Boo

Hello again! So today is our very last day in Donetsk... we have a couple hours to finish packing and such before the 2nd module graduation, saying goodbye, and leaving. Yikes. All eight of us have established extremely important relationships here, and the idea of leaving our friends is weighing pretty heavily on all of our hearts. I realize how cliche this sounds, but it is impossible to convey just how deeply connected many of us have become to this place; at least for me, Donetsk could easily be my home one day.

I want to take this time to thank some of the people we met here who have made our month at DCU so very enjoyable (some have been mentioned in other entries). Colleen, Lawrence, Margaret, and Jim run the English Intensive Program and have stolen all of our hearts, as well as two other American teachers, Rosemary and Alan (Dalan), who are currently living in Kiev and came here for part of the month. One of the biggest hits with our team and all of the students was Bryan, a Texan college student with a huge passion for this part of the world and the perfect sense of humor to match ours. The teams from Minnesota, Alabama, and Glenkirk (in Glendora, CA) also were invaluable to our experience here. All of these people, Americans or otherwise, served as either our leaders or colleagues, and all were our friends; they helped us with our practical duties, our leisure time, spiritual development, and, when things got intense, tried to keep us sane.

All eight of the people on our team are very different from one another, with various passions, personality traits, gifts, needs, and backgrounds that sometimes complemented and sometimes frustrated each other. Obviously, God brought us here for specific purposes that I hope we were all able to recognize, both individually and corporately. Josh, Alexandra, Barbie, Hannah, Sarah, Rachel, Chelsea, and I have, in varying degrees, been permanently inspired by our experiences here. Most of us are set on returning, either by leading next year's team or, for those of us graduating, finding our own way back. There are hundreds of stories we could tell and thousands of pictures we could show everyone back home of the people and places that were part of our lives for one little month, but nothing could possibly capture how God is moving here.

We have a precious few days left: tonight we take a train back to Kiev; Monday we fly to London; Tuesday we fly back to the states (with the exception of Chelsea and Alexandra). Please pray for our remaining time as Team Ukraine, and that we will be able to fully process what we have seen and felt. Also, obviously, please pray for our safe return and for the remaining funds we have left to raise to cover the trip's cost. Finally, please pray that we will not forget DCU and that those of us who want to come back will find the means to do so.

Thank you for your continuing support, and for reading this rambling entry. :)
До свидания!

VERY quick

Hello everyone. We are still here at DCU. This is our last week. Actually, today is the last day of grammar classes, tomorrow (Thursday) is the test, and then Friday is graduation.
Just wanted to let you know.

So…life right now...is pretty awesome! I'm absolutely falling in love with this country and this city. We rode the bus downtown several times this weekend, and so certain stores, bus stops, and monuments are starting to feel really home-y to me. It was also cool to get off the campus and just have those random everyday interactions with Ukrainian people...smiling and making faces at somebody's baby on the trolley bus...introducing myself to an older woman who was sitting alone, buying things from stores, etc. Also this weekend we happened to run into some Mormon missionaries in a park and talked to them for a while (or rather, I should say, Sarah met some missionaries and we then flocked around her and met them too :)) Then the next day we happened to see one of them again in a different part of the city. Things like that make Donetsk feel like a small world that for now at least is actually my world.

Aside from the great experience of everyday life here, some highlights of the weekend included our visits to the Orthodox church and birthday lunch for Chelsea at an amazing Beatles-themed restaurant called Liverpool. We visited two churches briefly on Saturday, and then planned to all go back for service on Sunday. Unfortunately three girls got some kind of stomach bug (possibly food-poisoning) Saturday night and weren’t able to come on Sunday. But between the two days we were all able to have an experience with this church and I think all came out of it very renewed. There was a spirit of peace and reverence and unity there that was really powerful to take part in.

This weekend was good too because were able to sit down and reflect together, to share, and to pray. We've been running on such a hectic schedule these last few eeks that we've had very little time to connect together spiritually. It was so good to finally be able to have an extended time to encourage each other and pray for this new module, and I already feel like it’s making such a difference. Along with increased unity as a team, I think we’ve seen an answered prayer in our good relationships with the team that is here from Alabama for the week. We’ve been able to run a really good afternoon program, while genuinely enjoying our time together.

These first few days of this week have been weird because so many of the people we were close to last term are gone, and somehow that seems like forever ago even though it’s only been a few days...I think I'm having a hard time transitioning into this new term and letting my excitedness for getting to know these people surpass my sadness about saying goodbye to the other students. But, there a definitely some differences about this term that I’m really enjoying. Last module we were somewhat disconnected because we were all helping in different morning classes and leading different things in the afternoon while also spending time grading and lesson planning in the evenings, sometimes hardly crossing paths at all. This week we have the majority of our mornings free and are working much more closely together in the afternoons which has been a nice change of pace.

On a more general note, I've been really encouraged by Galatians 6:9-10 recently, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all peopele, especially to those who belong to the family of believers." May it encourage all of you as well!

Graduation and our fiesta fiesta in UA...

So Summer English Intensive Module number 1 officially came to a close today. It was actually quite a sad ordeal :0( Even though we've only been here for just over 2 weeks, we've grown really close with our students and have formed strong bonds with them. I spent most of yesterday giving the final in my Pre-Intermediate class and grading papers in time for the students to know whether they passed before they went home. And even though I felt horrible having to mark them down when they were wrong (even little mistakes). As soon as I took their tests to them and saw their faces of relief and just hearing them say: "OHH I love you!" brought joy to my heart. To know that our help in those classes and the encouragement and shared laughs and life stories added up to that moment. Alot of them keep asking us to come back next year and some are even planning to come visit us in the US, and that's so exciting.

Today was the graduation ceremony, which turned out to be a blast and a half. The students went up by levels and got their certificates and had people cheer, we all felt like proud parents haha. And a few of us had the amazing opportunity of singing Hosanna for the students with some of the Ukranian students on guitar, it was absolutely amazing. (I'll post the bit of the video we have on youtube soon). Then Hannah and Rachel had been leading a singing class while people waiting for their english conversation practice and we all got to sing "You are my Sunshine" "Michael Row your Boat Ashore" and "Lean on Me" and it was sooo much fun. And once we were dismissed we had to say goodbye and get last minute emails and addresses from everyone before they left. The good thing is that some of the students are coming back next 2 week module so we'll see them again.

**We've been working closely with a team from Grace Church in Minnesota, we've become part of each other's familes and now its time for them to go back home and we're all pretty bummed about that because we've gotten attached to these amazing people. Especially Annalisa, Dani, Ron, and even this crazy mean kid named Jesse (who insists on making everything about my mom) he says he onlys does it out of love, that liar! lol... we've learned to joke with each other, pop water balloons, virginia reel it, and share our small tables and meals, but the most fun has been playing apples to apples on off days. They've become a part of my life here in Ukraine at the moment, and to see them go is going to be difficult. Its exciting to see how God is working in each of us and to see how much He's worked in the Minnesota team, so we wish them a safetrip back home :0) On the other hand we got a new group from Alabama today and we got to talk for a while after dinner so hopefully we can gel with them soon and get things ready for next intensive on Monday.

Ok, so we've also been working closely to this woman named Rosemary and she's a completely amazing woman! We all love her, she has the best sense of humor and some of the funniest stories about being really outgoing and how sometimes she gets on peoples nerves for being too straight forward (hmmm...see a bit of myself in her...lol) she's so cool. She makes friends everywhere she goes and she calls me her Debbie Doll because she says I remind her of her niece. She's also one of the favorite teachers here and she's going back to New York to visit her sisters after not having seen them for 2 years. So we wanted to do something nice for her and i came up with the idea of cooking her a mexican meal. Things to remember when cooking a mexican meal in UA:

1. They don't have tortillas
2. Often they run out of the next best thing, called lavash
3. Parsley is a pretty good subsitute for cilantro
4. Ukranian cheese=puddy
5. Their hot peppers are pretty freakin hot
6. If you can't even find cornmeal to make they have tortilla chips
7. Unless you read Ukrainian, you don't know what type of meat you're buying
8. When in doubt, always ask the local KGB for help

So we bought a bunch of stuff and i decided to make steak nachos with pico de gallo to surprise her with a going away dinner. And some of our friends that had brought us traditional Ukrainian food the week before came over as well (since i promised to let them taste our food too). So while our team sat with Rosemary at a choir concert, Amy and I went over to Margarets house and started cooking. We chopped up vegetables and i seasoned meat and got the stove ready for the steak. And the whole time we talked with Margarets husband Jim, who just happens to be a professional chef and we heard stories about his family and how he was a specialty cook and field cooking for the army back in the daaaay. He gave us a bunch of spices and things to use to make the food. We had a blast in that small kitchen just hanging out. And as people started to show up we kept distracting Rosemary so she wouldn't see the food and once it was all done it looked amazing and the cheese was tasty but had an interesting texture. She loved the food and everyone was super impressed with nachos in Ukraine. What made me the most happy was getting compliments from the Ukrainian guys who came to dinner and had never tasted nachos. The whole thing worked out perfectly and Rosemary was extremely delighted with our surprise. It was a good time to hang out with one another and just share laughs and good food. It was a huge success. Margaret and Jim have invited us to go back again so we'll definitely take them up on that, their hospitality is amazing! I love all the people here :0)

Tomorrow we get the day off so we're going to go into Central Market and visit some orthodox churches, it should be quite lovely. Continue to pray for us as we start week 3 here on Monday morning and responsibilities continue to grow.

LOVE<3

Free Time at Last

Well hello! My experience in Ukraine started out completely different from the rest of the team's. My best friend's wedding was June 28, so I stayed in the States doing things for that and left the day after... arriving in Ukraine about 5 days after everyone else, and not without a mini-crisis. I flew into the Kiev airport and... extremely long story short, I spent the day running back and forth between terminals before finding out that Aerosvit airline only accepts paper tickets, OWM did not receive mine in time to give to me, and I had to buy another ticket (thank God I forgot to leave my credit card at home!!). Believe me, it was one of the worst ways to begin a month-long stay in a foreign country, and I couldn't have been happier when I finally made it to DCU.

It was hard to adjust to the busy schedule at first, because I didn't have any training and arrived on Day 3 of the program, but soon got a hang of it. I've been able to build friendships with my students, and hearing their stories of life in Ukraine has definitely helped direct some of the aspirations I have for working in the former Soviet Union. By now all of us on the team have established relationships with students and other teachers, which I'm sure you'll hear more about throughout the month. This girl named Nat (Natalia) has especially become everyone's friend, and is pretty crazy and fun. Yesterday we had a reeeeally long day, involving a five hour bus ride, but she kept us relatively sane.

Anyway, we want to thank you for your support, and I especially want to thank everyone who prayed for my situation at the airport. We're going to try to be better with the updates, and hopefully post more pictures soon.

Much love,
Amy

We did it!

It's Friday night, which means we've officially made it through week one of Summer English Intensive, and it's been great! There have definitely been challenging moments, discouraging moments, and totally crazy moments, but overall I feel really good about the relationships we've started and the quality of instruction we've been giving. Tonight we celebrated with many of the students with a night of water games and a campfire. We introduced our friends to Smores, and they introduced us to some of their traditional Ukrainian folk songs. There have been so many highlights I want to share, but for now I will leave just this brief post to let everyone know we are alive and well! Why such a short post? Because tomorrow we will be taking a boat down to Zaparozhia, which means, we will be waking up at 5 :) More to come soon (hopefully with pictures!) Until then, thank you again for your continued prayers!

Summer Intensive: Day 1 (half-way through)

Well, it's half way through the first day of the summer intensive. Alexandra and I are co-teaching a class at the upper intermediate level. We have five adult students in our class. I was very nervous, to say the least, about being a teacher. Like Rachel was saying, having my knowledge of the English language as an ultimate authority in a classroom setting was/is a daunting experience. I know how to speak, but the rules and reasons often escape or evade me.
But, day one is over - at least for my classroom experience. Days are split up into sections. In the morning, students have a more traditional classroom experience with lectures, assignments, and so on. After lunch, more inter-active group sessions are run. And then sometimes there will also be evening activities. Alexandra and I have taught our first lesson, with Chelsea graciously aiding us. We were very prepared (we spent about four hours preparing one lesson plan, and then had an experienced teacher look it over), and the time went much quicker and smoother than I had anticipated. Now, this afternoon, while the rest of our team assists with the group activities, Alexandra and I get to prepare tomorrow's lesson plan. Goody.
Tomorrow will be an excellent and challenging day for me. Usually Alexandra and I co-teach the class. But another teacher, an Ukranian woman, will be gone tomorrow, so Alexandra will substitute for her class and I will fly solo (well, along with some of our teammates as helpers) in the class. I'm looking forward to it, but, again, am nervous, as today I relied heavily on Alexandra's knowledge of the technical construction of the English language.
But this has been a great trip. God has been so faithful, proving Himself so even when we doubt or are fearful. He is truly a God we can depend upon and trust. We on Team Ukraine are very grateful to Him.
Thank you all, heartily, for your prayers.

With love from Ukraine,
Joshua