#JustYouth: June + 3 Year Anniversary

*I just realized now that this post has been sitting in my drafts and I never actually published it! So it's almost a month late (it was June 3rd) but here is the June #JY post* 

Our actual three year anniversary would be at the end of June but we decided to celebrate at our event this past Saturday. The band from Molochansk was here for their 12th time...the only reason I know that is because I put together a trivia game all about #JY. 

We played a trivia game, our usual truth/lie game and Steve's translation telephone game (people have to translate a phrase from English to Russian to English and so on).

Steve recapped his four most important messages/points from the last three years - the four main themes he talks about the most.

VISITORS!!

Two weeks ago my parents came to visit. It was a highly anticipated trip on our end, ha ha and I got out my list of things to do and places to eat in Zaporizhzhia! They were supposed to fly directly to Zap but that flight got cancelled but they were able to fly to Dnipro instead so we went there to pick them up. It's a nice drive to see the countryside and "experience" the roads although that highway isn't too bad at all. 

The first day they were here we went to the biggest market in the city and to Oak Grove Park where there are lots of rides. 

 The men weren't brave? crazy? enough to go on the Ferris Wheel so Grandma, the boys and I did.

The men did the bumper cars with the boys instead:

This is at the top of Boulevard Shevchenka which is near our home and ends at the Mayor's office. Buh Shuh, as it's called by the locals has fountains, a clock, lots of restaurants and shops and for a year or so has had this: 

When in Zap, if the weather is nice, you must do shashlik on Khortitza Island. These stairs lead down to the beach and there is a beautiful view:

Another awesome adventure is a boat cruise past Khortitza island and through the dam so we did that one evening.

We had truly incredible weather - usually this time of year is +35 Celsius and too hot to breathe but it was always mid-twenties, breezy with lots of aun and cloud.

We took an afternoon to visit Garry in Nicolaipolia (Teresa is currently at home in Canada for a couple of weeks) and we got to see an assisted calf birth.

Village life here is totally different than city life and it's always great to see the new projects Garry has going on - we see him once a week and there are always new things going on!

At the Dnieper river beach in the city:

The boys LOVE playing arcade games and winning tickets at Igro Boom - we generally only go at their birthdays and whenever we have visitors so they were thrilled.

Steve and I left the boys with Jessica and took the overnight train back to Kyiv with my parents. We rented an apartment in the city center and spent a day touring. I've only recently realized that Kyiv is a very beautiful city and is also very old - 1535 years old to be exact - so there are some crazy old buildings and a lot of history to be explored there!

We hit the highlights and the next day we sent my parents off on the bus to the airport to head home again. 

I always feel very nervous when people come and visit because things are so very different here. I always feel like I have to find this balance between showing how strange and difficult it can be to live here but yet showing how great it is and hoping that people love it here by the time they leave!  In the end it's always a relief when people come and see how we live - we can tell stories about everything but until you experience it for yourself you never fully grasp how it is, and it's really special to actually show how we live and the things we do, instead of just telling stories about it. It's like we're understood on a deeper level and that in itself is really encouraging to us. So thank you Dad and Mom for coming to visit us! Our time went way too fast and we all miss you already! 

Berdyansk Bible Study Weekend

June 9th - 12th our Bible study group (us, Garry and Teresa, Jessica, Olya and Igor) headed down south to Berdyansk to have a little getaway altogether. We had wanted to do a bigger conferencey-type thing but the details never worked out. The people we wanted to invite were already busy and the places we wanted to stay were already booked so we decided to just stick with our core small group, rent a place at the sea and have a weekend filled with Bible study, great food and fellowship. And it was awesome! 

I booked a hotel online which is terrifying because this is Ukraine! But it looked really nice and had great reviews so we went for it. I made a menu and bought all the food and we headed south Friday afternoon. We came across a field full of poppies on the way which I've heard of here but have never seen so we had to stop and take a few pictures. It was just beautiful! 

It rained on the way down but once we got to Berdyansk it was sunny and warm. The hotel ended up being great - praise the Lord! I didn't "Ukraine" us all for an entire weekend! We checked in and then wandered down along the sea all the way to the center of the city. Berdyansk has about 130,000 people but during the summer that number goes up to around 600,000.

The seawall was across the street from our hotel:

There were lots of people swimming and fishing and there were lots of places with steps into the water. There were a lot of brand new hotels everywhere - we assume because Ukrainians now can't go to Crimea so this is now the popular sea resort area to go to. 

We focused our Bible study times on some of the main core things we always talk about and preach - going deeper by finding Biblical references for all of them as well as sharing the things we struggle with and taking the time to pray for each other daily. We decided to have two "sessions" Saturday and Sunday morning and evening and we spent the afternoons and late evenings doing activities. 

We headed out along the peninsula to a beach on Saturday and then later on ventured out further to the end of the peninsula. Essentially we just walked out into the middle of the Azov sea. 

I had prepared most of the meals at home so that there would be minimal work to do once we were there which I was very thankful I did. We did have a full kitchen which was really nice but we definitely took advantage of the shashlik pit as well, which was manned by Steve.

Sunday was quite cool and cloudy and all day I felt quite terrible, not sure if it was the change in weather or what but I basically slept on and off all day. It was definitely a restful day with some swimming off the seawall and our Bible study sessions. We did shashlik for supper and were able to book the banya (sauna) for the evening which was a wonderful way to end the weekend.

Floor Ball Tournament in Kyiv

As you may recall, Steve played floor ball in a tournament in Vinnitsia at the end of March and their team (FK Zaporizhia) placed fifth. The top four teams advanced to a final tournament in Kyiv and their team didn't advance. However one of the top four teams dropped out of the tournament so they were invited to go instead. It was a two day tournament so they left Friday night (May 26) on the train to Kyiv. As soon as they got there at 9:00 a.m Saturday morning they headed to the gym and played their first game at 12:00. 

They played two games on Saturday, one loss 5-0 and one win 11-5.

Hanging out in Kyiv with the guys: Steve and Stas

Steve and Ruslan with more in the background:

They stayed in a dormitory for night again which was equally as sketchy as the one in Vinnitsia.

On Sunday they played two games - won one 4-3 and lost one 6-0.
This was the food available for purchase at the gym:

If you're interested in watching their last game here's a link to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeW15nYt5zg&app=desktop

Steve is highly embarrassed and hopes you don't watch it (because they lost) but it might give you an idea of what floor ball actually is. 

Last Bell

Dez had his last day of school last Friday, May 26th. All I can say is that we survived a whole year of school in Russian, but we are all so so so very happy to have three months off! 

There was a big ceremony where they actually ring a final bell, you may recall the year starts with a ceremony called "First Bell" where they ring a bell. 

I couldn't help myself - I had to do a first day of grade one and last day of grade one comparison!