February 27, 2015 the Head Pastor of Gethsemane church, Lviv, Valeriy Marchenko celebrated his 60-th birthday. March 1, the church had a celebratory gathering inside the sanctuary, entertaining both the church members and also brothers and sisters from other congregations. A number of pastors from other Lviv churches came to greet pastor Valeriy personally, while a series of video greetings from other pastors as well as from the City Council representatixje were played to greet the pastor in absence. This year likewise sees pastor celebrate his 15 years of as the Head Pastor at Gethsemane church and altogether 17 years of pastoral ministry.

At the beginning of the celebrationf the worship group of Gethsemane, Lviv praised God for the life that He gives us and the calling to be ministers of Christ’s church

Pastor of “Hosanna” Church, Dmytro Kolesnyk, pastor of “God’s Embassy” Lesya Oleksyuk and pastor from a nearby town of Krasne Oleksiy Kushnirenko spoke their birthday greetings to pastor Valeriy in person on behalf of their churches and wished a special working of God*s power in the next stage of his life and ministry for spreading of the Kingdom of God in Lviv. Many other pastors from Lviv conveyed their wishes through video greetings.

A special moment in the greetings was the warm words of good wishes spoken by the pastorfs father – Pavlo Marchenko. Brother Pavlo is likewise involved in serving at Gethsemane. Being 84, he nevertheless put up a lively performance of a famous Ukrainian folk song “The two colors, red is love and black is sorrow”.

The teenagers’ small group of Sergiy Matusovskiy greeted the pastor with a giant hand-made birthday card. On top of that, the five daughters of the Plakhtyna family in a kind of a quintet performed a song in English to greet the pastor.

The Gethsemane youth prepared a special dancing number for the pastor*s birthday. Gethsemane church of Chervonohrad that God started 5 years ago, blessed the pastor for his kind, sensitive and faithful heart and thanked him with a sweet present after singing a greeting song.

Smalt group leaders along with their groupmates greeted the pastor with a number of creative performances – both by means of a Christian greeting and a humorous song. Alt the church united to pray for a special God*s blessing on the pastor for his further years of life and faithful ministry to God.

The main yummiest present of the night with a sign on top – “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want”. The delicious treat from the man of the night facilitated joyful and open-hearted brotherly fellowship. Happy birthday, pastor Valeriy!