Hooray for Kiev!

The conference was not the end of our adventures away from Ternopil! Oh we were there for a whole nother week!

After the conference, we joined forces with the Kiev DTS team to sit under the tutelage of the prestigious Al Akimoff. It was an honor to hear from such a man of God. He had worked in the Soviet Union smuggling Bibles in for years. Let me just say he was full of story after story! I though surely we have heard all the good ones, but no, there was always more.

The housing got complicated, it wasn’t like Ternopil. We couldn’t just wake-up, mosey on over to the shower, get ready for the day in a nice and orderly fashion, and meander down to breakfast. Nope, life just can’t always be that easy. [Note: Maybe I exaggerated a little bit on how “easy” my life is.] The YWAM base in Kiev is on a barge and yes, the barge is in the river. So space is limited needless to say and there was not enough room for us to sleep at the base. The staff graciously opened up their homes to us. We were all split up into small groups, some groups had 5 some had 1.

I was fortunate enough to spend the week with Lena’s family. Lena’s (our translator) parents allowed four completely strange girls to come and stay with them for a whole week. Yes, I meant to say completely strange as opposed to complete strangers- we can be strange. There were actually 6 of us total staying in a tiny Soviet apartment. Her parents were so incredibly loving, they each felt like they had adopted new daughters.

Outside of teaching times, we led different times of worship and fellowship with the Kiev DTS. It was overall, a great opportunity for the Ternopil team to see how it is being outside our comfort zone. We were not in charge, we did not know the schedule, we had to simply be ready and wait. Everyone is grateful to be back in Ternopil and we are even more grateful to be where we are.