Vypnarka Day 1

Saturday May 15

Our first day without travel! We didn’t take a train, bus, or plane today. No complaining here. We are staying at the Varpnyarka Church of the Nazarene. It is a building that was given to the church by the city. The structure used to be the Communist community center. Slowly the church is upgrading the building. It was in shambles when they inherited it but it currently has a sanctuary, kitchen, meeting room, bathrooms and several classrooms. The pastor let us see the large auditorium that used to be used for rallies, plays and musical productions. There are still communist symbols on the walls. The room needs a ton of work. Maybe someday it will be remodeled and full of Christians worshipping God. One day..

Our students today interacted with the children of the church. The students played games with the kids and hung out. We also made plans to do a Children’s “camp” beginning on Monday. We’ll be hosting the kids from the church and from the neighborhood for a Bible lesson, English lesson and games. The students have been hugely flexible in considering their options for getting involved. I’m impressed and proud. Each of them have signed up for ways they want to participate into next week.

This evening students went out to a near by soccer field to play soccer. They ended up meeting some neighborhood kinds. They decided to return for soccer on Monday evening. So there is another opportunity for connection coming. I’m appreciating the opening up of unplanned opportunity happening. It is good for all of us to sense God’s leading of this trip and our lives. The un-planned serendipity happens in life way more than we often name. So often we want to plan everything out but just think what we’d be mission already this week if we had only gone by the plan! God is opening up so much more as we take one step at a time together. We can not even guess what will happen next week…but I’m so excited to look back on what developed once something “develops”.

The food here has been wonderful!!! I’m so impressed with Ukrainian food. We had crepes for breakfast, homemade noodle soup for lunch and …ok…dinner was a bit different but it was ok too. For dinner we had a savory version of oatmeal. I liked it but I’m not sure it was a hit. All the other Ukrainian dishes have been hits.

Dan returned to our group today after staying back last night to deal with the computer. The computer arrived safely into the Kiev Airport. Dan and the missionary, Bob Skinner, went to the airport to fetch it last night. However, they customs agent wanted 44 percent tax custom tax to be paid. Dan and Bob were not willing so they left the airport. The missionary is going to return to the airport with extra help this week to see if they can get the computer without the ridiculous tax. If customs will not budge, Dan will take the computer back to the USA. We’ll see what transpires. We hope and pray something will break way to allow the computer out of customs without the very large fees. It was great to know, however, that it hadn’t been stolen or lost. Yeah!