Our first week here we had the blessing of being able to help work at a Children's VBS (Vacation Bible School) with a local church here in Rivne. It was so much fun, and their program blew my mind.
The leaders were pirates, and my team also acted as soldiers when the story needed. The soldiers were mean and the enforcers of judgement on those who lived as pirates. The children were all pirates, and we had a captain, Black Beard. He wasn't a very good captain, and was as mean as possible to the kids. But then a new pirate named Arhibald showed up, and he told all the kids about a treasure we could find. So we went treasure hunting, and found a chest with freedom letters in it. Each kid got a letter, and that kept them safe from being killed by the soldiers, who punished bad pirates.
But then we were all given the opportunity to sell our letters for candy, and some of the kids did. So when the soldiers came, our new captain Archibald offered for the soldiers to kill just him instead of all the children who didn't have their letters anymore. It seemed pretty intense, and we made a few kids cry throughout the week (I was a bad scary soldier, but they cried anyways, and it was awful) but because of all of this, the kids really grasped how this compared to the Bible, and they were able to understand better what Jesus did for us.
The week we spent with those kids was amazing! Most of them either didn't speak English, or only spoke a little, so we learned to communicate without words. And the kids in my group (the Black Pearl) had a great time trying to teach me Ukrainian words, which I was absolutely terrible at saying.
It was really nice to be working with kids, and I had so much fun playing with them and spending time with them. On one day, my team with the kids didn't have a translator, so I really got to sit back and observe the leader's hearts for the children and for sharing God's love. I will always remember spending a week as a part of the Black Pearl!
