Deep Thoughts, by Jon Kroeker
Wow, what a day today! Some more beautiful weather with some sun and a cool breeze.
We started the day with a delicious breakfast prepared by the women from the Baptist Seminary we are staying at. This included some orange Fanta that we pretended was freshly squeezed orange juice and some French toast. We followed this up with our morning devotional time led by Dennis. Mark 2 was the passage we read and discussed. We followed this up with some prayer together where we asked God to help us be a light in this land (since many of us felt the heaviness yesterday in Independence Square), for His hand to be on Ashton and Melissa and their family, for safety and health for our team.....and for our lost bag.
We left the Seminary compound a little more on the tired side this morning than we did yesterday, but we were ready for the day and it did not disappoint. First we risked our lives driving through Kiev to get to the Chernobyl museum. This was very interesting for most of us, but it is a very solemn story so we definitely left there somewhat subdued and thoughtful. From there we walked to a Ukrainian buffet of sorts for lunch and we were confronted by local culture. Our Canadian nature has a reserved politeness which is not assertive, the Ukrainians were more than happy to press us on all sides at the buffet line and cut in front of us in what we considered to be our orderly single file line. It was neat to see this difference, not in a bad way, but just as a difference in our cultures. We experienced some real Ukrainian cuisine here and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
After lunch we risked our lives again driving through Kiev to visit the Motherland Monument located at the Museum of The History of Ukraine in World War 2. The Monument and the entire War memorial was beautiful in portraying pride in country and honouring their fallen. It rained on us a bit while we were visiting this Monument which allowed us an opportunity to take shelter together and give Myra a hard time about her ancient cell phone. We then risked our lives driving through Kiev to return to the Seminary compound where we spent some time relaxing together while we waited to leave for supper.
Supper was at Oksana and Vitaly's house. They have a beautiful home and three delightful daughters. I think she was under the impression that the entire church had come to Ukraine to visit them this time since the table had an abundance of food we could never have finished. Supper included many tasty dishes, one of which was made from turkey livers. This dish proved to be more than acceptable tasting to me despite my usual aversion to anything containing liver. As good as the food was, the highlight of the evening (and quite possibly the day) was fellowshipping with our fellow believers in Ukraine. Eating, laughing, encouraging, singing, praying. We have brothers and sisters in Christ here in Ukraine that we know very little about. For most of us on the team language is an obstacle, but we have something in common that breaks down all barriers and that is Jesus Christ. This was evident tonight as we got to know Oksana and Vitaly. Len finished our evening off at their home with a prayer for their family and for their work with their local church.
Additional miscellaneous highlights:
1. That pesky lost bag has been found - in Minneapolis. Now we need it to get here quick. I must admit, I wasn't holding out hope that it would be found and I learned that I should really have more faith.
2. None of us died while traversing Kiev today.
3. Sheri is starting to feel better but is still not 100% so please keep that as a prayer request along with the rest of the team.
4. Our translators are gifts from God. Most of you will know Julia from her time with us in Dalmeny and her father Sasha is the other translator who has been with us these past 2 days. They mesh perfectly with our group. I pray that God will pour blessings on these two exponentially more than they have been for our team already.
5. A praise item is that the team is finally starting to understand my sense of humour. I was taking quite a bit of heat for it at the beginning of the trip but now everyone is starting to realize that I am legitimately funny.
Tomorrow we journey to Talnoe! I am very excited to meet everyone there and get on with the reason we are here.
Lord, our hearts are full tonight and we pray that you would pour out your blessings on our brothers and sisters in the church in Ukraine.
Jon
Comments
Rosemary (not verified)
Thu, 07/02/2015 - 19:26
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For those of you who haven't
For those of you who haven't yet experienced driving in Kyiv, I'm pretty sure that's what Jon was referring to when he spoke of "risking their lives." Just sit tight and enjoy the ride ...or close your eyes ;)
Thanks for the updates and the good memories.
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