Well, before the news is old, I’d better blog about Ukraine. Flo and I spent five days in that country, in the city of Kirovohrad, which is pretty much smack dab in the middle. We’d been asked by our friend Joy to go with her and David Dalley as a part of a ministry team to a youth conference. We traveled with two other Brits, one Danish woman and we met a Russian girl there. That rounded out our team, plus the Ukrainians had a whole team of people taking care of things on their end, including Naomi Griffith, who was on the School of Ministry in Toronto with Flo, Joy and I. So it was a little reunion, which was a lot of fun.

We flew Austrian Airlines through Vienna to Kieve, and I have to stop and praise this airline for a moment. Our connections were really good, the airport in Vienna was clean and easy to navigate (mostly), but most of all, the food was fantastic. I never thought I’d say that about airline food, but it was actually very good. The best of the meals we got was a giant chocolate muffin. Oh, it was New York quality! Plus, I was surprised we even got food, as neither leg of the flight was longer than one and three quarter hours. So, kudos to Austrian.

In Kiev, we were met by a guy named Andrei, part of the Ukrainian team. He helped us navigate and translate and figure out what the options on the menus were (pizza – with dill on top!) and exchange money and get us to the train station, where we got on a train for another three hours. Turns out Ukraine is quite big. We really didn’t get to see any of Kiev, but that’s what we expected. All work and no play, this trip. At the train station in Kirovohrad, when we got off the train, a song played for us! Andrei explained that every city has its own song that plays when the train arrives. I don’t know for sure, but the music sounded like a throwback to the old communist days. We piled in a minibus for a half hour ride to our lodging and on the way got stopped by the police, who wanted money from the driver if he was ferrying passengers, but he told them what all good Christians would tell the police in that situation, “I just have my family with me here in this bus.” Bless him.

Flo and I got dropped off first, as we were staying somewhere different than the rest of the team. At the outside door to a communist block building, we saw buttons. You have to punch in a code and pull a bar to get the door open. There is no knob or handle that turns. Well, Andrei couldn’t get the code right, so we froze our buttons off while he called on his cell phone (with which Ukrainians are obsessed) to get the right code. The person on the other end of the phone informed him you don’t need a code. They’d installed a handle after all and you just had to turn it and open. Bless Andrei. Inside, a young couple welcomed us and told us there’s no light in the bathroom because the bulb blew and there was some food in the kitchen, but they weren’t sure if the refrigerator (in the closet) worked. Then they all left. And we were alone. Which hadn’t really been made clear to us, so it was a bit shocking. Missions keep you flexible. The one room apartment (sofa = bed) belongs to a grandma from the church, who’d moved out for the duration of our stay. Bless her, too. We spent the evening warming up and watching Ukrainian Karaoke Superstar on TV. We didn’t know any of the songs and couldn’t understand them anyway, but it was fun.

Our first full day there, we attended their normal church service. I don’t know if I can describe Ukrainian worship, but I’ll do my best. Fast. Loud. Yup, that about sums it up. Although other churches in Ukraine (I’m told) sing english worship songs or translate them into their own language, this particular church sings only Ukrainian written, in Ukrainian language, worship songs… for at least an hour every service, if not more… and they dance… energetically… all of them. It was really quite amazing. They must be super fit. And the fast songs just keep getting faster, this typically famous style of music where it just keeps going and eventually the musicians are playing so fast and the dancers are dancing so fast that they all just fall over. It was really cool! After church we went to The Potato House, where you can get all variety of meals based around the, you guessed it, potato. The food was tasty, but I really mention it to say this: their decor and marketing centered around Native Americans… as if they ate potatoes?

The conference started the next day and lasted three days. We found out that Orthodox church celebrates Christmas on January 7th, which makes sense if you also have Three Kings Day being January 6th, as we do in Germany. So our conference covered two days before Christmas, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The kids told us they don’t really have any family time or meals or gifts at Christmas, which explained why they all wanted to go to church instead of stay home. If this thing had been scheduled on my Christmas, I probably wouldn’t have gone. Basically every day went the same. We had four sessions per day, with the 1st, 2nd and 4th sessions including an hour of worship time. That was really fun, because all the kids danced together. They’d make circles or line up holding hands and dance in patterns or just booty shake as if they were in the club. I assume it depended on the lyrics, but who really knows? The 3rd session we started with games, which was also hilarious as Ukrainians really like playing games and are seriously competitive. Most of the theme for the three days was God’s father heart and experiencing his perfect love. David, Joy, Flo and I did the preaching as well as praying for the kids (with the rest of the team, of course) and just trying to be nice people and let God’s love show through us, for those people who’d never experienced it before. It was tiring, but definitely worth it. We heard a lot of good testimonies about people being able to let go of bad stuff that had happened to them and look forward with renewed security in themselves and God. That’s awesome.

The people we met were all so warm and open and eager to know us. There was quite a bit of language barrier in some cases, but with enough gesticulating, anything can be made clear. They fed us amazingly well and the food was very yummy (although I don’t think we got a meal without dill, which isn’t necessarily my favorite herb). We had soups and things that looked like tortellinis and chicken and noodles. I was a bit afraid of the food before we got there, but like I said, it was really good. They were simply so generous. They even (the Ukrainian team) got together and gave each member of our team a unique gift before we left. How amazing is that?? They served us and supported us and helped us and made us feel very, very welcome. It was total turnaround from what it should have been – we went there to serve, support and help them! Anyway, some countries I go to and fall in love with the food or the land or the vibe, but in Ukraine I fell in love with the people themselves.

To see pictures, click on our beautiful blockhouse below: