Day off at K Y I V.

Yesterday was our day off and we got the opportunity to visit the capital. Kyiv, Ukraine. 

The plan was to take a train - about a 2hr ride from our small town Ніжин to Куіv. 

4 of the youth counselors got to go with us. Vanya, Ruslan, Nadia, and Alina. The day started off right - more or less 

When the train arrived at the station we walked up all the way to the first cabin because that's where our ticket seats were. However, the man at the door checking the tickets would not allow us to board because some of us Americans forgot to bring any form of I.D. with us and that's how they confirm the name on the ticket. Time was winding down and Vanya was trying to explain that we were not aware and to excuse us Americans. But he wouldn't. We jogged to the next cabin but no luck there either. The man said we can try talking to the woman in charge of that train but she was all the way at almost the last cabin. We had about a minute before the train departed. We ran the full length of the train and it started to move - talk about suspense - I don't know what Vanya told the lady from out the train as it was moving and picking up speed. But he gave us the signal to jump on. So we did as it was in motion!

Funny thing is we then got upgraded to rooms instead of seats lol - funny way to start our day. 

Ukrainians drink a lot of tea. Delicious mint teas, Indian Spice teas, Tai teas, etc,..we even got complimentary teas on the ride. 

Sort of felt we were to hogwarts riding on this train haha

Arriving to the huge city of Kyiv was a beautiful sight. We rode over the lake Дніпро to enter it. 

We finally arrived. You can notice very quickly the difference between a small and this massive city. So many types of people moving along back and forth - coming and going. First thing was to get on the subway to our first destination. We got to the station to take to escalators far down underground. I found out later that this station was the world record deepest subway station in the world. 

Once we got to our stop we still had to walk a bit to get to our first destination.

After walking a bit we arrived the Lavra. A beautiful monestary constructed almost 1100 years ago. You see monks walking around this old monastery. We weren't allowed to take pictures of them because according to them it takes their soul and they die. Of course I was tempted so much to take a picture. But I was afraid they would just collapse and die in front of me lol 

We weren't allowed to take pictures of the first museum we visited but it was a beautiful exhibition of miniature microscopic pieces. Hard to explain but the only way to see the art pieces was through a microscope. 

We visited the War museum as well. A display on the events on World War II. Again we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the museums but they were pretty cool and sad at moments. 

Especially two rooms where they had an authentic guiatine that the german Nazi's used to decapitate the people. But the most troubling was seeing the actual machine known as a bone crusher. Men, woman, children would be put one by one into this machine on one end and basically would be spit out in bags on the other. Sorry for that graphic thought. It just boggles my mind how heartless and evil the plot to murder was during the war. 

A couple of subways later, for lunch. Couple of subways later for the Chenorbyl museum. Ukriane is home to the greatest nuclear accident in history. Learning about what happened was really interesting. I'm a nerd for all these things. 

 

Finally went back home. No jumping on moving trains this time around. Rested after a long day. 

This morning church service was awesome. Got to see a lot of the kids one last time before the new set of kids come in for week 2 of camp tomorrow.

Had the Lord's Supper together with the church. 

This is the last Sunday for a service here with them.  

End of Camp week 1

What a week. Seriously, I am exhausted. But I literally loved every second of it. 

I will miss the kids I was with this whole week. I will miss teaching them english. They have impacted me so much. The love they constantly show me is overwhelming. 

 

Week 2 of camp is all brand new kids. So although I will miss the ones I became friends with - I am excited to meet the new comers. I will be given the chance to interact with the kids even more this time around. 

So many memories have been made this week and I've still got a whole week left. Honestly, I will definitely be leaving a piece of my heart in Ukraine. I love the people, pastor, youth, couselors, church, food, everything! 

Camp is 7 straight hours of interacting, playing, teaching, and learning with the kids. There are 2 snack times - one in the morning and another late afternoon. Lunch is at 1:30p everyday. Before I begin teaching my English class I am a leader in team green (Zeleni). 

This is Anya (red) and Vera (green). They would literally slightly argue to constantly sit next to me for every activity throughout the day. If one of them won the battle of sitting next to me the other would just sit on my lap lol but I learned a lot of Ukranian cause of them. 

During this week at camp. We were all given a 'secret friend' in which everyday of the week we would anonymously give a small gift to our secret friend. And today - Friday -  we would find out who our secret friend was. 

Some of the gifts I recieved from my secret friend was a Lipton Green Tea, a Kiwi, and a Nezhin souvenir magnet. They were awesome gifts with a note everyday. I found out today it was a Enya. Enya is great! I call her the craziest girl out the counselors. She's extremely funny and hyper! She studies jazz music at the university. We've already had our music jam sessions. She also makes fun of me and gave me the nickname Krasnii Shorts which means red shorts in Russian. Because the first night we played volleyball with the counselors my team would crush her team and I played good that day and she would mock me. I wore red shorts that day. 

I had Enya's sister as my secret friend. Some of the gifts I gave her was a famous Ukranian chocolate and a huge lollipop, etc,..  

Volleyball is like THE sport we play for like 3 hours after camp. It's so much fun just laughing and having a great time. We are playing basketball next week! 

Today I got to walk around the city on my own a bit. Got on a bus and went to other side of town. Went to a few markets outdoors and indoors. It was great just trying to communicate lol 

At the end of camp today, all the kids parents were invited to come to the church for a special celebration -  To show the parents everything they learned in the camp. I lead a worship song today at the celebration. I co-lead it with Vanya. I sang the first half in English and he the second in Ukraine. 

We are finally here at mama Luba's house for a much needed rest. 

Tomorrow will be an awesome day! We are taking a 2 hour train ride to Kiev. We are going to a couple of museums. And walk around a bit

Can't wait. 

Angleski (English)

Just finished day 2 of camp. 

Camp is crazy - I love it! about 180 kids running around a church building. 

This week, my role at the camp is the English station. I have never really taught kids before but I am really enjoying it. And it feels good when they all say they want to hang out with me and like 30 kids come to give me a massive hug at the same time - or how I have about 20 different secret handshakes with so many of them haha 

The day starts off with all the counselors meeting at church at 9a where we spend time doing a devotional (which reminds me I should be giving mine soon...), praying, and talking about the days tasks. Then at 10a kids arrive and camp starts. The first couple of hours they are split into bible lesson class, music, games, etc,.. During that time I am seething up my class downstairs. My class starts at 12:45p. After that I am pretty much teaching English till about 3:30 to different groups. 

I was nervous and excited but I survived - thought I did pretty good for never teaching kids lol - and according to the team leaders, the kids ask for my class since the moment they arrive in the morning so that makes me feel good haha. 

When the first day of camp was over the couselors played volleyball for a couple of hours. It doesn't get dark here until about 10p - crazy - so the days are really long. 

Today, for the second day of camp I felt more comfortable and confident. Once again enjoyed teaching them basic English like the days of the week, numbers, phrases. We are actually working on a project in my English class where we are making a scrapbook of a 'pretend' trip my class is taking to the U.S.A. It's fun. 

Two pretty cool things happened to me today. First was...well, there is this prayer room we have upstairs and all the couselors are to sign up to spend 15 mins of their day in that prayer room. I signed up to pray at 2p. It's during my lunch. I try not to eat much at camp because we already get fed mountains and mountains of food at mama Luba's house. In my 15 mins of seeking God and just praying for the camp, and the kids, my family and all...I felt such a strong presence just come over me. It was heavy. I actually didn't want to leave that room. My 15 mins felt like an hour. It was such a great feeling. I prayed for a lot of things. The one thing I felt the strongest was such peace. I left the room feeling new. Back to the craziness of teaching and chasing kids around. Or in this case...being chased by them.

The second thing, and this is random, is that i got to play guitar and sing in Russian today in front of all the kids haha we do a skit for the kids everyday at the end of the day and for today's skit I had to pretend I was in love with a girl and played guitar and sang the chorus of a song in Russian. Which I literally learned 5 mins before that. The kids seemed to love it they all cheered lol that was fun! 

Day 3 tomorrow.

Had no time for pictures. Will try and take some tomorrow  

Calm before the storm.

Week 1.  

I've only been here one week and I can honestly say I have fallen in love with the city of Hiжин and the country Ukraine. 

The people of Ukraine are so humble and and very hospitable. The moment I arrived and the first time I met the church members, they greeted me and treated me as if we've known each other for years! Seriously, the church has such a wonderful bunch. Over the past week I've also got to meet and spend time with the rest of the camp couselors. The camp counselors are made up of about 15 youth members from the church, our team and a few adults. The counselors talk, walk, play sports with us. We try to play a sport everyday. We got to play some basketball today at the university - it was fun I hope we get to do that again.  They are an awesome group - always smiling, happy, teaching each other our languages. 

I will boast a bit that I am picking up the language quickly. I am actually really intrigued by it and I am always concentrating when I hear people speak in Ukranian. The couselors say they are impressed at how much I am picking up by understanding and speaking it. Although there are quite a few people who speak both languages and have been doing a phenomenal job at translating for us, I must give credit to my little friends Dima and Vera. When I am at the church for a service or meeting, they grab onto me and won't let me go until they have to leave. Vera looks exactly like the main character in the Pixar movie 'Brave'. She's really smart and is picking up English quickly. 

Today, Monday July 1st  is the first day of camp. I am challenged to teach at the English station. Never done anything like this so I've got mixed feelings of nervousness and excitement. This is definitely out of my comfort zone but I'm looking forward to it. Thank God I've got Tanya paired up me. She is Mama Luba's daughter. She is my translator for the week in the English class. She's the funniest person I've met here. 

Yesterday afternoon, Tanya and out team spent about half an hour - maybe more - picking mulberries from the tree out in front. I climbed up a little and just began picking and eating, picking and eating. The berries were so juicy you would just press them lightly and they'd gush out their juice and it'll run down your fingers. 

One the things I enjoy here is the talks at the dining table with our team. As I mentioned, I've only met my team a couple of months ago in Miami and even then we've only seen each other about 5 times in meetings before coming to Ukraine. So eating and talking at the dining table is fun as we all get to know each other. Nancy Crisler (our team leader) is such an amazing person with a heart of gold. Her love for this country and the people here is contagious and admirable. She and her family traveled here for the first time about 7 years ago and since then she has come every year. Her kids - growing up traveling here almost year - have also a love for this place. Mama Luba's house is like their second home. So much that one of Nancy's kids, Greg is studying at a university in Moscow, Russia. A 20 yr old dude studying engineering in Russian. Props to him haha! Hie's here with us now actually and will be for the rest of the week. Nancy leaves tomorrow but she's done more than enough to prepare us for the next 2 weeks. 

Camp day 1. Here we go. 

I haven't had time to take pics the last 2 days. But here some random ones. 

For a moment.

I can't remember the last time I've felt like this. 

It was a special day today. 

As I was playing volleyball with some of the counselors and church members - the Ukranian sunset as our backdrop - something hit me.....

Hard to explain but,

I felt such peace. 

An overwhelming peace, that honestly may have brought tears to my eyes. 

Not an inch of stress. Not thinking about home, bills, job, money, not thinking of what I was going to do in the weekend. Not even thinking about my future.

I was in this moment. 

Laughing. Smiling. Making jokes with new friends. 

A thought ran across my mind in the middle of the game. 'I was so far from home. On the other side of the world. What am I doing here? The team I traveled with - I only met them 2 months ago. And everyone here in Ukraine, I've met them a couple of days ago. Yet here I am. Playing a game of volleyball. In a small city - In Ukraine.'

God knows I've been dealing with stress over the past 2 years. It's unbearable at times. It's a constant load on my shoulders. It wears me down. Floods my thoughts. It distracts me so much. I thank God everyday for the 4 most important people in my life. I think about them all the time. They make me happy. They help me get through everyday. 

I am learning something new everyday while I'm here. Not just in the cultural sense but in the spiritual sense as well. Gods love is overwhelming. I don't deserve it. I really don't. My mind can not comprehend why God is so good to me. Yet I find myself sometimes living my life as if he did not even exist. 

Someone might read through the pages of my life and question if God really is good. The truth is who am I to say if he is or not. What have I done to earn the position of deciding whether God is good or not? 

He loves me. 

I'll admit I may not understand it at times. But then again, I don't think I'm supposed to. Just a thankful heart really. My thanks to Him is to worship Him. To obey Him. To love Him. To serve Him. 

He chose to save me. 

The only thing I contributed to my salvation was my sin. I have nothing to brag about. 

It's because of Him. 

God, thank you. 

Seriously.

Walk. Walk. Walk. Walk. Walk. Walk.

Day 4. Exhausted. Camp hasn't even started yet and I'm finishing these days beat. But today was also an excellent day! 

Of course started off with mama Luba's breakfast. Although pretty soon I think I'll have to tell her I won't be able to eat anymore haha 

After breakfast we walked to the church. It's about a 10 minute drive but about a 30 min walk. The day was hot but a tolerable hot. I enjoyed the sights and sounds bit don't know about the smells hehe once we got to the church, the team of counselors got together to plan what we were going to do at the orphanage later that afternoon. 

At the meeting at church I became friends with one of the counselors little brother. Dima. He became glued to me for the rest of the day. He became my language instructor for the day. We were able to communicate a little more today because I feel I am slowly getting better at the language. But he would Just point at everything and tell me the Ukranian word for the object. He likes to feel my hair lol at least the little I have. 

We then walked some more and visited the town market. A lot people just living their daily lives. I love to people watch..might sound creepy lol but I am intrigued by different cultures, customs, and lifestyles. It's crazy how different life is in another country - regardless of status. We walked into a small store where they were selling Dr. Dre Beats for 45 greevnas which was about 5 American dollars. -_- of course they were fake lol

We began the 30 min walk back home for lunch. Then we walked another 30 mins to the orphanage! Yea we walked a lot today. 

Once the team arrived at the orphanage we introduced ourselves and began playing simons says and singing songs. Then we went outside to play with water balloons and frisbees. Alina shared a bible story with the young kids. She's a natural at being with kids. God is definitely showing me a lot on this trip. Things that I might not have seen or am too distracted at home to see. 

Our time at the orphanage ended or the day. We'll be back tomorrow. We headed back home...yes you guessed it - walked back home! Once we arrived back home we were invited to play volleyball with some of the church members and the four of us..being tired - decided to go anyways. We walked to the church again!!! Well this time just like 10 mins then we took a bus the rest of the way. Volleyball was really fun! I love playing sports! Seriously, I play sports almost everyday back in miami. So it felt good to really sweat. Plus with all of mama Luba's food...I might start running to church from now on. 

Finally returned home. At 10p and it was still sunset here in Ukraine.