Ukraine

My new necklace

The collage I made of all my favorite pictures from Ukraine.

My favorite picture of Christina.

Zhenya. 

This kid was craaaazy. But I loved him.

Yula. Love this girl.

Dima. Cutest kid.

Picture from the group activities. Love the smiles on their faces.

Lessons I learned in the Ukraine:

1. It can be scary to leave your comfort zone (believe me, I like comfort), but when you do, the results are worth it.

2. God can use you no matter how old you are.

3. I have been blessed with so much and yet I have taken it all for granted.

4. I take for granted my family while there are kids out there who do not have anyone.

5. Have faith like a child.

6. Prayer works.

7. Without God as your foundation, you WILL crumble.

Throughout the trip we had MANY difficulties,

or Satan's attacks. Despite these attacks, God has

showed me that he is FAITHFUL.

1) Someone lost their passport on the connecting Austrian flight from D.C. Him and our team leader stayed behind in Austria for a day. Our team fervently prayed all throughout that day. Luckily, he was able to get a temporary passport (right before the passport center closed for the weekend... and it would have been a 3 day weekend because of a holiday!) and the two safely arrived the next afternoon. God is faithful.

Up in the air!

2) Even before leaving for the Ukraine, our team was having difficulties getting permission to enter Nickolevka, the tiny village in the middle of nowhere and the first orphanage we would be ministering to for the first week. The orphanage had an audit right before we arrived and the director said that if the audit was not finished, we would not be able to stay there! Even before we left for the Ukraine, Satan was attacking. When we arrived in Odessa, we were told that the audit was finished and we could visit Nickolevka. Our prayers had been answered! Soon after, the director called back and said we could not come, for whatever reason (most likely because we had stopped praying since, after all, our prayer had already been answered). Our team prayed again... then we could go! This cycle happened once or twice more until we were finally given permission to go. Prayer works. God is faithful.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says,

"Be joyful always;

pray continually;

give thanks in all circumstances"

3) On the second Sunday we were in Odessa, we were supposed to go to a church that was about an hour away. We all had to leave early because we were leaving for Viktoria, which is also an hour away from the place we were staying, in order to bring 11 orphans to church with us. The team met outside where the bus was scheduled to pick us up. We waited for probably 30 minutes... and no bus. Luckily, the church we were going to was one of our translators church. Our team leader, Carol, and the lead translator, Igor, left to take a cab to Viktoria to pick up the orphans. We prayed that there was a cab large enough to pick up the orphans. While Igor and Carol went off to find a cab, the rest of the team piled into one of the public busses. And let me tell you, those busses are not your typical, large American public busses. It was tinyyyy. After about an hour or so, we finally made it to the church and we were only a few minutes late. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Carol, Igor and the orphans. Shortly after, the kids came piling in! What an answer to prayer! Afterwards, we took them to McDonalds for lunch. Once again, this proves that God is faithful.

Me and Lana!

This girl had been studying English in school for about 3 years and is practically fluent (she carried FULL conversations with us and she still said her English was bad! HA!)

Wilson and some of the girls from Viktoria at McDonalds!

You see that tiny yellow van? Yeah... that's about the size of the bus...

All of us crammed into the bus! Most of us had to stand!