Camp Day 6 and Going Home

After breakfast Steve came to tell me that ALL THREE of our supper club boys accepted Christ the night before!!!! What a wake-up call!!

Camp was one day too long. There was another quest on Saturday and we could tell that tempers were running short and that perhaps Saturday was the day we should have gone home. But it was what it was, and Saturday afternoon we spent running around with Ruslan making a video to show later at the final club....to propose to his girlfriend, Katya! It was fun to be part of, and so sweet to see because she was so surprised! 

Sunday morning we had breakfast which was clumpy, oily rice and chicken because what else do you eat for breakfast? Seriously the food - sooooo bad!!! One of our friends gave us the answer we get so often: "this is Ukraine." Enough said perhaps.We ran out of our personal stash of snacks Thursday night so by Sunday we were absolutely ravenously hungry and so sick of camp food - carbs, carbs with a side of carbs. I think August ate a blob of butter for breakfast one day. Anyways!!! After breakfast we packed our things and then loaded up the bus. 

All the campers on the final morning: 

Due to terrible roads, Alexei drove us back to Zaporozhye a different way than the way we went which took us first to Kiev. We brought some equipment back for one of the other Young Life groups as well as some of their kids. Then we had five hours to do spend in Kiev - so that we wouldn't arrive back in Zap at 2 or 3 in the morning. It feels like it's the story of our lives: wasting time in Kiev. We were anticipating KFC and Cinnabon alllllll week so Steve and I took the boys and high-tailed it to Ocean Plaza mall that has both of those establishments and we were thrilled to find a McCafe as well. We thoroughly enjoyed our American restaurants and then were planning on heading to Maidan square but it started raining so instead we spent all our time wandering the mall. Back at the bus at 8 p.m we headed south. It rained most of the night and we arrived in Zap this morning at 5:30 and thankfully there were clear skies for our walk home. And that concludes our week at camp.

YL Camp Days 4&5

Yesterday (August 21) was Steve and my 10 year anniversary. We went into the city of Chernigiv for lunch and then had a bit of time to wander before meeting some people. We found a market and a McDonald's, what more could we need? The market:

We met people in Chernigiv to buy groceries for a party for the work team. This party was to thank the work team for....working, I guess...and seeing as how it's the end of the week it seemed like a good time to have it. We were asked to help buy and to prepare the food for shashlik. Now, we've been asked many times to prepare the food for various shashlik parties and it is always really intimidating for me! Ukrainians are the KINGS of shashlik, so why are they asking us - the Canadian, newbie shashlik-ers to do it?! I guess they're hoping for a new spin on an old classic, which is definitely what we provide!! We prepared pork - which is the usual shashlik meat of choice among Ukrainians and we did some beef - which is very uncommon for them.

We made a salad and marinated the meat overnight and then Steve shashlik-ed it up this afternoon.

The comments on the meat were outstanding - I know my marinade is good but it's nothing really out-of-the-box, at least I don't think so! It's just a bought package with a few added ingredients!! But all Ukrainians are always surprised by how good it is so I guess I'll get over the intimidation and just keep on cooking how I cook. Eating inside because it was COLD today:

I did get one comment on my salad - it was a Waldorf-type salad with cabbage, apples, raisins, nuts with a sweet-ish mayonnaise dressing. I was told by one gal that it was very un-Ukrainian and she didn't really enjoy it. Well, that's fine - I can't win them all over, ha ha.

Today was actually a free day - free from games at least - because each group went off together to discuss what it means to really follow Christ and to have any questions they still had, answered. Tonight was "the big one" as far as messages go - Oleg (YL director from Zap and our good friend) preached the Jesus/repentance message and there was time afterwards to spend some time alone before coming back together in small groups and hopefully some people accepted Christ! We are really praying for three guys from supper club that Steve invited to Young Life. They have heard Steve speak on Mondays for the past year and a half, have heard all about what it means to be a Christian and what a godly life looks like and have been involved in Young Life over the last six months or so, so we're really praying for God to move in their lives and for them to accept Him.

Tomorrow is the final day of camp - finally! It's been really good to be here but I miss my home!!

YL Camp Day 3

Nothing like starting your day with soggy noodles and an even soggier wiener. The buns are always delicious though. 

Actually the day started with games at 5 am! Steve got up to do some video and then came back to the room and slept until breakfast time at 9! There was another quest in the morning that Steve took video of, and then during free time we headed over to a shallow creek nearby to do some splashing. The sky was so blue:

Steve caught some frogs to show the boys...I think they were unimpressed and maybe even a little grossed out.

We also saw a snake and Steve caught a lizard. 

Lunch was.....well.....we ate the chicken and there was borsche! Another serving of kasha that was more ground up than the last stuff. It's incredible what is thought of as food, ha ha. 

In the afternoon there were water games!!

It was soooooo messy!! It started off with normal races:

Eventually it escalated to flour throwing, shaving cream and being covered in feathers! The whole thing ended in one massive battle royale.

Right after the water games and before supper there was a thunderstorm to cool off the day.

Evening club from 8-10 p.m, snack and then free time to end the day.

YL Camp Day 2

After breakfast and the 10 am session there were games in the field. The three teams (Kiev, Zap and the other one who I still don't know where they're from) are all competing for the "Young Life Cup" and every game has points that they tally at the end of each day and then at the end of each week to see who the winning team will be.  

 The games were just fun relay games - running while balancing an egg, running while carrying a girl in a chair:

 Running and collecting a new team member every time so that everyone is dead-tired at the end:

 In the afternoon there was a Quest (scavenger hunt) that Steve took video of, and put together a video for the evening. He is on the work team and taking video and putting together a video of the events each day has been his task.

I'm happy to inform you that we didn't have any kasha yesterday! Breakfast was delicious fried dough with jam, lunch was rice with chicken:

 And supper was mashed potatoes and kutleton (breaded meat balls).

I put a movie on in our room for the boys yesterday so that I could be at the evening club. There were lots of games and funny skits.

 They usually involve getting messy - two out of three of these people sitting have eggs under those hats and the girl on the right in blue had to decide whose to smash to see who had the eggs:

Young Life Camp - Bus and Day 1

We met at Mayakovskaya Park at 10 p.m yesterday to take the bus to Chernigiv, where the YL camp is. Usually the train would be the chosen method of transportation but there are a brother and sister who attend YL whose Dad owns this bus and we were able to hire him to take us. Imagine our surprise when we show up and their Dad is Alexei - our bus driver to Nicolaipolia and Morozivka five years ago when we were here for the first time!!! He was the one who taught me how to make real Ukrainian borsche and taught us the most important Russian word: "kartoshka" which means potato. John had told us last year that he had helped Alexei purchase a larger bus but we had no other information about him or where he was - we didn't even know he had teen-aged kids and Steve knows them pretty well!! As soon as Alexei saw us yesterday he exclaimed: "Kartoooooooshka!!!!" 

The bus ride itself was way less awful than I anticipated. We got the very back row which was four seats across. Alexei came and dug out a whole pile of bedding that he has on the bus so we were able to make the boys a comfy bed under the seats and Steve and I were able to stretch out in various places as well. We were wondering why on earth the trip was supposed to take 12+ hours but after hour 5 we realized why - we stopped after 3 hours and then every hour on the hour after that! Also the four-lane highway I had mentally pictured connecting Zap to Kiev was more like a bumpy dumpy cow path.

Upon arrival at the camp, our team played a few games one of which involved putting garbage bags over their heads. I should know by now that safety standards are different here. Thankfully these were all supervised teenagers which means they should be smart enough to handle this, it just made the Mom in me wonder at the vast differences in culture.

There is our Zap team, a team from Kiev and another team from somewhere I can't pronounce which equals about 80 people.

Lunch was about as appetizing as we expected...ha ha....kasha - which is a word for basically any cooked grain. Rice is kasha apparently, there is wheat, buckwheat, corn and other various types of kasha. This one in particular was buckwheat kasha with a piece of chicken. Not pictured: the actually delicious potato soup. It tastes about as good as this picture looks.

 I'm expecting more kasha for the rest of the week. Supper was fish and mashed potatoes so that's not as bad. I don't mind eating kasha but it's definitely Steve's least favourite food on the planet. Hopefully breakfast will be noodles and chicken - why for breakfast? Because this is Ukraine.

This boy...

 ...and this girl....

 ...are directly outside of the house we're staying in. I have no idea who they are or why they're creepily there, but I do admire their patriotism. We are staying in a typical bunk room with room for 6 people and we have a bathroom in our house that we share with the other 3 rooms.

Tonight there was actual Young Life Club - games, skits, songs and then a message at the end.

And as far as I know, that concludes day of camp! Tune in tomorrow to find out if more kasha was on the menu.

Just Youth 3

Saturday night was our third Just Youth service.

 
It was another awesome evening that started off with a bang - our musical performance this week was Radion and his wife Irina. He performed and did really well on X-Factor Ukraine and is friends with some people we know who were able to put us in contact with him. His wife Irina - we met the first time we were in Ukraine five years ago and we've seen her a few times here and there but we didn't know that they were married until earlier in the week after we had already set this up.

 They were really professional and great at getting the crowd involved. He played guitar and sang and Irina played all sorts of interesting accompanying instruments - the harmonica, tambourine, and this mouth keyboard!

We did a little improv game that was fun:

Then Steve spoke on God's love for us:

 As he pre-read the message to me earlier in the week I smiled and thought to myself that there's no question that we're not holding back the Gospel or the weight of the message we have. Steve isn't one to sugar-coat anything and these kids got both barrels on Saturday!

It was so hot all week so we decided to go a different direction with food and drinks. Previously we just did tea, coffee and cookies but this time we did iced drinks - homemade lemonade, iced tea and iced coffee that we kept in coolers loaded up with ice. And we did cut fruit and vegetables. We had been told earlier in the week by our friend to just do fruit because "Ukrainians don't eat raw vegetables." Oh yes, but you see - I have observed your culture and I have noted that once all the stuff you WANT to eat is gone, you'll eat the rest of it anyways.....any guesses to how many veggies were left at the end? None.

 After the service was the usual games and hanging out time.

It's so awesome to see this event doing so well! We love to see familiar faces and new faces as well! We have one truly awesome story from the night but I'm going to keep you in suspense and let Steve talk about that in his next update (which will be at the beginning of September to recap the summer).

Irony and a Reminder

We heard a true story in church on Sunday that went something like this.

In a village there was a man named Nicolai. The (currently occurring) war was nearing his village so he decided that he would put all of his valuables in the cellar of his home to keep them safe. He cleared out his house, putting his nice TV, important papers and all the other things that he had worked very hard to buy in the cellar. Well the day finally came where the battle reached the village - while Nicolai hid upstairs in his empty house, the cellar of his house was completely destroyed and all of his valuables were lost leaving him sitting in a completely empty house.

Roma, one of the Pastors from New Hope Church has been going out to visit the army since the war first broke out and he was the one who told this story. He met Nicolai, heard this story firsthand and was able to share the gospel with him and give him a New Testament.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20"But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  ~Matthew 6:19-21

Young Life Beach Party (and all about Young Life Camp)

Yesterday was our first full day back home (if you're wondering where we were, see HERE). We went for lunch with Ev and then headed to the Young Life beach party. Well, Steve headed there and the boys and I came home so August could nap....but AFTER that, the rest of us headed to the party too!

They had all sorts of fun water games planned and had set up a slip and slide. Young Life also recently purchased a generator so they were playing music and had lights set up for the evening. 

Ruslan's family owns some gelato carts so they provided some ice cream for the event. I never knew pineapple ice cream would be so amazing!

Ruslan doing what Ruslan does:

I came across this Hula Girl...

 Some friends - the two on the outside are the "neighbourhood guys" that we first met when they started coming to supper club at New Hope Center. They are coming to Young Life camp next week!!

We're getting excited for Young Life camp next week! We will head to Chernigiv (near Kiev) next Sunday night and will spend the week at camp. YL Camp is the BIG event of the year - each leader in Young Life invites a group of kids who they have had a relationship with over the past year to come to the camp. They spend the whole camp week together doing fun activities as well as talking about God and what it means to follow Him. Lots of kids come to Christ each year at the camp and when they come back home they are immediately started with mentors. They are discipled and brought into the church (usually the Baptist church here because they are the church that sponsors YL here in Zap) and each year they baptize more and more youth. It's an amazing ministry and they do it really well so it will be awesome to see what the camp itself is all about AND to see kids there this year that Steve and I have personally started relationships with, and now they want more. Steve will be a helper because obviously we need more language to go deeper in relationships and to explain Biblical truths, but he will be assisting our friend Ruslan whose group of guys are all friends with Steve so he'll be as involved as possible.