The Ukraine is
definitely a different country.
When we first got here we all had culture shock just because we were in
a big city again. We are living
here in Kiev in an apartment with both girl teams. Yes there are 14 girls living together and it has been
working out pretty well!! When we
first arrived here in Kiev we did not have any ministries set up but we did
know a previous world racer that helped us out a ton! He was able to arrange housing for us and he took us to a
church service that had a lot of the leaders of missionary groups there. Our search for a ministry began. We ended up serving with a few
ministries and pouring into people that we met along the way!
One of our main
focuses of ministry was helping teachers with their English classes. Six teammates worked with two different
classes and Renee and Jenni worked at a Christian early development school. This month was definitely different
with all of us doing different ministries. God is also slowly getting me used to living at home again,
well not with living with 13 other women but with everyone having different
jobs and still living in community and fellowship!
I taught English with
Tonya and Stephanie and our first day was a little hard for me. I kept having flash backs to all my
tutors for English and hooked on phonics lessons!! It was kind of a weird crazy
experience the first day. After
that I have a huge respect for teachers!!! Especially for my friends Leah and
Matt, who both want to make a difference in the world through teaching, praise
God for people like you!! You teachers our there are truly amazing!! God bless
you all. After a few days of
English I got used to the students and their different personalities and the
different ways of teaching them and it got easier. I was mostly excited that we were able to help the teacher
out a lot!! She thanked us a ton for helping her out. At the end of our time there we were able to pray over her
and that for me was incredible. I
really respect her and know that God is going to bless her!
We were also able to
work with an YWAM team that works in a trade school. We were able to go help them with their ministry. The four that we worked with were from
all over and they were putting on a café time for the kids that lived
there. At this school there are
kids who have parents and just go during the week and there are kids who live
there because they are orphans. We
just helped out that team and talked with the kids and made bracelets, played
games and hung out. That group of
YWAM people really impressed me. I
was really blessed to see them in action with the kids. I enjoyed just seeing other
missionaries who care so much about the youth that they are serving!!
