My time in Ukraine (from Nadya)

God provided Evie and me with an amazing opportunity to visit the Ternopil church for Ukrainian winter holidays - New Year and Christmas. It was sad that Patrick and Jules couldn't come with us, but after prayer and consideration (and some unexpected tears) we decided to go ahead with our plan.

Traveling so far away wasn't very exciting, especially with a 3-year-old, but somehow we managed to get to Kyiv, both of us cold and sleepy, but also so happy to see Anya, who met us at the airport. My Mom and Dad met us at the apartment with excited faces and the fridge fully loaded with all kinds of goodies. It was then that I realized how much I missed them! The next two weeks seemed to fly away too fast. I guess it happens when you are the happiest. Well, there was a wonderful New Year’s celebration with prayer for the year 2008, sermons from my Dad and Ihor Derkach, a slide show from Taras displaying the events of 2007, and later a youth program with lots of fun games, organized by Sophia and Nastya. I must have had the easiest time staying up till 3am, which was still 8pm according to our Detroit time.

Evie just loved staying with her babushka Valya, who ‘loved her so much’ (Evie’s words). We also visited a famous aqua park with the young people, and it was so wonderful! 3 hours there was more than enough to get us all exhausted and totally satisfied. Andriy Trach is the co-owner of that facility, so he organized the trip for us. The thing that impressed me the most was how the young people loved spending time together. We enjoyed so much fellowship and connection with them, as though we’d never left!

Ukrainian Christmas was also well organized by the church. The young people had a nice program with lots of singing and a skit. Alla Ozhinska happened to have a birthday during our time there, so we celebrated it with the yummiest cakes ever at Svitlana’s house. The last Thursday meeting we attended was very sad, since we had to say good-byes, but to us it was more like ‘see you soon’ - we already were planning our next visit, hopefully with the whole family. There are not enough words to describe the fun we had with the family who made our joy complete. Evie keeps talking about babushka, who loves her so very much, dyedushka, who read her books in Russian and gave her candy, and Anya, who "threw away the green candy" :). By the way, the amount of candies Evie consumed while in Ukraine still remains a secret and I would rather it be that way. Everywhere she went, she got candy, and unable to have much self-control, she consumed every one of them very fast, unless stopped by one of the adults, mostly myself (Anya one time also, which explains Evie’s comment about her).

I’d like to finish with words from Psalm 133:1 – “How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity”. It was a wonderful time of fellowship and unity, of family reunion, of joy, seeing the growth the Lord had done in the church, of love shown to us by the church members and the family and of sharing the Lord with my people. We can’t wait to see everyone again and praise Him together!