Ukraine at last...

So I finally made it to Ukraine. It took quite a while too. I left on the 28th of May, had to fly from Louisville to Atlanta, Atlanta to Boston, Boston to Paris, and Paris to Ukraine. Might I add that the Charles De Gaul Airport in Paris is HORRENDOUS! It took me over a half an hour to get through security when my plane was supposed to be leaving as I got to security because it took so long for us to get off of the plane in Paris. But that aside the trip went without a hitch (although a few missed flights were nigh at hand once or twice). In Boston I met up with the other VIA who is staying with me this summer, his name is Matthew. He's a really great guy from Columbus, OH (you know you're excited, Dad), and he goes to Ohio Christian University. We also met with a group that is going to be here with us for two weeks from Kentucky Mountain Bible College. They're a really nice group (there's six of them) and they are really hard workers.

Well, my first day in Ukraine was mainly spent in jet lag. We arrived in Ukraine at around 12 pm Ukrainian time (around 6 am for those on the eastern time zone), so I had been up for around 24 hours already. But I am not staying in Kiev, where we landed, which is in the northern part of the country. I am staying in Berdyansk, which is in the southern part of the country on the coast of the Sea of Azov. It's pretty much exactly opposite of Kiev, so we had to take a train ride to get there. But the train didn't come until 8 pm, which meant we had 8 hours in Kiev to spend. I was pretty excited about that, except for the fact that I was really exhausted, and kind of angry about Paris (I really didn't like Charles De Gaul). So we drove around the city, and went to a pretty cool street that had some nice nick-nacks (however you spell that) to buy from Ukraine. We also did a bit of sight-seeing and went around Kiev looking at some monuments.

Kiev is a fairly beautiful city, although I think I prefer Budapest (which is in Hungary for those who don't know). The people are nice enough, and the monuments we saw were beautiful, especially the churches. The Ukrainian Orthodox Churches (sort of like Greek and Russian Orthodox) are shaped like an onion on top like those pictures you see of Moscow or the Red Square. It was neat to see, and I enjoyed it. However, there was one thing that I had to get used to, and that is the alphabet here. I don't think Russian itself would be that hard to learn, but Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which for the most part looks completely different from the Roman alphabet (which we use in English). For instance, what looks like a B in Russian sounds like a V, there's a backwards N that makes the E sound, and a backwards R that makes the Ya sound. It's a little confusing at first, and I was exhausted, so I got into a bit of a bad mood.

However, after a while the missionary who met us at the airport, named Ernie Smith, saw that we were tired, so we ate at McDonald's (I wasn't too thrilled that that was my first meal in Ukraine), and we waited in a lounge at the train station until the train came. Once I was on the train it was great, because they have beds to sleep on, so I slept through pretty much the entire 12 hour trip. That's right, it was a 12 hour train ride. However, where we got off at the train station is not Berdyansk, but another city still another 3 hour drive from Berdyansk. So we got off the train (after I accidentally broke off a spout for the hot water holder and it started spewing all over the train, not one of my better moments) we headed for a car and were off once again to Berdyansk.

I drove with Matthew and the guys one of the guys on the team (there are two) in a car with a pastor of the church I'll be working at in Berdyansk, Sergei. He speaks great English, and we had a nice drive. Ukraine has some beautiful farmland, and the dirt is almost black it's so rich. It's considered the bread basket of Europe, sort of like Kansas or Nebraska in the US. We stopped for lunch at a church Ernie works with in a town called Tokmok (I think), and the pastor there named Peter, and his wife Anya served us lunch. It was delicious and totally Ukrainian. We had little open-faced sandwiches and some cole slaw like stuff that tasted great, boiled eggs with mayo (it's better than it sounds) and fruit. They also gave us a drink called compost there, which is like Kool-aid but made with real fruit. So after Pastor Peter and Anya told us how they met (which was totally by God), we left and finally arrived in Berdyansk.

Now all of this has pretty much been two days, and there are another two days to account for, but I am afraid this post is getting too long, so I will hopefully post another blog later today or tomorrow. I really feel like God is starting to help me be free of some of my doubts here. I am seeing the way he is working with the Ukrainians, and it is wonderful. They're style of worship, the way the rely on God, and the missionaries themselves are all wonderful. I had thought the Ukrainians would be like the Hungarians, but they are a little different. Very polite, but reserved, they want to make friends and try hard to include you even if you don't speak Russian. I am really liking these people, but that is the topic for another post. The Cyrillic is getting easier too, and I have eased up on my initial grumpiness with some sleep. I'm hoping to do some real good here, and want to work hard. Keep me in your prayers, and I'll try to keep this blog up as I can.

David