Dying Days of Summer

Summer is drawing to a close with kids back in school this next Monday so we've spent this past week making plans for the fall. 

 - We had a meeting at New Hope Center on Thursday to discuss our Monday night club as well as the possibility of starting a few new programs - English classes and more sports events. 

- Steve has a team of guys together to play in the city's Christian football (soccer) league. It was mostly Young Life guys but then they slowly dropped off the team and now it mostly consists of guys that he's been playing soccer with at a nearby school all summer. We're seeing this as a huge opportunity to reach more youth and one of these guys even came to the first Young Life meeting tonight! 

- Young Life - the Friday night meetings have started up as of tonight! Since they ended in early spring the Baptist church (who is the main church involved) has been looking for a larger space. The space they were using was completely packed out before and now with even more people coming it's just ridiculous! It's a tiny, 5th floor apartment room with no air conditioning and with it being +30 outside today, inside it was pushing +40 - filled with approximately 40 (sweaty, smelly) teenagers! What an amazing problem to have - that there are so many kids coming but please pray for a new location!!

- We are hoping to be able to teach English in schools again this fall but will wait until the school year is under way before we contact our teachers. 

- We have started a Wednesday evening Worship night for friends who speak English (and one girlfriend of our friend who doesn't speak English). This week was our third week and we really enjoy it. We usually sing for a bit (Justin plays guitar) and then we share a bit about our weeks and what we would like prayer for and then we spend time in prayer.These pictures are from this last week: 

We usually find all the song lyrics online in Russian beforehand to make it easier for everyone to sing along: 

Other notes: the inexpensive fresh fruit and vegetables available here never cease to blow my mind! Yes, we did buy a huge jar of fresh honey at the market this week - I had to include my liter measuring cup for perspective!! 

I went a little crazy buying fruit on the street one day - I don't even have to go to the actual market 2 blocks away - I can just walk 50 meters out my door onto Metallugov street and I can find any fruit or vegetable I need, usually sold by sweet old ladies (sometimes by grouchy ones though). 

 I've been doing some canning because I just can't help myself...does canning fall into the crafting category?

A couple of pictures just for atmosphere...Steve and August on the marshrootka, waving good-bye to some friends. 

 A view of the marshrootka - this one actually had seats available and no standers!

And pretty soon we'll be booking our flights home for Christmas! It will be here before we know it - the summer seemed never ending but in a flash it was over and we'll be transitioning back to some routine. 

Video

Here's a video synopsis of some of the things we do here, enjoy!

Football Game

We went to a Zaporozhye Metallurg football (soccer) game this evening. Steve and Dez went to the last game of their last season but today we all went. It was crazy! Tickets are just 15 greeven per person (kids are free) so that's $1.88 to watch Ukrainian Premier league football! The team they were playing was from Sevastopol, which is in southern Ukraine and the last time they played here the fans from there destroyed our McDonald's and it was closed for a while! We had to walk the long way around the block to get to the stadium because it was all blocked off by policemen and military wearing complete riot gear (minus the shields). They block off the street and then the visiting team and their fans are driven directly into this fenced off area where they close the gate and are then safe to get off their buses. The stadium itself is actually divided so that the visiting team and their fans are completely fenced off and barricaded in from the home team AT ALL TIMES - they have their own bathrooms and everything. It was crazy! 

 The game itself was pretty good - the fans were the best part for me! People watching was awesome - the group of people who sat in front of us were good for a few laughs - there were these two older, typical tough-looking Ukrainian men with their huge cups of beer but before they sat down on their seats they took out their crocheted seat protectors so they wouldn't have to sit directly on the seat! And then when Metallurg scored they danced! Actually danced - pointed fingers, leg kicks and all. When the crowd would get going I could actually feel the vibrations while sitting in my seat, it was intense - screaming and shouting and jumping. There is a section that is for the craziest fans and from where we were sitting it definitely looked like they were all shirtless. They had a drum and got crazy chants going, at one point there was a big sign with flares and smoke, they were wild. 

We got a drink and popcorn ($2.12 for Pepsi and candied popcorn) which made me laugh because we paid 7 greeven (87 cents) for a Pepsi where at home at say, a Bomber game, you'd probably be hard pressed to get a drink for 7 dollars! The game ended at 2-2 which probably prevented some potential rioting. 

This picture is blurry but you can see the row of cops standing shoulder to shoulder (left ish side of the picture) to block off the street so that no Metallurg fans could go near the Sevastopol fans. 

For an entire block on the walk towards our home there were cops standing every 20 feet, just in case. It was really a surreal to experience European football, and we're in Ukraine - I can't imagine being at one of the England teams games!!

Camping

Every August long weekend for the last 11-12 years, Steve and I have gone camping at St. Malo. We knew that this summer would be a lot different and even though there is no long weekend here, we were thrilled to still be able to go camping. Once a month throughout the summer Young Life has planned a one night camping trip on Khortitza Island. They provide the tents and sleeping bags and everyone pays a bit of money for breakfast in the morning. There is swimming in the river and a very, VERY teeny tiny amount of sleep had by all. This was our site: 

 It's incredibly beautiful along the river - there are multiple fire pits right on the bank and little areas where you can go down to tiny little sandy beach areas. The "campground" is free, no services and all first come, first serve. 

 

There were 31 people this time which was a lot - earlier times there were around 12-15 so this was a large group which definitely changed the dynamic, but it was still good. 

 Circle games are a big thing here for people young and old. Popular ones include volleyball, "signs" (I've never played) and this Twister-type game that looks painful. 

 Every once in a while a ship would go by - so cool and so weird!

 At night we cooked food on the fire - "сосиски" (saus-see-skee) which are wieners, tomatoes on sticks, Steve and I tried an onion on a stick, bread and marshmallows. 

 There were also a few rounds of another favourite game called Mafia around the fire at night. They also had most of the people there tell their life stories and how they came to be involved in Young Life. It's interesting because there are a number of Christians and a number of non-Christians so it makes for some interesting stories and views on life. 

The boys had a great night although August was up at 6:25 this morning. There was a rather large group of (our) people who were awake and quite loud all night but the boys slept right on through. I only wish I were so lucky but between the noise and sleeping on a rather large variety of rocks, I didn't fare nearly as well as the kids. The entire campground was a mixture of sand and dirt but we managed to set up our tent on the one rocky area, ha ha. 

In the morning Oleg (Steve's good friend and the Young Life director) got out the wild, wild west pot and started cooking up some "плоф" (ploaf).

 For the longest time we were asking people what on earth this ploaf stuff that everyone goes crazy about is. Well, it's this: 

 It is just rice with meat and vegetables in it. Not so mysterious after all. 

Everyone packed up this morning and we were home before 1 p.m.