American idiom: That really makes my blood boil!

Ukrainian version: That really eats my liver!

Yep, next time you want to use the idiom “boils my blood” just use “eats my liver” instead. It’s the same thing!

A connection is made (or reconnection, depending on view).

A teaching opportunity.

A sudden invitation.

A bumpy bus ride.

Arrive at a home in the Карпа́ты or Carpathians.

Teaching with Lance

I had the great opportunity to teach in the Carpathians along with three others, Andri, Allison and Lance. We were asked to staff a retreat time for the staff of the Ternopil Missions Institute. This was their first staff retreat and the first time they had someone come to do any teaching.

Building team

We had fun partaking in team building games, relaxing together, teaching, praying, and some sightseeing. We taught on topics such as team, relationships, unity, confrontation, and healthy boundaries. We did a lot of debriefing which is basically taking a step back and reflecting on what has happened both good and bad in the past years. This team of people had never been able to have someone help guide them through this process. Allison and I helped them create a timeline and go through all the fun and happy memories to the sad and tearful memories.

Seeing a castle

Not always easy to get a picture while I’m teaching, but here is one while I was closing up our time of creating a timeline. The hanging green, blue, and purple chickens in the background were used to create a mobile to demonstrate how taking away one piece will completely alter the mobile. Each piece needs each other to balance and it will take time to adjust when one piece is taken away. The same applies to a team or family when one member leaves. Transition takes time and will cause some imbalance at first.

Here is a short video clip of Baba Halya reciting some childhood poems from memory. My coworker Allison lives with her and recorded her recitation. This is a great glimpse of Ukrainian culture! Every child is taught poems in school, the same ones their parents learned which are the same ones their parents learned!

Once upon a time, I had the fun privilege of visiting an after school/work tutoring program that runs in the center of the city. A strong king invites people to come and pay to be part of a class for extra English lessons. This is open to kids, fairies, and adults a like! I have been in contact with one teacher and a shepherdess who has asked me a couple of times to come and be a part of her class. My most recent visit involved me and a talking shoe to take part in one of their teacher seminars and afterwards teaching a short lesson in a classroom in a cave.

Speaking to teachers (not in a cave)

I like to use a fun little game called Once Upon a Time when I teach. This is a game that is all about storytelling as you may have gathered. Stories usually sound like the one above, just complete nonsense. (The previous story is true if you take out the randomness.)

Making a storyline

Students have fun learning to create a story based on cards that they drew from a deck. The objective of the game is to weave a tale using storytelling cards you pulled from a deck to arrive at a predetermined ending. These can range from a wide variety of cards, you can have words like strong or weak, king or queen, forest or castle, fairy or giant, ruins or broken… the list goes on. The ending of the story is also chosen from a deck of possible endings. You can have the classic, ‘and the lived happily ever after,’ or ‘the evildoers were thrown into a well and never heard of again,’ or perhaps ‘and he picked up his weapon and went on his way.’ There are many options but you can only arrive at one ending!

Sharing the rough draft

My time at the tutoring program was fun. Students created stories that had magical changing forests, armies of devils, and sleeping beauties. They were very creative and ready to share. I look forward to being able to come and partner with this program in the future!

Working hard on stories

A friend posted this video showing just how bad roads can get, especially after the winter. It’s 5 minutes long, but if you watch the first 2 minutes or so, you get the idea. It’s a “highway” from Ternopil to Lviv.

Remember my adventure on the road to Moldova? Just picture craters covering the road…