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.