My blogs frequency has been dwindling down, along with our time here on the race. We are now in our second to last month, WHAT? Writing a blog for Kiev was weighing heavy on me all month and I let myself keep putting off, until now. Here I am in Romania and having somewhat deja vu from writing China’s blog whilst in Ukraine.
Ukraine, in short, was a month of lots and lots of blessings and preparing to go home.
After our debrief in Beijing we were starting to prepare ourselves for going home. It was hard, at points, staying present and in the moment, while making plans for after the race and preparing myself for the questions asked and how to take on America after all this. Although, our ministry for the month was speaking in different English classrooms, which mostly consisted of us talking about the World Race and the students asking tons of questions about it. So, it prepared us with a stock pile of answers to common questions we will get when we return.
We were working with a group called CCX, a Christian organization that held English Clubs at different Universities, had English Movie Nights every Friday with discussion and is invited to different University classrooms to teach English. It is illegal to share the gospel openly to University students, so this is a great way to meet people and still build into their lives. It was really great being a World Race and coming in because I was able to, legally, share the stories of when I saw Christ on this trip and the amazing and horrible things I have seen as well as essentially share my testimony with them when they asked why I went on this trip in the first place. After meeting students we would hang out with them as much as possible. We invited them to night events, hung out at cafes after class and club, had events every Saturday, invited them to church, etc. etc.
Our days looked a little like this: either a 6 hour block teaching in the early morning (8-2pm), a 3 hour block teaching in the afternoon (1-4pm) or a 2 hour English Club in the afternoon (4-6pm), roughly. We would pair up, since a lot of our schedules overlapped. It was a strange month, because of how little group time we were able to have. Our team struggled a bit this past month, actually. A lack of “team time”/feedback, quality group time and just being towards the end of the race and tired made it hard. The weather was very bipolar as well, somedays almost spring time and other days (most days) very cold and blistering.
As far as blessings go, there were lots and they were everywhere. Kiev has been the first city that has had good cheese, coffee and chocolate… three things I LOVE! Yes, even if I am lactose intolerant! Also, Ukraine has an amazing appreciation for the arts. There were musicians in the subway, opera houses, beautiful architecture, classical music playing in the streets and more. I was able to see Swan Lake, Carmen Suite and one of the stories from the Arabian Nights stories at the National Opera House and they were all incredible! We had American contacts that were amazing people and so fun to get to know. Jessie had Settler’s of Catan for me to play, Caleb had Muchkins and led amazing worship, Terry had stories about travelling the entire world that were so fun to hear and Pete was a GeoCaching extraordinaire that had tons of little caches around the town that we were able to find. All of these guys had a house we would hang out at all the time and were so open and helpful, with huge hearts! Then we had tons of ladies we worked with Olya, Steph, Cattya, Tanya, Anna, Inna, (I know I’m spelling pretty much all of them wrong), but these women are some of the most amazing women I have met and I LOVED having a month to spend with them!
We lived with a Ukrainian woman from the church whose American husband was back in the States for a while. She was the most generous person in the world and gave us so so much while we were there, not to mention opened her house to us for the entire month. We were able to cook for ourselves, do laundry, had a shower with a BATHTUB, and our own place! Ruth and I slept on the couch, Laura and Kelly on the floor in the bedroom and Megan and Rachel in the beds in the bedroom.
All in all, Ukraine was a great great month, one of my favorites in fact. I wish I would have blogged more while I was in the country so I could have told you more about it, I’m going to make a point to blog at least twice this month, WHILE I’m in the country. Romania is going to be a great month! I’ll post later to tell you all about it 🙂
Tomorrow is my birthday! 25! Half a century! Can’t wait 🙂
Have a great night and God bless!!
