Adventures in the Land of Ukraine

Written by Melissa Gutierrez

Yesterday after a great service led by Pastor James, the boys decided to play soccer in the hallway of the church. What a great idea! Well as it turned out a powerful kick headed straight to the ceiling and the ball went through the ceiling leaving a hole as a memoir. Matt and his resourcefulness found a tile and the boys replaced the damage- problem fixed! Later that evening the whole crew went to eat delicious pizza…yummy! After the long walk home, we chilled at the dorms for a lil and Tori and the boys went to enjoy their time playing soccer…but here begins a funny story. Lucas and his powerful but inaccurate kicks sent the ball towards a building, hit the wall and somehow slid down the building and went inside an open window! Wow! So our brave Caleb climbed inside the window and retrieved the ball! After all this, it was finally time to gather together and we did our debriefing. Some of the Fabulous First were: waking up at 4 A.M. to retrieve our lost luggage( which made it safely into our hands), it was Lucas’ and Tori’s first time on the metro, it was the first time Pastor James and his bro rode a metro in a foreign country, and it was Matt’s first time in a bilingual church.

Today was like a goody bag full of surprises and laughter… Caleb and his trusty little video camera got detained and yelled at by an uptight Ukrainian ticket lady! Caleb was dumbfounded and lost at his lack of language skills, like us all. Luckily, our faithful companion, Lyosha, spoke to the lady and Caleb was freed! But the fun certainly does not stop here. When we tried boarding the already jam-packed metro, which everyone did not make, the door closed on Faith! But it closed on her book-bag and from the outside Joey’s strong push landed Faith inside the safety of the metro. We (Melissa, Faith, Jen, Tori, Tyler, Caleb, Lucas, Lyosha and Tanya) got off the metro at our stop and waited for the next metro which contained Joey, Matt, Joel and our international friend Eden. It was a work of God that Eden was with them since he knows his way around Ukraine! Our God is an awesome God! When the whole group was reunited, we safely made it to church. After we hung out at church for a little while, we all headed to the park. At the park all of the boys and Tori played soccer with some of the locals. They had fun and Tyler demonstrated his amazing goalie skills by the way. The rest of the group was playing either basketball, throwing the football or passing the frisbee with the local little ones. After the adventures in the park we headed back to the church where we enjoyed a wonderful lunch with everyone. After lunch we relaxed by watching an insightful video by Kirk Cameron. It taught us key points to successful evangelism. At this moment we are chillin in the computer room and we will blog again tomorrow. Please keep us in your prayers but be reminded that our awesome and loving heavenly father is ALWAYS with us! We all miss you guys! Till tomorrow! Paka!