Sunday, July 31, 2011

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God…made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant…He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:5-8 –This is at least the second time, if not third, I have heard this scripture reference while I’ve been in Ukraine. It is a reminder to me that when I go home, I should find ways daily to be a servant to others—not only while I’m on a “mission trip.”

            Today was a very “chill” day. We attended church in the morning—3 sermons today! :) In the period of inability to understand the preachers, I tried to flip through their Bible and figure out the translations of the names of the books of the New Testament. After this summer, I have empathy for small children in church…when you don’t understand what is going on, it’s difficult to keep yourself occupied and not fidgety! During the service, the kids who attended camp sang “As the Deer” for the church. We sang this song at camp in Ukrainian, and it was nice for them to be able to sing in front of the church.

            We are in prayer for several on the team, as well as a couple of the kids who are not feeling well right now. We pray that everyone will feel fully better tomorrow and that it will not affect our purpose here. Tomorrow will be a day of planning/practice and then the first day of our discipleship/peacemaking training with the kids here.

            After church today, we had lunch with several friends and helpers and then a brief planning meeting with our translators this week—Lera, Valya, and Andrew. There was a funny moment when Crystal gave the materials for the training to the translators and asked if the wording of a cartoon made sense. They took once glance and there was a unanimous “No…” Unfortunately due to Google translation, the wording did not make sense in Ukrainian, and apparently it was quite comical. As Lera put it, “We can understand what this is saying, but…some of this is a bit…wrong.” We were all giggling at their reactions. At least the team tried to make less work for our translators—it was a good effort!

            For the rest of the day, we were able to rest a bit after a long week. I was able to Skype with my parents and Mike, and even Charlie and Chloe! It was nice to see a little bit of home, even though Charlie and Chloe (dogs) don’t understand the concept of the sound being connected to the face on video, haha.



Group photo in front of the church...note that the majority of the girls wore black and white--not planned! Maybe it was the rainy day...



Anette and me

Crystal and me...

Lillian and me!

Planning...discussing the translation

Necklaces for the girls as thank-you gifts from the GoMercy team

Canadian maple syrup for Andrew

Ha...retrieving a lost kite...you do what you gotta do...

Deep in conversation...notice Natalka's new casts on her legs. She is still young enough that they can be straightened; we are praying this will happen.