Ukraine Trip 2007 - Part II

Day 3: Saturday was our day of prayer. Whenever a team goes to Eastern Europe the first day is taken solely for prayer and relaxation. It really helps you to recover and get your bearings. I think it might have been my favorite day of the whole week. We had a two hour session in the morning and were joined by Alla and her care-taker Nadia. Alla is the young lady I worked with last year. She got too old for the orphanage and so they sent her home to her mother who is a prostitute. Pastor Paul was able to get her mother to sign release papers and they removed Alla from her home. Now she lives with Nadia who has taken care of several orphans. I was able to give Alla a sketch pad and drawing set. She made us draw so many pictures (not of us are really talented). In the afternoon everyone who had lost luggage got to experience the open clothing market in downtown Uzhorrod. I have never been there so I can't tell you anything about that. I heard it was quite....different. I had a very cool word spoken over me that day and we were able to pray for Alla and Nadia. Through the word I was given I was able to in turn speak over others and give some encouragement. It was something I had really missed. Julia's brother Bogadon was there with Natan in the afternoon and I was able to talk to him for a bit. I was surprised to find out that he remembered me considering I don't remember saying hardly anything to him last year! Before dinner we practiced singing some songs that we were going to do for the orphans at Domboki. Sam Penkacik is incredible with a guitar. We just picked a song and he played it. After a while it didn't sound so bad. (Singing wasn't really our forte either.) We were able to goof off that night with Sam's camera and just get to know each other a little more. For most of the trip we tended to segregate into boys and girls. Most of the kids played spoons that evening and I went down to join the adult conversation. I learned about a book Mary-Jill had made called a cone book. We brain stormed for new ideas. I would attempt to describe this book but that we take about a twenty minute tangent and would be totally irrelevant so if you really want to know ask me.

Day 4: The boys and Mr. Kempe headed off to Perechin for church while we girls and Pastor Paul went to New Testament. I was really excited to see some of the woman use flags that we had left there last year. Our only male translator from the previous year name Victor was at church. In fact he was one of the lead singer for worship. After church he was assigned the task of taking us to lunch and entertaining us for a few hours. We went to this awesome Italian looking restaurant. Inside was all painted like stone with recesses in the wall holding old vases and artifacts. There were murals on the wall and even a little bridge. The no-smoking section was upstairs. All of us ordered Ukrainain pizza. It is much thinner and flakier than ours with little or no tomato sauce. They often put canned corn on their pizza. Mrs. Whissel and I were the only ones brave enough to try, I think. I fould it pretty good but then I loved all of the food in Ukraine. Alla had come to lunch with us and introduced us to a new game. She gave us a word in Ukrainian and we had to go around the circle and each act it out. We all looked ridiculous but she is quite the little actress and had us all in stitches. To keep us busy for a while Victor took us up to see the castle of Uzhorrod. We had tried to visit it last year but it is closed on Mondays. We could only take pictures outside. Up on the wall you can look and see over most of the city and out into the mountains. It also overlooks a historical village/museum. Inside the castle they have displays of wildlife native to Ukraine and old furniture and paintings. We had to rush home to make it in time to change head to the gypsy village. On the transportation end we sort of ran out of room. Somehow we managed to squish 15 people into a 9 passenger van. Katharine and I occupied one seat with Jen on our laps. You can just imagine how the rest of them looked. The man driving our van was named Peter. He's from Scotland but he has adopted around 16 orphans and lives in Ukraine. We went to a large village called Mookachiva (pronunciation). There church was pretty small, just one room, so many of them got up to let us sit. I felt really bad about that. Their music is very up beat and puts you in a good mood just listening to it. Some of the kids did a wordless skit that was quite creative. The cool thing was that it was to a song that we had been practicing the previous day. Alan Cook preached for them. I recognized to men that had been to GOIAM in 2006. Unfortunately I had a major wave of jet-lag during the sermon. It was all I could do to keep my eyes open. It was dark out by the time service was over and they took us next door and fed us juice and cookies since we hadn't eaten since lunch. We weren't supposed to take pictures outside so I don't have any. On the way home Mrs. Urban taught us King of Kings and Lord of Lords in Russian. It sounded really cool.