Ooooh Ukraine.
This place is so wonderful.
We've been here for almost two weeks now, and I couldn't be more at peace with what the Lord is doing with us here in Ukraine. Its not super complicated, we're not always on the go, and theres not a big church service every other night. Rather, this month is all about relationship. We've been asked to come here and love on some people, and that's what we've tried to do.
So far, we've helped with two eye glass clinics and one week of softball camp.
At the eyeglass clinics, we actually have nothing to do with the eyeglasses. Instead, we sit in the waiting room and talk to all the babushkas (grandmothers) who are sitting and waiting to get a free pair of glasses.
When we talk to them, we give them one of these handmade bracelets:
We call them salvation bracelets because they tell the story of the Good News in a way that makes it easy to understand, but it also serves as an everyday reminder of what it means to follow Christ.
The brown bead represents our sinful nature without God.
The red bead represents the sacrifice and the blood shed by Jesus Christ.
The white bead represents how the blood washes us white as snow.
The blue bead represents being born again in water baptism.
The green bead represents a faithful life following salvation which includes reading the bible, praying, and having fellowship with other Christians.
The gold bead represents the streets of gold in Heaven where Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us.
And the purple bead is a symbol of the royalty of Christ.
It may seem childish, or very Vacation Bible School-ish, but these people LOVE them. In their eyes, it's a gift of friendship, and at that point, they are willing to listen to almost anything that you have to tell them, even if its about Jesus.
Unfortunately, about 99% of the time they don't understand any English. But thankfully, we've been blessed with a couple of translators who have dedicated so much time to helping us speak to the locals around here.
But to be honest, translators aren't always necessary.
There's times when I've just sat awkwardly and smiled with them, and sometimes that speaks more clearly than words.
For example, meet Vera.
I fell in love with Babushka Vera during our second eyeglass clinic. We talked for a few minutes with a translator and I gave her a bracelet and explained what it meant. When our translator walked away, we just sat and held each other. Then talked a little longer with my broken Russian. And sat a little longer. And smiled. And she kissed me. Hugged me. And smiled, too. Then Valery, our translator, came back to help me talk to her some more. I learned that she had a son that was going to have surgery soon. So I prayed for her son and his surgery to go well. And I thanked God for Vera and having met her and how much of a blessing she was to me that day. When I looked up again, she was crying. This grandmother, who had only just met me, was touched by the few words I lifted up to God for her.
So guess what happened next?
When our translator had stepped away after the prayer…
We sat some more.
And smiled some more.
And held each other some more.
Eventually, it was Vera's turn to get her eyes checked; and when she was finished, it was time for her to leave.
She cried.
We hugged and kissed.
She spoke blessings over me in Russian.
And out the door she went.
Then I cried.
I looked over at Liz and said, "So, this is what this year is going to be like, huh? Falling in love and saying goodbye over and over again? Never knowing if you'll see them again?"
And Liz, as she put her arm over my shoulder, said, "You can only pray that you'll see each other again in heaven."
And with a big sigh, I said, "It's worth it."
You see, it's not always about numbers.
For about 30 minutes, it was Me and Vera time. Yes, there were other people around that I could have sat and talked with, too; but for some reason, my role was to sit right next to Vera and love on her and pray with her. If I could touch the heart of only one person that day, then I truly believe it was worth it and it was to the glory of God.
I believe its the same with Jesus. If you were the ONLY person on this earth, I believe with all my heart that Jesus would have still come to this earth to die for you so that you could have "You and Jesus" time in Heaven. Receive that.
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Aside from the clinics, our last week with softball was incredible as well.
We worked with a softball camp for five days from around 4pm to 8pm in a city called Krasnyi Luch with the local congregation and youth group. We stayed in a local host home throughout the week where we were totally immersed into Ukrainian culture. It was so great!! Babushka Anya was the best hostess ever. She fed us constantly and made sure our every need was met.
This was our home for 4 days 🙂
And our dog 🙂
As for the softball camp, it was a free camp open to all ages. They wanted to learn to play softball, and we wanted them to learn about Jesus. So we did both 🙂 As the week went on, several of us (including myself) gave our testimonies to the entire camp. It was a blast getting to share the love of God through sports, and we were blessed just as much as the campers. By the end of the week, we had made some awesome friends, and it was pretty difficult to say good bye.
As I mentioned earlier, it's not easy when you know deep down you may never see these kids again. But I feel like God was able to use our team and our stories to plant some seeds in the hearts of these children and some adults, too. So I can only pray now that they reach out to the local church to keep learning more about this Jesus guy 🙂
So now, here are some snapshots from this past week!!
Thats it, folks 🙂
Unfortunately, the softball camp we were supposed to have this week was cancelled 🙁
So instead, we'll be doing a few more eyeglass clinics, working with the local churches, visiting some children at the hospital, and just doing whatever physical labor we can for some of the community around here.
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On another note, I have $3,000 left to raise for my October 1st deadline. Please keep this deadline in your prayers as it fast approaches!!!
And finally, we have our official video from our last month in Ireland!! Kudos to Carmen for working sooo many hours to put this together!
Thank you for reading, please enjoy the video, and God bless!!
