included on the front page for over a week. To most of the world and most Ukrainians the elections here were fixed and many irregularities were allowed to take place appearing as victory to Yanukovych though overturned by the Supreme Court of Ukraine. The reactions of Ukrainians mainly from the western half of the country were quick and energetic. In many of the main cities in the western part people came together to demonstrate against what had taken placed. It was an unsettling time for everyone here. The words that were being thrown around were revolution, civil war and break-ups. As each day continued the protests got larger everywhere in Ukraine for one side or the other but mainly for Yushchenko. In Kiev all the pictures were nothing but seas of orange flags and people, it now being called "The Orange Revolution". This brought in a new age of a political awakening for this nation. They finally have a voice; people are participating in the electorate again after traditionally showing much distaste for politics and they seem to have given it one more chance.

One thing I found interesting is that the crowds at the demonstrations were young and old, men, women and children, Ukrainian, Hungarian, and Roma. It seemed to be maybe the one thing that brought all of them together. At this time I am reminded of how powerful unity can be. Last year that was the thing everyone was looking for, trying to achieve or seeking to aspire to and here for a brief space in time it was accomplished. I know that it won't continue nor did it continue after the demonstrations. They went back to the everyday routine of life and forgot the things that made it so beautiful to see.

Right after Christmas while many people will be returning to jobs or the after-Christmas sales and in the UK celebrating Boxing Day, in Ukraine we will have the rerunning of the run-off election between Yushchenko "Our Ukraine Party" and Yanukovych "The Government’s Party". It looks as though Yushchenko will come away this time as the new President elect but nothing is ever certain till all the votes are counted.

If by chance you received this letter from someone or just happened to come across it and would like to be added to my list of people who I send it to please email me at Brenton_NI@Yahoo.com Also if you ever have any questions or things you would like to share with me feel free to send me a message at the above address. Along with the holiday season what would be more fitting than seeing my updated photos page on my website http://Brenton-ni.blogspot.com I would look especially for the ones with a certain Santa outfit in them. Though they don't cover the humor in my last years Christmas fairy costume.

I want to lastly thank everyone again for the prayers and support during this year. Also if in your prayers you could again pray for Ukraine as the new second round of the elections will occur on the 26th.

Peace,
Brenton Thompson
Roma Project YAV