So this blog might be kind of long
but I am going to hopefully give you a little insight into what went on last
month in Ukraine. We ended up having internet where I was but it was kind of
pricey and we were extremely busy and that meant no blogs, please accept my
apology. Here it goes……..
We left Romania around July 12th
or so and took a 26 hour train ride back to Kiev where we started this crazy
journey. From there we were picked up
and head to a little village outside of Ivankiv where we would be working with
Andrew and Jenny Kelly, two amazing people of God who have huge hearts for the
kids in Ukraine. A quick side note, last
month we were closer to Chernobyl than we were to Kiev, pretty crazy. When we arrived at Jeremiah’s Hope there was
already a camp in progress and there were already a couple of teams one from
Texas, and one from the Netherlands, along with some staff and interns who were
already running the show. So for the
first week we got to come along side these teams and just fill in the gaps and
do projects around the camp, as well as, help out with some other things such
as kitchen clean up. This camp that we
came into happened to be what Andrew said was probably the hardest week of camp
during the summer, it was the kids from social services. A lot of these kids came from home situations
that are worse than anything I could have imagine previously. There were also four kids who didn’t have
homes and were living at the camp for a while there names were Archum, Kolya,
Vassya, and Nastia (the spellings are way off but that is how they would
sound). It was so awesome to be able to
love on these kids, but on Saturday when they had to leave it was hard to watch
then drive off into the distance knowing the situations that some were going. Justin and I even had the opportunity of
sleeping in the same cabin as Archum, Kolya, and Vassya and a good portion of
our second week in Ukraine was doing some projects around camp and just keeping
an eye on the kids. This was a job that
was definitely frustrating at times, but it was such a blessing to be able to
love on and spend time with these kids.
Unfortunately, by our last week in Ukraine all of the kids had been
moved out. Please pray for them!!! That the
Lord would continue to pursue them and that they would understand that Jesus
died for them and wants a relationship with them, that he will never leave
them! Both Andrew and Jenny have started
houses for kids in Ukraine, and our last week we got do a camp for the kids
from both the houses. The age range was
older so it was 15 or so-22 or so. We
ended our time in Ukraine and we have now been in Ireland for about 5 days or
so. It is absolutely beautiful, if you
ever get a chance come here. We are
staying with a couple of missionaries in Greystones, which is a little ways
south of Dublin, and have mostly been
doing physical labor around the place we are staying thus far. Yesterday, we had the opportunity to head
into Dublin and pass out some tracks and do some outreach. The Lord bless our time and a lot of the
people on our team got to have some good conversations. Please continue to pray for my team and me
especially that we would continually be filled with the Holy Spirit and out of
this would walk boldly in proclaiming the truth of Jesus Christ. Hopefully this gives you a small glimpse of
what we did last month. If you have any
particular questions please ask me I would love to answer any and all of
them. I love you all!
