Spring Break Week

This week was spring break for schools so Steve planned some sports events. 

On Monday there was baseball at Raduga (Rainbow) Park. It was a beautiful +24 degrees Celsius and we had about 25 kids come to play. 

 Every time we play the rules always need to be explained for the newcomers. It's nice to see so many new people each time but it would be nice sometime to just get there and start playing!

We planned a worship night originally for March 22nd but after one practice we decided to move it until tomorrow, March 29th to give ourselves more time to get ready. We've had quite a few practices and I hope it will all be good tomorrow evening! It's nerve-wracking when we're the only native English-speakers/singers even though there's only a small portion of songs that will be sung in English.

Tuesday was a beautiful day for teaching ball hockey! Steve swept off an abandoned street not too far from our apartment and it was the perfect place to play.

 I thought it went surprisingly well for guys who had never played before.

As far as the political turmoil goes we are still fine and safe here in Zap. If we didn't see any news stories we'd honestly never even know that something so huge was happening - it's calm and quiet, business as usual.

Soccer and Stuff

Here are some pictures from Steve's soccer team's last game, yesterday. 

Some of the guys on the team: 

 It seems that for this portion of the season the team is once again, made up of completely new guys. A lot of them are older than the usual ones we try to reach - they are 19-21 so Steve was finding it a bit of a challenge to interact with them. They are beyond the Young Life age and are "too cool" for Christianity plus they speak very little English however Steve has managed to get to know them and have some good conversations with some of them.

 It's been so nice lately - around +13 most days and beautifully sunny!!
The field they usually play on is completely surrounded by garbage, it's so gross! I think next time I go watch a game I'll bring gloves and a garbage bag along!!

We have been in talks with Adventures in Missions about getting some World Race teams here, which we are very excited about. We hope to have one by summertime if all goes as planned and the situation in the country doesn't get worse by then. We are already making plans of things we could have a team do and thinking about logistically things like really cheap accommodations so prayer for that would be awesome.

In country news, there is a referendum happening in Crimea tomorrow or Sunday maybe? I don't know, I've half stopped paying attention. Anyways we noticed yesterday that the government building had more police in gear outside again so we think the government is gearing up for the consequences of that. We are sure that Crimea won't be part of Ukraine again (so glad we visited last year when we had the chance!) but we don't anticipate any danger here, as we haven't had any yet. Continued prayer for that situation is appreciated - we've felt so peaceful and joyful and just knowing how many people have been praying for us has just been amazing! We're entirely overwhelmed by the support we have back home and are so thankful for the love!! 

Another prayer request - we are planning a worship night at New Hope Church on March 22nd. We have worship here every Wednesday night but thought it would be great to get a larger group of people together every once in a while. We talked to the worship leader at church and he was so excited about it! We are getting together for a practice tomorrow evening and we're hoping to have a decent sized crowd come out next Saturday. 

Updates, Updates....

We are still on top of the situation here in Ukraine - we officially registered with the Canadian government today so they'll let us know if we need to evacuate...whether we'll listen or not is up to God :) So far the government is recommending to avoid non-essential travel to several areas of the country - our area is not included in that list. However - we do think about the possibility of us having to leave and we do have a plan and a plan B for that, if it comes to that. We trust God and wait on Him.

All that being said - it is very peaceful here still and we are continuing our regular routine. This evening we had Monday night supper club and had two new volunteers! A man and a woman from the Calvary Chapel church here in Zap - the man because he knew we needed more men involved to help with the graduated orphan guys, and the woman because she is a fantastic interpreter and we recently lost ours to a new job. We are usually feeding around 20-25 kids these days and are really making some progress relationship-wise. Graduated orphans seem to be really wary of relationships with new people but lately Steve has been able to play some sports with a few of them and to build some trust with them. It's nice to see some progress!

Steve has been in School 31 again the past 3 Fridays for an English speaking club. There are 15-20 kids that come for an hour after school to discuss topics and improve their speaking skills. This next week the boys and I will join him for the first time and Steve promised that I would bring cookies, so that should endear me to them fairly quickly. My cookies seem to be famous and get eaten very quickly - no matter how good or bad I think they've turned out!! The main reason being that they are "Americansky" - meaning soft and chewy with chocolate chips in them. Steve joked with a friend one time that they are different from cookies here because they're "actually good" - cookies here tend to be dry, crusty and crumbly.

We have had three Russian lessons with a for-real teacher, Susanna. Last year she helped us and a few of our friends with Russian speaking classes and we really liked her teaching style so we called her up and asked if she'd be willing to teach the two of us. The lesson we had today was fantastic - I was practically giddy afterwards which is a far cry from say, last year at this time where I'd want to cry after each lesson (or halfway through). Things are looking up :) Steve still has much more opportunity to speak Russian - at Young Life, playing sports etc. and I still find I'm afraid to speak a lot of times because people tend to make fun of us when we try but I feel a bit of improvement and even more willingness to try to converse with people when I have the chance.

Thanks for your continuous prayers and thanks for reading!!

Update

I feel the need to do a short update concerning our safety seeing as how Russia seems to be invading Crimea. Despite that, we are very safe and largely unaffected by that or any of the other pro-Russian rallies that are happening in other parts of the country. We are staying informed on the situations occurring around the country and if things escalate exponentially we will consider leaving the country for a bit but we will deal with that, if it comes to that (but we also feel burdened by that because we have the option of running for safety while our friends here don't). Otherwise we know we're supposed to be here and we are excited for the things God is doing here. We need your continued prayer - for us, for Ukraine and for peaceful resolution for the issues at hand.