#JustYouth: December

We did a trivia night for #JustYouth this past weekend. I found about 70 questions online and our friend Alyona graciously translated them for us so that we could play. I really thought the questions would be okay but they ended up being super hard for everyone! We gave out small prizes every time someone came up so that helped. It was also a smaller crowd than usual so everyone was able to play. 

A first for #JY: two of Garry and Teresa's students from the village were married Saturday afternoon and came in the evening dressed in their wedding attire!

We knew they were coming so we had a small gift for them (couldn't find a gift bag for sale but I DID find a stocking!) so we called them up and presented it to them. 

Going along with the trivia/question and answer theme, Steve's message was formatted the same way. We told people they could ask questions about God, the Bible, life etc. out loud or if they didn't want to they could message us on our #JY Instagram page and Steve would answer them.

I had made some fun popcorn mixes for a snack because every once in a while I like to switch it up from the regular cookies but I made enough for twice as many people so we'll be eating the stuff until we head to Canada next week! 

November Recap

Oh yeah, I have a blog! Welllllll it's been a busy month so here's a recap! 

Steve continues to help out/lead a Monday evening youth group called "Home". Here he is with his water fountain ponytail that we have since cut off:

It seems it has been Thanksgiving month - starting off with a celebration program at August's kindergarten. They....the other kids, not August (don't ask why) sang songs and danced and said what they are thankful for.

The whole group that was there including some of his teachers.

I've shared this picture a number of places but it's important. It's me, hanging from a bar.

Why is it important? Because up until two months ago hanging from bars wouldn't have been possible due to severe pain. But now? I'm hanging! I'm also still fasting once a week and while I'm still not 100% better, I feel significantly less pain and feel significantly better. THANK THE LORD!

Steve plays soccer nearly every weekend. His team is done for this half of the season so they just get together to play for fun.

One day mid-month was +17 Celsius so of course we grabbed some sausages and chips and headed out to Jessica's land. They had JUST finished the fence the day before which was so totally amazing! Their gas-powered post hole digger died on the VERY last hole so they had to do it with the manual post hole digger which I thought was quite poetic, ha ha.
Stas testing out the strength of the concrete:

August and I down at the far corner of the fence:

SHASHLIK sausage!

The transformer was at this point not bolted down but it had fence posts around it and is hopefully bolted down by now.

 More soccer action shots. Steve's knee is doing much better these days!

We still have Steve's guys here every Wednesday for supper and sometimes an English lesson. Steve either does a Bible study with them here or they all head over to church where Jessica does a drop in evening with some other graduated orphans and they all do a Bible study together there. 

Floor ball practice is still every Tuesday and Thursday evening. They have another tournament in Sumy (east of Kyiv) the second weekend in December. Steve is happy about this one because it's only one day so they take the overnight train there, play all day and then hop right back on the train and head home. Train sleeping is far better than gross, dirty dormitory sleeping!!

Last Saturday we had a #JustYouth meeting with our team. We ate food, sang and discussed the next #JY which is next Saturday and the January one, when Steve and I will be away. That one will be a joint party with Real School which means a lot less responsibility for our team which is a relief to us. 

To continue the month of Thanksgivings we were at a few more events. Our friend Olya teaches two English classes every Saturday and we went with her yesterday to share about Thanksgiving - traditions, history and how we celebrate. Dez and August were in a children's class and I'm not sure what they talked about but they are always instant friends with any kids they meet. Steve also preached at one of the Baptist churches this evening about Thanksgiving. 

Young Life celebrated its five year anniversary this weekend so there was a big party that we all attended. Afterwards I decided that I might try to go into the cake catering business for all the churches and ministries in the city because the cake was trash, ha ha ha. It's exciting to see ministries we're involved with growing and bringing more and more teenagers to Christ! 

We have just over two weeks left until we head home for a bit and I'm sure they'll be busy as usual! 

#JustYouth November

Steve's birthday was on Friday and so a gathering of 60 friends seemed like a good place to have a few birthday surprises....like party hats for everyone! 

The band from Molochansk (with a few new band members from Zap) came to entertain us once again.

We played our classic #JustYouth true or false game.

And Steve preached on a very popular theme here these days - the Reformation (500 years ago!) and what grace means for us.

Another birthday surprise....a piñata! There was nowhere to hang it from the ceiling and my rope/string broke almost immediately from the weight of all the candy so Andrey held one side and I held the other while Steve hit it.

It immediately broke the string and fell to the ground, completely intact so he then just smashed it on the ground while I threw candy from a bag at everyone farther away. It didn't exactly work....but it was still fun! 

Floorball Tournament

Steve and the floorball team he plays on had a tournament last weekend at home, here in Zap. Steve was very excited because he didn't have to stay in a dirty, gross dormitory and could sleep in his own bed. They played two games on Saturday and two games on Sunday. 

Jessica, the boys and I went to watch their first game on Saturday which they lost 8-3.

They tied their second game on Saturday 4-4 and Steve got MVP for scoring a hat trick. He got this wonderful MVP cookie as a trophy. 

Their Sunday games were a 9-3 win and a 3-0 loss. 

Kinesiotherapy and Results

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6

I went for 15 sessions of "kinesiotherapy" (similar to physiotherapy) and was so conflicted all throughout because I wasn't feeling any difference at all and hated the thought of wasting MORE money on something that wasn't going to help. I was asking the Lord over and over again what I should do and just waiting for an answer. At the end of all the sessions the doctor there told me that I MUST continue and she guaranteed that I would get better.....eventually, but she didn't know and couldn't tell me when.

At my final session I was having a very painful day with lots of inflammation and heat in many of my joints and it was quite an awful process to go through, telling the doctor that I basically didn't believe her! I still felt conflicted and confused but felt that the Lord was telling me to rely on Him and not what people trust in. After talking AT me for over an hour the doctor finally said that if I wasn't planning to come back for more sessions I should be doing certain homeopathic injections, doing the exercises they gave me to do every day, having a 5 second ice cold bath three times a day, using some topical ointments and fasting for 24 hours. I didn't actually plan on doing any of those things but the fasting certainly intrigued me. She said that fasting was the quickest way to reduce inflammation and while I never thought that inflammation was part of my problem before, I certainly realized that it was throughout this process.

I decided to try it and the first time I fasted I was shocked at how good I felt afterwards. I started researching fasting extensively and it turns out that there is actual scientific proof that it does reduce inflammation. Who knew?! Since then I have been fasting every Monday (into Tuesday) for 36 hours at a time. It has been six weeks already and I have to say, in general I feel much better. I still have some terrible days, I still have pain in all the same places and in varying degrees but the overwhelming, all day, every day pain is incredibly reduced. It's like a fog has lifted and instead of being in pain all the time, I can tell you exactly which days were bad and which exact places hurt. There are even some days where I have only a very small amount of pain for a limited amount of time.

It has been a very interesting experience and I will continue fasting once a week for as long as it provides relief. I'm incredibly thankful that I finally found something that is helping longer term and all the inner turmoil I went through during the sessions was worth it because it led to this!

Thanksgiving

We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving with our small group last Thursday. It was great to get together and eat way too much food (including canned cranberry sauce straight from the states!) and just be thankful together for what God is doing through us and in us here in Ukraine. 

Each one of us always says that it has never been a sacrifice to be here but it is an incredible privilege to serve the Lord with our lives.

#JustYouth October: Costume Party + Penny Carnival

We had our annual costume party and penny carnival for #JY this evening and boy, is that a lot of work!! I come up with all the game ideas but I delegate them out to our team which means I only have to worry about making my own game.  However we had a few of our team members cancel this week due to various unforeseen circumstances so we were scrambling a bit to find enough people to run the games which also meant that I was putting together a couple of extra games. Besides the planning and making games I always have to throw in a family costume sewing project to boot. This year Dez wanted to be Ninja Turtles so that's what we did: 

Unfortunately we found out YESTERDAY that today is the "day of the city" or something and there were tons of activities going on around the city so we suddenly expected a far smaller crowd. It was definitely a smaller group than we've had in a long time and very few people were wearing costumes but it was still fun and we had no trouble at all getting rid of the 10+ kilograms of candy I bought for the carnival! 

Garry brought his young adults from the village and dressed up as a farmer, complete with pitch fork. 

Our regular MC was unavailable so Steve did that job together with Olya.

Our friend Andrey preached the message this time as Steve has been trying to get some other people into the speaking rotation every few months.

And then the games began! We had 8 games around the room and the teens would pay any coin to play. Steve did balloon darts:

I made a Plinko board which was very fun and highly addictive!

Rolling balls to hit a target:

Use a slingshot to knock down cans:

The idea I had given Jessica for her game was "pin the something on the something" and if you know Jess, you know she loves coffee so her "pin the foam on the latte" was just what I expected from her!

There were other games involving knocking things down, getting beanbags in buckets, a candy guess jar and ring toss. The last 15 minutes we were practically throwing candy at people and everyone was having a great time. 

Football (Soccer) Season

Steve's knee has been much better lately - he played basketball yesterday and played football today with his team. As long as he's running straight and doesn't pivot using that leg he's fine but when he turns on it he can still feel the ligament (we think) that hurts and really has to remember to take it easy. 

These are some pictures from his football game today, I like the story this sequence of pictures tells - one - player approaches Steve with the ball: 

two - Steve steals the ball

three - Steve takes off with the ball

four - his chances look good and he's definitely out-running that guy behind him, so the knee must feel okay!

Unfortunately the team has started off like alllllllllll the other football teams Steve has played on. It's kind of comical at this point that his teams always lose but it's still very early in the season!

Also on that note he totally got injured elsewhere today, ha ha. He got a kick to the calf and then took a shot from the ball into the same spot immediately afterwards and by this evening he could barely walk and his calf was really swollen. He's been on ice all evening, will probably need to take it easy for a day or two and will probably have a great bruise. The life of a sports lover I suppose.

#JustYouth Not Beach Party

Today was supposed to be our last big event of the summer - our #JustYouth beach party. Unfortunately it rained all day yesterday and we had to make a judgement call in order to inform everyone of where to go and we decided that even if it didn't rain today the beach still wouldn't be a good idea because it was cloudy and only +20 Celsius. So we were in our church building and thankfully I keep an ongoing list of back up games and activities so we quickly put together some easy games. 

Our first game was a version of the Newlywed Game except we used best friends. 

The second game was to do simple tasks like peeling and eating a banana, opening and drinking a bottle of water and tying shoes with no thumbs (which we had taped down):

Steve shared a message:

Our event next month will be our costume party and penny carnival. Our friend Andre has agreed to speak for that one and as soon as I got home this evening I started planning for next time! Thankfully we have a team to help us and once I come up with ideas for the games I can give them out to other people to make and run. 

Nearly the End of Summer

I can't believe that the end of summer is upon us! That went by way too fast if you ask me! 

This summer looked quite different from any of the other summers we've spent here as our main focus this year has been working with the graduated orphan boys from Molochansk. We did a lot fewer camps for teenagers in general and focused more on small group activities and sports with these specific guys. We have found in other years that as soon as school starts back up we immediately lose the teenagers and all our activities completely stop for a month because they are focusing 100% on school. These boys are in trade school but it's not exactly strenuous or anything and it's encouraging to us that we've created some sustainable activities to carry through the fall. 

Some of the things we have done this month included helping Jessica with a camp she put on for the children of the village where she's building her house. It was a three day camp in the evenings and we were able to help out two of those days. 

I was quite surprised by the children of the village and how well-behaved they were! That's a rarity here in children but they were all so kind and sweet! At the end of the camp the mayor of the town came and said some wonderful things about the Christian camp and how much of an impact it had on the village so hopefully there can be some major transformation that happens there.

Steve is playing on a soccer team again this fall and is continuing with the floor ball team although his knee is still an issue and he has spent more time coaching than playing. This presents a new problem for him as he has become more of an authoritative figure to the guys than just being a friend...and as you can imagine - these boys that never had fathers have some major issues with authority! So there's a lot of things to work through and new situations to navigate but I've been impressed with how cool and calm Steve stays when faced with anger from these young men.

I had a series of bad pain days and it was suggested to me by a friend that I should try kinesiotherapy which is similar to physiotherapy but uses exercise to increase strength, endurance, and mobility. I am very wary of any solutions people suggest because I have tried a lot of things quite unsuccessfully but because this friend had personal experience with this clinic, is someone we've known for almost nine years and we really trust her, I decided to give it a shot. I have been for five sessions so far and I love the focus on building muscle but as of yet I haven't felt any better. That being said, I know that it took almost three years for me to feel like this and that it won't be a fast fix and the trainers assured me that it would be about three weeks before I felt any difference and even then, the clinic doctor said that it may take up to three courses of 12 sessions each (36 sessions total) for me to be considered healed. 

Our final #JustYouth of the summer - our annual beach party is happening this coming Saturday. It was +37 degrees Celsius for over a month and now suddenly this week it has been cloudy and +18! While lovely and very, very welcome, it might be hard to get people out to a beach party if it's cold!! So we're hoping the forecast gets better for the weekend!

#JustYouth August: Bingo with a Twist

August 5th was #JustYouth. We played Bingo where we gave everyone blank cards and ten minutes to go around and write down the names of people in the room. Then we pulled names out of a box and that's how we played. 

After they got a Bingo the contestants got a teeny tiny chocolate bar but had the option to upgrade to a jumbo chocolate bar by doing a timed challenge. The first one was doing a puzzle in 30 seconds.

Blowing a ping pong ball across a row of cups filled with water:

Cup stacking:

If they lost the challenge they got their original tiny chocolate bar cut in half and if they won, they received a jumbo-sized chocolate bar. One guy got three bingos and attempted but failed two challenges for the big chocolate bar. When he won for the third time he just took the tiny chocolate bar and sat down again.

Then Steve shared a message.

Afterwards we had snacks, iced tea and hang out time. The next #JY will be the final event of summer which will be a beach party. It's hard to believe that it's only two and a half weeks away!