My team spent the month of April in a little village outside of Lugansk, Ukraine with team Clay and a team from the F Squad who are about to finish their race in May. We worked with an amazing man named Shane Duke who runs a ministry though a youth summer camp. Our primary jobs this month were cleaning up the camp and preparing it for the children this summer, prayer walking in the local villages and being seen and interacting with the locals, preaching and teaching in a couple local churches, orphanage ministry and partnering with a short-term team from Louisiana that came for some evangelical outreach and medical ministry.
One of our Wednesday aftern
oon church services at an orphanage in one of the villages.
oon church services at an orphanage in one of the villages. 
Ministry at one of the orphanages- playing around with kids and a MAJOR language barrier is hilarious. You should try it sometime.
Ukrainian village- still constructed with the idea of being protected
from invasion the villages are made of homes with large gates between
them so that the façade is one big wall. The villages are not all that
welcoming given this construction and the communist mindset that
outsiders cannot be trusted. Prayer walking was one of our greatest
ministries this month just because being seen in the villages and
having communication with people on a casual basis and getting to know
them was powerful because most villagers have a negative view of
outsiders. Our ministry this month was partly to pave the way for more
people to come and share the Gospel here.
from invasion the villages are made of homes with large gates between
them so that the façade is one big wall. The villages are not all that
welcoming given this construction and the communist mindset that
outsiders cannot be trusted. Prayer walking was one of our greatest
ministries this month just because being seen in the villages and
having communication with people on a casual basis and getting to know
them was powerful because most villagers have a negative view of
outsiders. Our ministry this month was partly to pave the way for more
people to come and share the Gospel here.
The beautiful country side and hills behind our camp. You could see for miles and miles- rumor has it you can see Russia from here?!
Since part of our job in cleaning the camp was clearing branches
and burning them we would have a HUGE campfire every night to sit
around and have some great community time and to keep warm in the
frozen tundra that is Ukraine in springtime!
and burning them we would have a HUGE campfire every night to sit
around and have some great community time and to keep warm in the
frozen tundra that is Ukraine in springtime!
Team Remnant with Stan and Jeff, two of the pastors from Louisiana who greatly blessed our World Race teams with their knowledge and enthusiasm for sharing the Gospel world-wide.
For my birthday my team arranged for me to go horseback riding which was HUGE surprise to me! Pictured here are me, Silvka the Ukrainian horse, Helen our amazing translator, and my teammates Carly and Bev.
Is that a cell phone or a cookie?! How ‘bout both. One of the things we really enjoyed this month was the delightful assortment of very inexpensive Ukrainian sweets which we probably over indulged in. But Ukrainians love their meats, cheeses and confections so none of us could complain and I promise no one wanted to. We ate better in Ukraine that anywhere else on the race by far.
