My mission trip to Ukraine (56k, might wanna go get mass)

[Slateman]

**DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING THREAD HOLDS REFERENCES TO GOD, JESUS, AND OTHER VALUES FOUND IN THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. THOSE WHO ARE OFFENDED BY SUCH THINGS MAY WANT TO LEAVE NOW**

Now that I got that out of the way, on to the show!!

As some of you now, I've spent the past three weeks and change in Europe. My friend Malcolm emailed me at the end of June about his upcoming mission trip to Ukraine to help out with a summer camp for some kids. I emailed back, "Sounds like fun. Wish I could go." And then went to work. He emailed me back, "Why can't you?" Try as I could, I couldn't think of a reason not to go. So I booked a flight. This thread will cover the camp itself. There will be another for my other European travels.

The camp was 10 days long. It was in the Carpathian mountains, near a ski resort. The camp was, for all intents and purposes, a dump. It cost about five bucks a night. The plumbing barely worked. Toilets in Europe don't swirl. The bottom just sort of drops out with a little suctions. Well, these toilets didn't have suction. They worked via gravity Sometimes. Got real smelly after a while. And they didn't even have toilet seats. The shower had about half an hour of hot water. And we had 30+kids. Blah.

The bed was about 6 feet, 1 inches long. I know this because thats my height. Add the pillow and I spent my nights with my knees towards my chest. The bed was lumpy. And thats being kind. The pillow had like straw in it. Poked your face.

The only good thing was the food. It wasn't real tasty, but there was a lot of it. Which was great for the kids cus they don't get much to eat. Plus I was introduced the dish of Cernikay (phonetic spelling). Its like of like a small fried donut with sweet cream cheese and you dip it in cream. Good stuff

The kids live in what is called an Internot. Its basically a boarding school and dorm. But its not like a rich kid boarding school. Many of the kids only have 1 parent, and that parent pretty much just ships them off to the Internot and goes to find work. The kids are lucky if they see the parents twice a year. They might have three sets of clothing. I visited the Internot after camp. The school was nice, but probably cold in winter. They heated the air by boiling water and sending it through pipes. They also had a coal furnace but didn't want to use it cus it made a mess, cost money, and wasn't real effective either. Great engineering from the Soviets

The dorm was a disaster. It would be condemned in the US. Its got mold all over. The top level is unusable, even by their standards. Most of the kids live in the basement and first floor. The plumbing was terrible. There was very little privacy. The beds consisted a head board, a foot board, metal mesh, and cloth for a mattress. Deplorable conditions.

What kids needed most though was love. Most of these kids just don't have anyone to love them. No one to give them a hug or actually care about them. The boys wanted someone to wrestle and the girls just wanted someone to put their head on. Thats pretty much the reason we went.

I was given the task of Sports Director. I thought up games to play in the morning before breakfast and then managed all the sports equipment (badminton, soccer, basketball, ping pong, ect.) Whenever I could, I took the kids next door to run them around on the soccer field.

Most of the kids

Before I move onto the rest of the pics, I should tell you that this is a new camera and I hadn't really used it before. And I'm not a real good photographer so some of these might not be so great.

Meet Vasil and Andryi. Vasil is Andryi's father. He is the former Lt. Colonel of police in Lviv. While he's a Christian man, let's just say that he still finds himself more towards the old Soviet style of police ethics

Andryi is a ministry coordinator. He's also one of the translators. Pretty good English and a pretty good guy.

Meet my traveling companions, Sarah and Malcolm (go figure, a black guy named Malcolm ). Sarah will be a junior at James Madison University this fall. She is majoring in Psychology and will go on to grad school. She has a boyfriend . . . sort of. I'm betting that in a few months, she won't.

Malcolm is, as you can see, an ordained Anglican minister. Wasn't always. Once upon a time he was in the military. Then he got married and became a millionaire. His wife died and he lost all his money. Then he found God. He began to get involved in church and such. He was on vestry at my church and has been involved in the youth group since I was in Jr. High. He became a minister when I was a Junior in high school.

Here's the rest of the staff. Back row: Olna, Eeyhore, Oksana (Vasil's wife), and Malcolm. Front row: Sister Josephat (real nun and the nurse), Sarah, Lisa (pronounced with a long "i"), Nastia, and me (Steven)

My roommates. Roman, Roman, and Oler. The doll is for us winning the cleanest room contest. Basically, it was the last day of camp and we had been screwed all week. The second day, I had been told that my room was the messiest. So I decided it was time to lay down the law. That room was spotless. Than I told the guys to go pick flowers and we arranged them in a bouquet on the table. Enough? Apparently not. So I added things and cleaned more every day. The flag in the background is Ukraine's national flag. Finally, we won on the last day!

Roman and his sister Maria. Roman was probably my favorite. The guy reminded me of Robin Hood. He had worked some odd jobs at the Internot and saved up money to buy candy. The store there gave the kids an enormous discount on it (like, they barely broke even). He had this small little bag, and somehow he just came up with treats and candy out of nowhere. At one point, I said, in English, that I wanted some water. He pops out with this 2 liter bottle of mineral water. Turns out he was grabbing them off the table at dinner. A couple of days later I was hungry, and he showed up with mushrooms and rasberries. Turns out he had picked them outside (and they were edible )

My boy has himself a little bit of a pimp hand. Thats Evanka, Maria (his sister), and Zida.

Meet Zida. She lives at the Internot full time. They found her on the streets when she was 10. She's 16 now. No one knows anything about her past. Judging by her skin color, she's a gypsy and was probably abandoned. Malcolm is planning on getting her to America so he can get her some psychological help. She was abused at one point, judging by the scars on her legs and back.

Speaking English to win prizes. The girl in blue is Mariana. Actually went to the same church she did after camp. The girl in red is Tanya. She's 15. She was another translator but had to leave halfway through camp to go to work. She speaks, fluently, Russian, Ukrainian, German, and English. She is also learning Spanish and Italian. She is immigrating to the US in November. She was really nervous and kept peppering Sarah and I with questions. I finally sat her down and told her that hundreds of thousands of people immigrate to the US every year, and half don't speak English. You're already a leg up. You'll be fine.

More English. Learning about body parts.

Sister cleaned up in the English lesson

Sister telling God about her big winnings. Thats her (or the convent's) cell phone. She didn't borrow it from someone. Sister Josephat was pretty great. The kids loved her yet still feared her (after all, she's a nun . . . they have powers . . .). But she was willing to do anything with the kids. She played badminton with them and went to the river and even played . . .

WATER BALOON VOLLYBALL!!!! Basically, you fling the water balloon over the net and try to get it to break on the other side. The other side tries to catch it with the blanket. It ruled.

The kids loved soccer, but Sarah and I taught them Ultimate Frisbee

But the boys loved Ping Pong the most. And they were good. Way better than me. They smacked the crap out of that ball. In 10 days, they broke about 8 balls just playing games.

Results of the Ping Pong Tournament. From left to right: Valodja, Andryi, and Steppon.

International Day. Kids divided up into groups to represent countries. Thats, obviously, Italy. Nastia painted their faces and Roman made a cool Batman-esq mask.

Camp fires rule. We roasted sausage. It was money. Actually, where we had the fire looked like a woodsball field. Someone had taken the time to construct bunkers and secure them in the ground.

Roman getting him some tasty food!!

Eeyhore (another one, its pronounced like the sad donkey in Winnie the Pooh) wouldn't leave me alone in the sandwich making contest.

The completed projects

My favorite. I got to eat it later

Kristina playing to the cameras. She was concentrating a moment ago. This was the one I wanted to stuff in my duffle bag and smuggle back to the states. My step mom would have loved her because all she would have had to do to spoil her was serve her food three times a day. The pool in the back would have made Kristina's eyes pop out of her skull.

More showing off to the cameras.

Sarah and I. She's is goofing off cus its the last day of camp.

My favorite moments . . .

Didi Budlaska Ketchup

At one point I wanted some ketchup. So I asked Nastia how to ask for it. She said its "Didi (long "i", long "e") budlaska ketchup" So I repeated it over and over up to the window and asked the cook. She said "tak" (yes) and handed it to me. As I turned around all the kids started cheering and applauding.

Cernikay

The last night there every leader gave a little goodbye speech. All the leaders' got their name chanted. Except me. My love of Cernikay was legendary throughout the camp. So when it became my turn, they started with "Steven" but quickly it switched to "Cern-i-kay!" I just started laughing.

Soccer

I pretty much played on whatever team was weakest. At one point it was all the older boys vs me, a couple girls, and a young boy. The only way I could keep it close was to hustle my butt off. In an hour I was exhausted, but it was tied. Then Nastia came and said lunch was in about 15 minutes. I told her to tell everyone to go inside . . . right after we scored. The other team then proceeded to rip of 4 straight goals Yea, we Americans gotta work on this . . .

Vasil

Vasil, the camp director and former Lt. Col. of police, was a bear of a man. He grumbled in the morning and then lined the kids up to tell them the day's schedule. But he was filled with so much wisdom and shared it freely. The last night, I folded up the Ukrainian flag into a triangle and presented it to him. I told him that this was how we fold a flag in America to keep it in a place of honor until it flies again. I then gave it to him and said that he should keep it until the next camp. He got real teary eyed and offered his hand . . . which turned into a giant bear hug . . .

Thats pretty much it. I have tons more pics, but they are too many to put up here. If you want to come over I'll show them to ya

I don't know what else to say. I get a little teary eyed myself when I think about those kids. I miss them a little and its only been a few days. If I can, I'm going back next year.

I didn't once miss computer games, the internet, or anything like that. I learned to appreciate what I have. Little things like toilet seats and broccoli. Big things like love. I found out how much I'm capable of giving and it was so much more than I thought. Not only that, but it was easier than I thought. I've never been a hugger, but I hugged everyone of those kids. It was easy. Putting a smile on their face was just about the greatest thing I've ever done.

[DeanCollins]

thanks for sharing that. It's easy to forget how good we have it here. That was a tremendous thing that you did with those kids. :applause:

[Slateman]

thanks for sharing that. It's easy to forget how good we have it here. That was a tremendous thing that you did with those kids. :applause:

I only did what God told me to do. It was pretty obvious that I was supposed to go when Malcolm sent me that email within a day of all my other summer plans getting canceled. But thanks.

[JMac]

What an awesome story! I'm glad you were able to be apart of this. God doesnt just call "anyone" to go on a mission trip. He had you in mind.

[DeanCollins]

I only did what God told me to do. It was pretty obvious that I was supposed to go when Malcolm sent me that email within a day of all my other summer plans getting canceled. But thanks.

well you still could have stayed home and did nothing like most people, but you didn't so yea you deserve credit for making a difference in those kids lives. they'll never forget it.

[qcraftsman]

I went to Guatemala on a mission trip before for a few weeks. It is amazing how we realize how good we have it here at home when you go visit these places. We sure do take things for granite. Mind changing experience.