Well I've been in L'viv Ukraine for over a week now. Its another month of straight up Blessing from God. But let me tell you about how I got here.
We had FOUR travel days from Dublin, Ireland to Lviv Ukraine. I arrived at Dublin airport on Monday July 30th to spend the night in the airport with the whole squad. We got there around 1pm, so I went out with a few ladies to see some cool old bible texts at a library in Dublin. After dinner and hanging out we arrived back at the airport around 10:30pm to "sleep". When the airport told us we could spend the night they didn't tell us that they would be waking us up at 4am and asking us to move. Then waking us up at 8am to ask us to move again, this time to a scary dungen looking part of the airport. We flew out of Dublin around 4pm and got in Instanbul Turkey to again spend the night in an airport. I stayed up watching a movie with my good friend Lizzie til about 2am. I went into an empty gate area with my team to sleep and was woken up in the middle of the night to people yelling and screaming because their flight was cancelled. I sat up and looked around and laid back down to sleep again. Turns out a flight to Paris getting cancelled is a big deal in Instanbul. After waking up at 6:30ish we went to our gate to catch our flght to Kiev Ukraine. We arrived in Kiev around 11am I think and took a bus to the train station. We got lockers for our stuff and then went to tour the city with our Squad leader Rachel and her friend who serves in Kiev. We got back to the train station around 930pm to get our stuff out of the lockers and get to our train. Well my locker wouldn't open. Then one of the guys from the team we are serving with this month hit the locker and it popped open! So we get all our gear on our backs and fronts and head up to get our train.
We get there and guess what, yep, NO one speaks english! So we tried to board the train but it turns out what we have aren't the tickets just the confirmation papers. A man came up at some point that spoke some englishe and helped us figure out what was wrong. So Caleb and Lindsay, the two team leaders, run to the ticket office to get the tickets. Then I'm not sure if it was the same guy or someone else but he says to us all "Your time is limited you must go fatser!" My team mates Hannah and Ashley are about to start running when I tell them hey the team leaders have it under control. This all was after 10pm in a dark train station with very little english. We finally get real tickets and start going down the line to find our train cars. I hand my ticket to each person at each car until I find the right one. I couldn't read the ticket because in was all in Ukraine. So I ended up in a car with my teammate Lydia and a couple that doesn't speak english. It was so hot on the train too. They don't start the a/c until they start moving. The couple bought us KitKat bars and gave us little hard candies. So we talked for a while and then slept soundly until the angry conductor yelled at us to get off the train twice. The first time with his shirt on and the second time without his shirt. We were picked up in Lviv by our contacts the Blessing family, and brought to Beth El where we are serving and living this month. The Blessings live up to their name in so many ways. It is an honor to serve with them this month.
I really didn't want to leave Ireland, but boy am I so happy here! I miss my friends in Ireland but have been so blessed here in only one week. God has turned my heart to being here and serving however he wants me to. And I know he will turn my heart to each country as we go. Because He is GOOD and loves to show His goodness to us.
So far I've been able to serve in some really different ways and have enjoyed each one so much. I've been doing some painting and staining around Beth El, worshipping in the streets of Lviv, and english club.
Until next time dear friends!
All my love,
Mary
