As most birthdays go, some are memorable, others are forgotten. But this past Oct 1 being the former for me, I will take a few paragraphs to tell you the tale…
The night before, Thursday:
We would have a weekly bible study/worship time with the students we met during the week doing english speaking clubs at various universities with CCX. We had our bible study and after almost all had left, there were a few who remained and wanted to play a game. It was sort of clapping timing game, like concentration if you know it. Quickly explaining, we’d have to make gestures of animals really quick in time with the clapping rhythm and pass to another player. I was going first and having never played this game before, I was a bit overzealous on my first animal gesture. I was an elephant and had to put one arm out and cross the other over and hold my nose – like I had a trunk. I was a little too quick and dug my fingernail deep into my nose scrambling into position and producing a lovely gash. A half hour later it was midnight, and thus began my birthday, being attacked by an elephant.
My day began by sleeping in, which is a highly recommended way to start all birthdays.
When I arose, I made a plan to go to a coffee shop to use the internet for an hour or so. Friday nights is movie club with CCX and I was in charge of picking the movie, making a list of vocabulary and discussion questions. The list was made but still in need of emailing to the office to be printed for club.
There was a particular coffee house nearby, not the best internet and a bit smoky, but if you order before noon everything is 30% off. As I was quite hungry and looking to take advantage of the deal every since I saw it was available, it was perfect. A nice cheep birthday meal.
I ordered an omelet and hot chocolate, both delicious! I did my business on the internet as was ready to leave after a while so I asked for the bill.
A few minutes later, a waitress brought me some mill-k.
“No”, I fumble out in confusion. “Bill….check…” as I gesture out a receipt. She seems to understand, took the milk and left.
Not a moment later my main waitress shows up and questions, “bill?”
“yes”, I reply. “Check”
She sets down my receipt on the table. Then the glass of milk and leaves.
I look at the bill and of course the milk is on it costing me 8г.
The 30% savings came out to 7.30г.
I came back to our apartment and was greeted by a lovely bouquet of flowers, a coca-cola and an awesome note from my teammate, Emily, which completely brightening my now afternoon and smoothed over the frustration of being ripped off by the coffee shop.
My day was joined by Gus, a friend from home, who is living in Ukraine for a year just a few hours outside of the city. We decide to go for a walk.
I was hoping to see an art museum or two, we both had our cameras 
and I still had to buy the movie for movie club.
The plan was to wonder until club which started at 5:30 and take care of our todo’s in between.
We wondered. And wondered.
I figured I’d eventually run into an area I recognized now having lived in Kyiv for about 3 weeks and having a generally good working knowledge of the area.
We wondered some more.
Unfortunately my knowledge didn’t expand to this particular area of town and as the time approached 4pm, I didn’t have a copy of the movie in my possession yet nor did I know where a nearby metro was to get to a store or the university where club was at.
We asked some locals about a metro, took a mashutka and arrived in the metro station around 4:45. Clearly we had to get serious about getting this movie as there would be maybe 30 students ready and waiting to be entertained in just over half an hour. Crap.
I knew of a mall-like building a 5 minutes walk from the university. It’s the best plan I had to obtaining a copy of the disk, but we were running out of time, Thankfully the movie isn’t supposed to start until 6pm anyway…we’ll be fine.
I hope.
As we reached the mall, we tried to find one store listed on the directory but it was nowhere to be found. We asked a woman there, she said it didn’t exist anymore and to try the computer store across the street. We headed over to the computer store, they didn’t have anything close to movies. They suggest going back to the mall and down to the ground floor at the supermarket. We ran back over and as we turned the corner, we saw it…a DVD store!
It was 5:45pm.
We looked around for a minute, then we asked for help. All the titles were in Ukrainian and I got nervous. The point of English movie club is to have the movie in English. A dubbed movie would not suffice. The sales associate pulled the movie off the shelf, Ukrainian title. We asked him if it was in English and he said he thought it was, but he proceed to check for us by breaking the plastic seal and popping the disk into their store DVD player. (Man, they really get things done here in Ukraine!).
It loads.
We fast forward.
It’s English!
As I finish at the register, it’s 5:57pm
We run.
We arrive at the university and take the elevator up.
As we approach the room, I look down at my watch. 6:05pm.
Close enough.
At least I have the DVD and we didn’t have to bust out our acting skills like we joked about showing up with no film and making it a play instead.
We enter the room and a chorus of happy birthday starts.
It began sounding like Spanish words.
But then it blended into various forms of Russian, Ukrainian and English. A smile creeps onto my face as the now 4 songs end at different moments.
I was bombarded by a few students rushing to give me some of the most awesome birthday presents.
My face was flushed and I was dripping sweat from running despite the 50 degree weather.
All was well.
I grabbed some tea and a cookie
shhhhsh, the movie is about to start….
After movie club, Gus and I went for ПУЗАТА ХАТА – borscht, of course. We walked around Independence Square and Khreshchatyk street and talked for hours. About life, about following God, about ministry, etc. It was perfect between our conversation, our cameras and sitting watching the world go by in one of the most interesting and beautiful areas of Kyiv.
We walked home and arrived to a house of people ready to hang out and watch a movie. We started it at about 1:45am. I fell asleep about halfway through.
It was a long day, an exciting day and one I won’t forget for a while.
Turning 25 isn’t that bad after all.
