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.