I have been inundated with Ukrainain humor being here. Sounds like it would be fun right? Let me just share a bit of the humor with you and you can decide.

#1 A doctor came to check on his patient and found that he had already died. He asked the nurses if he had sweated a lot before he died. “Yes! Yes, he sweated a lot,” they replied. “Oh good, good, this is very good,” the doctor said.

When they told me that one, I said “is that it?” Still don’t get it.

#2 In the congress in America, if I asked a congressman a question they give me an answer. If I ask a congressman in Russia a question, they will spend 15 min explaining why I am an idiot.

They got a half chuckle from me on that one.

#3 Once a student had to take a test on animals. Unfortunately, he had only studied about fleas. The first animal was a dog. He said, “well it has ears, eyes, hair, a tail and four legs.” The teacher raised her eyebrows.” And all dogs have fleas, and fleas…” The teacher stopped him and showed him a cat. Again, “well it has ears, eyes, hair, a tail and four legs. And all cats have fleas…” Teacher shakes her head, then smiles and shows him a fish. “Oh, fish, fish, fish. Well it has eyes, a mouth, it breaths, and… but IF it had fleas…”

??????

#4 There were two lines of people in heaven. One line was for men who were the head of the house and the other for homes where the woman was the head of the home. The line for where the woman was the head was going on for eternity (I added that bit.) There was only one man in the line for where men where the head. Gabriel thought this was weird and went to ask the one man why he was the only one. “Why are you the only one in this line?” “I don’t know, my wife just told me to stand here.”

I actually laughed pretty good here.

#5 A man heard someone knocking at his door and opened it find a poor man standing there. The poor man said “please can you help, I just want something to eat.” The other man said “well before I give you any food you need to drink 10L of water.’ The poor man thought about it and decided it was worth food. So he drank and drank and when he was finished the other man asked what he wanted to eat. The poor man replied “well I’m not so hungry anymore.” “What?! You came to my door asking for food, why did you lie? Why didn’t you say you were thirsty?”

I guess it has something to do with slavik hospitality, but that still doesn’t make it funny.

#6 A man came home from work and sat down at the table. He slammed his fist on the table and shouted “who’s the head of this house?” His wife came in with her hands on her hips and said with an attitude “What?” The man instantly cowered and said stammering, “I just wanted to ask, is it ok just to ask a question.”

Another half chuckle

When they see that I don’t find their jokes very funny they ask me to share some American jokes. I haven’t been able to think of any though. Anyone know some good American jokes that only Americans would find funny?

DTS is finally over, my structured life is no longer so structured. What should a person do now? Go to Moldova of course!! Ruslan invited Allison and I to come to Moldova to visit his home and family.

It was a long bus ride there, but so worth it. Funny note about our trip there. We took an all night bus and at one of the pit stops in the middle of the night we came to a little food stand for a snack. On the menu was “Hot dog” or I could get “Hot dog with meat.” Hmmm don’t know about you, but it seems safer to go with the hot dog with meat if I have a choice!

Let me just say that Ruslan has such an amazing family!! They are so welcoming, so sweet, and warm-hearted; it really is difficult to describe this one-of-a-kind family.

Seeing a little bit of Ruslan's village

Lunch with the Fam

They quickly took us in and let us just lounge around. We played with Ruslan’s younger sisters, if I haven’t mentioned it before, he has four younger sisters!

Little mischievous Emanuela

Ruslan took us to see the capital of Moldova which is only a 15 min drive from his home. We saw some of the beautiful buildings and parks (that would be even more beautiful if we were there in the spring!)

Hanging out with Stefan the Great

It just so happened that Vice President Joe Biden was in Moldova giving some speech. There were lots of American flags up through out the city to welcome him. One other place we went was the mall. Can you guess what it would be called? I’ll tell you at the end.

One afternoon, Allison and I took three of Ruslan’s sisters out and we went exploring for spring flowers! We had a great time just getting out, walking, and seeing the Moldovan countryside! I can’t wait to see Moldova in the spring time!

Mariana, Ludmila, Georgeta

Georgeta gave up looking for flowers and started collecting pine cones!

We were privileged to be a part of Ruslan’s home group that meets on Thursdays. We went to two other prayer meetings and then finished our time in Moldova by going to Ruslan’s church, which was very alive! There was always lots of fellowshipping after the home group! 

Ruslan's church

The mall was called Malldova!

That’s right, I finally graduated from Youth With A Mission’s Discipleship Training School in Ternopil, Ukraine! Wahooooo!!! We had agreat last week debriefing what we have learned from DTS and what we will be doing in the coming months.

The graduation ceremony was held at a restaurant that overlooks the Ternopil lake. It was naturally a dress up occasion which meant I had to wear make-up and look nice. :p

I hate make-up!!

Each outreach team, (Ukraine, Ethiopia and India) shared about their time together and showed pictures for all the family and friends that came.  We ate a yummy meal that seemed to come in spurts between the presentations.

Ukraine team

India team

Ethiopia team

Everybody!

After the presentations were made, we finally were presented with our certificates of completion! And then a million photos were taken.

I've got it!! I finally got it!

It was such a great time to spend together before everyone left for their homes. Many students left that night, so it was time well spent together!

For the first time in my life, I got to wear a skirt and T-shirt on my birthday with out having goosebumps! I loved it, now I know what it is like to have a birthday in the summer. I’m envious.

The day started with finding the shower full of balloons and little cut-out flowers all over the bathroom mirror. The cut out happy birthday and taped it to the wall for me. I love my team!

One of these letters just doesn't belong...

The boys made me a yummy breakfast and everyone had a little gift for me. I felt so loved! We left to have lunch with our favorite Ethiopian friends. They took us out and introduced us to a traditional Ethiopian dish called kitfo. Sounds exotic huh? It’s raw ox meat.

Ahhh, I'm about to eat raw meat!

Yep, just a big ol slab on a big silver platter. There is a little bit of spicy sauce to go with it, but that’s all. I like to do something a little crazy on my birthday so yes, I did eat some. I could not pull myself to eat a lot since we were leaving the next day and the thought of sitting on a toilet at 30000 feet for 5 hours did not appeal to me. 

After eating kitfo, we went to a cafe for tea. Here, they all said a blessing for me, prayed for me, and gave me some Ethiopian chocolate.

We went home, had dinner together, and then my team surprised me with apple strudel from a German bakery!! Who knew there would be a German bakery in Ethiopia! They also blessed me and prayed for me again. A massage from Marichka ended the night. I could not have asked for a better birthday!

What was church like in Ethiopia?

Hot, loud, crowded, fun, loud, athletic, stinky, very loud, interactive, alive, passionate, and loud.

That pretty much describes the majority of churches in Ethiopia. We attended an international church on Sunday mornings and a true Ethiopian church on Sunday and Friday nights.

How we got connected to the Ethiopian church is kinda funny. On Ruslan’s birthday, Marichka took him to the center and they went walking around. They heard some loud music and thought they would check it out. They walked into a church, listened for a little bit and left thinking they would have to come back next week. When we did come back the church was so welcoming, they sat us up in the front, gave us a translator, met with us after the service and asked if they could take us out to dinner the next day. This was all before they really knew our names.

Once we got to know them, we found out the went evangelizing on Fridays before church. We joined with them in this and continued to get to know them. The people there became some of our closest friends in Ethiopia.

Marichka loves her coffee, and me... not so much.

Lounging for a coffee ceremony

We had coffee ceremony with them, they helped celebrate my birthday, they did hair for some, and we went to a lot of cafes together. They were so happy to have us there, they had never had any foreigners come to their church before.

Our last week in Ethiopia we invited them to our place for dinner. We made Ukrainian food, Moldovan food, and I made fried chicken!

It was a fun experience for everyone. We played some games afterwards and spent a lot of time fellowshipping. We always had fun with our friends!