So our contact, Maxim, came to us the other night and
randomly told us (through very fractured English) that we would be going to a
secluded village 150 kilometers outside of Odessa.
“Five days, you will be in village.�
That was about the extent of what we could understand.
“How big is this village?� I asked Maxim, as me and my
teammates stared at each other in horror. We had been told that ministering in
the village was “optional�, and we were quite unprepared to spend five days in
some random village.
“Uh, ten families,� Maxim replied. The terrified look in our
eyes increased.
That night, during our feedback session, we all vented to
each other. The lack of communication had finally reached its boiling point, as
we had all been led to believe we would be working with the Gypsies teaching
them English this week before we went to “Extreme Camp� . . .(whatever that
was.) Now, we were going to be going to “The Village,� and all of our M. Night
Shamalyan jokes aside, we were very concerned that the next five days and four
nights were truly going to be a nightmare.
We all piled into a van that next morning, with a limited
amount of clothes, supplies, and even less knowledge. We spent most of the
drive to “The Village� in silence, as Maxim sang along to various Bulgarian
music in the front. He seemed incredibly excited, almost as if he were joyful
to be passing us off to another Pastor we didn’t know.
Passing by endless fields of sunflowers, I found myself
fighting back tears, as I wondered if the gorgeous yellow flowers would be the
last shred of joy I would find in the next week. Almost as if on cue, the
sunflower fields slowly turned green as most of the sunflowers hadn’t bloomed
yet in this part of the world, and I assumed it was because the light from the
sun never touched this place.
We passed a communist memorial, cold stone faces on a huge
monolith, staring off into the horizon,
issuing a challenge to any who would dare travel this far. Just when the
highway seemed to have no end, we pulled off onto a small side road heading off
into what appeared to be a valley. Later, I found out that Alex and I had
shared the same thoughts, because we both assumed a five hour winding mountain
drive awaited us. To our surprise, we came to our destination very quickly,
pulling up to a small house surrounded by farmland.
The cerulean blue car in the driveway betrayed a small
yellow Christian Ichtus Fish next to the European style license plate.
We all piled out of the car and the dark grey clouds
enveloped us with their biting wind. Rain threatened to drown us in our sorrow.
We walked up the gravel driveway after Maxim who shook the hand of a very stern
looking Ukrainian. Turns out, he was our pastor, whose name was Alexi.
He was an averaged sized man with thick brown hair and cold
blue eyes that stare straight through you.
“Privyeet.� He spoke solemnly, with a quiet small voice,
completely full of assurance. I nodded and faked a smile, as I still wasn’t
sure if I wanted to be in this place, and now, meeting the eyes of our warden,
I was even less certain . . .
(To be continued in “The Village�, Chapter two!!)
