We have been in Kyiv, Ukraine for almost a week now and it is quickly becoming one of my personal favorites. I am with team Willow and our ministry this month is working with CCX, a Christian ministry aimed at reaching university students throughout Kyiv. There are at least four universities that CCX is ministering to, with more to come in the future. Our group’s focus will be to form relationships with students through various fun events, coffee dates, class visits, and English clubs, and connect them with people who work at CCX so they can be ministered to in the future and form a lasting relationship with the organization.
Our first official ministry event was attending the CCX Movie Night at one of the campuses. The general idea is to play a movie with some social and/ or moral themes and then discuss them for about ½ hour after the movie is done. Students attend as a way to be social and to practice their English with native speakers. Unfortunately for me, the movie they played was The Boy in the Striped Pajamas…an uber depressing film set during WWII. Despite the tears and general sadness that sets over a room after such a film, I enjoyed some great conversation with my group of students and even made a few friends! Below is a picture of Victoria, my first official Ukrainian friend, and the pair of earrings she gave me as a gift:) Sweet girl.
The next day, Saturday, we met up with a group of students and headed to a local park area for a service project. For two hours we cleaned up trash in the park and afterward we had a picnic and played games. It was colder outside than I had hoped, but one of the girls lent me her (really cute) jacket and we all had a lot of fun playing Ninja.
Yesterday was our first day to visit classes at a university. Our goal in visiting the classrooms is to create a connection with CCX and hopefully draw students to one of the organization’s outreach events. We share our World Race stories and experiences with the class, let them ask questions to practice their English and pronunciation with a ‘native speaker’, and then invite them to a CCX event or English Club before we leave. The classes are typically 1.5 hours long…which can feel like a VERY long time to hear your own voice if the class you’re speaking to is shy. Here’s a picture of the class I visited. I LOVED them. They asked many great questions and offered me cake and juice (can I please go there evey day?). After I was done I met back up with Rachel, who was in a different classroom, and we took the metro back to our office.
I’ve learned from our contacts that Ukraine has the reputation for having the ‘most beautiful women in Europe’ and I can understand why. The women here are generally very beautiful and dress impeccably well. However, whenever I have vocalized this to one of the girls I can tell they don’t believe it. I think one of my ministry opportunities here will be reaching out particularly to the women and helping them see the truth of their beauty as daughters of the King. Not because they are dressed well enough, or have the right style or make up, but because that is how God designed each woman he placed on this earth… it’s in our genes. Our beauty is part of our being, and a gift from our heavenly Father.
