Yesterday (Friday) was SUCH a great day. Because we arrived in Odessa, Ukraine during our contacts slower season (we happened to come during summer vacation so everyone is at the beach everyday), there isn’t too much ministry work to do..at least in the way that you would expect. Americans are few and far between around here, so we’ve been spending a lot of time with everyone from english club and the church.
Ashley and I were cracking up yesterday because our definition of ‘ministry’ here is so different from what we were expecting. Our ministry consists of building relationships mostly with our contacts and fellow church goers and helping them out with daily tasks that they don’t have time for. Yesterday we had ‘volleyball at the beach ministry’ with just about everyone from church. Volleyball is huge here…most of the people here don’t have a net though, so they stand around in a circle and hit the volleyball back and forth. Mark (one of the lead pastors) brought a net so we drew quite a bit of attention while we were setting up. We were praying that we wouldn’t have any trouble with cops, and the greatest thing happened-we didn’t! Praise God.
The 13 yr old girl (I think her name was Voldava-that’s probably completely wrong) was really friendly. She introduced me to her brother (10yrs old) and her mom. I was able to tell her what we were doing in Ukraine, and she asked for my email/skype so that we could keep in touch. We then went out to take a dip in the Black Sea to cool down and Voldava, her brother and the three young girls came out there with us. I felt like I was the older sister and I was so excited that they all wanted to hang out outside of the Frisbee game. I invited Voldava to English club but she said she had plans, hopefully she can make it to the 4th of July picnic with her family on Sunday.
After we went swimming, I was walking over to our stuff to drop some things off when I looked up and saw a volleyball flying through the air coming straight towards me. My thought was, ‘Now’s my time to shine! There’s no way I could miss this!’…so without looking I went full swing into hitting the ball when… BAM!!!!!!…one of the volleyball players that joined in from the beach crowd and I hit eachother straight on! We both took a hard hit and ended up crashing into the sandy beach. It was hilarious! I wish someone would’ve gotten it on camera because man, that had to be funny to see. We both just looked at eachother and laughed…I feel like I would’ve been the perfect movie moment haha Afterwards, I was invited into the volleyball game..at first I declined but then I decided to just jump in and see how it if I was better than I imagined I would be….
Turns out, I was right, I’m horrible! Lol Not only was I was not hitting the ball, I was blocking everyone else from hitting it! The guy (Ugin) that I ran into before was playing right behind me, said he was nervous of hitting me again so I kept him (one of the best on our team) from playing well, too! Basically, I took our whole team down by joining lol Then I tried serving the ball…that didn’t go well either haha I figured third time would be a charm…nope! I was getting hit with the volleyball left and right, and it wasn’t a volleyball it was a person’s arm or body or something! Lol I’ve never gotten so beat up! After a little while of getting beat up and making our team worse, I switched roles with one of the guys holding up the volleyball net…that I could do!
After that I went back to playing Frisbee with some more beach goers. It was amazing to talk with and hang out with everyone from church and with a bunch of Ukrainian’s on the beach! I don’t know what it was, but I absolutely loved getting to meet new people, talk with them and have fun with them! The atmosphere was completely different from what we’ve gotten used to. People were actually smiling, laughing, joking…friendly! Oh, how I loved it J
This whole time I’ve been back and forth with how I feel about Ukraine. Yesterday made me realize how much I’m going to miss Ukraine. We’ve been able to spend so much time with everyone from the church and now it feels like we’re all family..like we’ve known them for years. We’re heading to Romania on Thursday…THURSDAY! Month One is already coming to an end. So crazy.
Tomorrow we have our prayer service in the morning, then church, then we’ll be celebrating 4th of July along the beach with members from English Club and church! I can’t wait! J
Happy Independence Day, Everyone!
I love and miss you all,
Andrea J
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