Here is a video a friend made about the destruction of our little building at the YWAM base in Ukraine. This little building was our kitchen, dining room, and office. It was getting really old, moldy, musty, and the water broke this winter… so it was time for it to go. We are making way for a new building project that will house more bedrooms and classrooms! Yeah!

FYI- I am returning to Ukraine in a week!

Last Group Shot

Here we are at the end of all things…

Yep, the first English for Missions school has come to a close for this year.

I smile when I think of all that has happened and how God was faithful in every moment that I needed him. It was a huge growing time for me and I was certainly stretched in many areas.

I have learned how to better communicate with my students.

I learned that teaching Slavic students is completely different than teaching North American students.

I always considered myself to be somewhat flexible, but I learned to be really flexible in this time.

I learned simple and complex things, as simple and silly as learning to have be more conversational when giving grades to as complex and difficult as dealing with students who do not want to do something.

I have gained a further understanding of Slavic culture.

I have grown in interpersonal relationships and leadership.

I started the school with a simple bag of tools, but I feel like I’m leaving with a full tool box.

The students have of course gained many things besides English as well. They have also gained an understanding of North American people. They are leaving with not just English, but with a broader scope of missions and Western-thinking. To see an academic list of what the students are leaving with or to see picture from graduation, go to the school blog here.  There are so many different levels of learning that go on in a classroom.

It was a great year, really, I think I can say that. Even though it was super difficult sometimes and I cried a few times, the school was a success. God was with us every step of the way. His plan was laid out and came to pass. I am so blessed to be part of it. I can’t wait until January 2013, when the next school will start!

My amazing staff and I

Just for fun

Many of you have been concerned and wondering if I was snowed in at my apartment, curled up under 10 blankets, slowing turning into an ice cube. I can safely tell you that is not the case. I actually had no idea that it was such a big deal, I thought this was normal weather and that I just needed to deal with it.

Let me tell you how I deal with it. Every morning as I am preparing to leave, I put on my fleece jacket, then my down jacket, then a long wooly scarf, my ear warmers, gloves, and snow boots. Besides all that, since November I have been wearing long johns, two pairs of socks and an undershirt every day. I open the door and walk the 20 min it takes me to get to the base. That’s how I deal with it.

I can usually tell about how cold it is by how fast of have little snot icicles in my nose. I had no idea what was happening when this first happened. I just thought ‘why is my nose all stiff?’ If I get snot icicles the instant I walk out the door… it’s cold. If not, it’s only kinda cold. That’s all you need to know.

I generally make a point to plow through the deep snow so I get a work out walking to the base, then I’m nice and toasty. That is also another way to gauge the weather. If I get to the base and I’m not hot, it’s really cold. I get some funny looks not walking on the beaten path, but it’s just more fun to make my own trail. (Really though, do I ever follow the beaten path?)

One of our students is from Siberia and absolutely loves this weather. She told me the trick to make the shivers go away. “Just embrace the coldness Megan, and the shivering will go away.” That’s what she told me, so helpful my students are.

Nothing has really effected us too much. A pipe broke at the base so we had to close down the kitchen our last two weeks of school. The kitchen has now been moved into the laundry room and the laundry room has been moved upstairs. Marichka and I’s neighbor upstairs had a pipe break which manifested itself in a waterfall down our kitchen wall. All pipes have been fixed to some extent or another. The only annoying thing is that our heater goes off randomly at the apartment due to air pressure changes, this just means we wake up cold and have to restart the heater. Nothing we can’t handle.

Most things go on as normal here. The buses still run, there are still taxis, businesses are open. There is about a quarter inch of ice on the inside of most bus windows so you really need to pay attention to the stops. Schools close not because of the amount of snow, but because it gets so cold. They close at -4F only because the schools don’t have heating systems that are good enough to heat the buildings. So kids here have missed quite a lot of school.

Yes, it has been cold here. I think the coldest was -24F, that was with low humidity though so I think it has been colder with humidity and wind chill. But really, I have not minded it. It has been fun to have so much snow. I enjoy walking to and from the base every day. I can’t complain.

Our time in the Carpathians was wonderful… we had a great break. No one could ask us grammar questions, we didn’t have to worry about anyone doing their work duties or not, no marking papers, and no writing of lesson plans. It was shear bliss.

Allison hiking away

Climbing the mountains

One student, Dima, came with us just to make sure the hotel was good and that they would not try to cheat us. The hotel was tiny, but it was nice. We arrived on New Year’s eve and were exhausted. We laid down for a bit, watched a movie and then went down to try and order some food. The restaurant was being prepped for the evening’s festivities so we could only order food to be brought up. It was kinda funny since all the hotel staff knew we were foreigners who did not know Russian or Ukrainian and they all knew what rooms we were in. We went up to decipher the menu and a little later the waiter came to our door to take our order.

While we were waiting for our food we played a game, but in the middle of our game the power went out. There were emergency lights in the hallways but not in the rooms. The food came shortly after, but we had to eat in the dark. It was hilarious since I had randomly packed my headlamp and that became our only source of light for about 3 hours.

The hotel was moderately quiet the whole of the night. We watched one more movie, chatted and then fell asleep at about 11. The fireworks woke us and we wished each other happy new year and went back to sleep again with our clothes on. It was quite comical to wake up the next day all in the same bed with our clothes still on.

Our Hotel: El Dorado

Almost to the top…

The rest of our time there was spent wandering the hills (I call them hills because compared to the mountains in Washington that’s what they are.) We explored mountaintops and wound around hills. There was not much snow, but the scenery was beautiful.

(If you came across a mini snowman on a mountain, wouldn’t you want to decapitate it too?)

Just in time for Christmas… a blog on Thanksgiving. Yeah!

This year was similar to last year, the whole base came together to eat, and eat, and eat, and talk, and eat. It is always great to see everyone. We had half a day of class then spent the rest of the time preparing and cleaning.

For the food, yummy mashed potatoes, broccoli salad, stuffing, gravy, and for the meat we had goose. Goose is basically all dark meat, very fatty, not bad though. Doesn’t compare to turkey of course.

There I am, taking my food seriously.

Like last year, I gave a little speech on the history of Thanksgiving day and how Americans celebrate it. Many people have never celebrated Thanksgiving day. Many countries do not have this holiday, but they may have a sort of harvest festival.

The highlight of the evening was my advanced group giving their speech on Thanksfulness. We had been doing a study on famous speeches and for their final project they had to write a speech on Thankfulness. It was great! They are so creative. To see the full written speech, go to the EFM blog!

"My lovely people..."

I ended the night skyping with my family and wishing my mom a happy birthday. It was a full day!

The joys of community living... skyping in the laundry room!