Okay, so… here I am in Ukraine. I still can’t believe it. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much internet
access since getting here so I haven’t posted yet- but I’m gonna try to include
as much as I can in this post so that I can catch everybody up.
Last Saturday, my team (Team Umoja) arrived at our very first ministry
site on the World Race- a summer camp for children on the Ukraine/Russia
border. I’ve always (semi) joked about how I want to travel everywhere in the
world except Russia- I have no desire to go to Russia. Well, right now, I can
walk about half a mile and cross the river and find myself in Russia. Funny.
So,
we’re here at camp. When translated, the
name of the camp is “Camp Dream”. It is run by a nearby church. The
children are primarily orphans from an orphanage in Russia, although a few of
the kids are local kids whose parents pay for them to come to the camp. Our
ministry contacts are a couple who work as full time missionaries for YWAM
International and are based in Lugansk, a Ukrainian city about an hour away
from the camp. They are heavily involved with the orphanage and have worked at
this summer camp for the past three summers. We are so blessed to have an
incredibly generous and godly couple to help us along in our first month of WR
ministry.
During
our first week here at this camp, our role has primarily been to support
another group who was already here working at the camp. Team
“Krasnodon” is a group of young adults from a Russian speaking church
in Fresno, CA who comes here during the summer to run programs for the kids.
They had a two week program planned out and our role this past week has been
primarily to support them and reinforce their work with the children. I’m so
grateful that they were already here when we arrived, because they had already
established relationships with these children and were willing to integrate us
into the camp. They were also incredibly helpful because they speak the
language (thankfully). They left yesterday, however, and from here on out our
role will include much more teaching and hands-on work with the kids.
Thankfully, we will have translators starting this week, since all of the kids
speak Russian. Our team has been trying to learn as much Russian as possible to
communicate with the kids, but it’s a very difficult language to learn in a
matter of just a couple weeks!
I’m
excited to get a chance to teach the kids over the course of the next couple
weeks. I pray that the hearts of these sweet orphans would be made soft to
receive the truth that, although they may not have earthly parents, their
heavenly father has created them and loves them. I’m learning, though, that
even without words, children are more than willing to receive love in the form
of a smile, a hug, or a simple game. Love crosses language barriers.
We
will be here at “Camp Dream” until July 8. Please continue prayers
for the country of Ukraine. Pray for each of the orphans here: that they would
intimately know the love of the Father. Pray for our team: that God would bind
us together as a family, that we would constantly be at His feet receiving His
love and rest, and that we would have energy to love these kids as big as we
can. Pray that, as a team, we would be rooted and established in love and that
it would pour over into each person we come in contact with. Pray also for our
ministry contacts, Forest and Darcy, to be filled with strength to continue the
work that has been started here.
So,
here are a few of the things I have learned about Eastern Europe in the past
week…
– The weather is MUCH hotter than I expected. Also, lots of mosquitoes.
-The people aren’t particularly interested in smiling. Especially at
Americans.
-They’re not particularly interested in using vowels either. Russians
love their consonants.
– In the city, at least every other corner has a statue of an angry man.
Statues are kind of a big deal.
– More wheat fields than I expected, Obviously, that’s my favorite part
so far.
-They love butter. And cabbage. Definitely NOT my favorite part.
-The kids are ripped. I mean, they must work out at least 23 hours a
day. And they can break dance. I didn’t see that one coming.
There’s
a glimpse of my life in Ukraine so far. Probably not the culture that I feel
the most comfortable in, but I really am thankful for the opportunity to be
here. I know that serving out of my comfort zone will undoubtedly strengthen my
faith. I never want my faith to be just talk, I want to walk it out in
obedience. God commands his people to care for the widows in the orphans, and
I’m thankful that He has put me in a place to do that.
“What
good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can
such faith save him? Suppose a brother of sister is without clothes and daily food.
If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but
does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith
by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (James 2: 14-17).
