Ukraine Trip - Part 4 of 4

That afternoon, after lunch at the other pastor’s house, we led two more VBS programs. Again, it was amazing how the children could enjoy the simple things like balloon animals, face paint, singing songs, and playing the simplest of games, when children in the West are becoming more and more difficult to please. There may not be anything wrong in itself with being wealthy, but these kids who came from poor families were so thankful for the little we had to give them. All the Christians we met in Brusilov seemed to possess a child-like faith that their poverty could not take away. It actually seemed as though their faith was strengthened by the fact that they had so little. It is thought-provoking to see such an amazing community of believers who have so little in the way of material possessions. When Jesus said not to store up treasures on earth “where moth and rust destroy,” (Matthew 6:19) is this what He had in mind? Are we blinded by possessions to the point where we do not realise what poverty could do for us? I don’t at this point have an answer to the question, but I do know that the Church in Brusilov is not limited in any way by its material shortcomings.

That evening as we finished up with the VBS program we were informed that as soon as we finished cleaning up, a church service would start where John Tucker would preach again. It only lasted two hours, after which we went back to our host families for dinner and bedtime. The next morning, no longer to our surprise, we had another prayer meeting at eight o’clock, which meant we had to say goodbye to our hosts. With hands and feet and a few words of broken Ukrainian (or was it Russian?) we tried to say thank you (dya’akuyu) to our hosts by giving them a gift from Egypt. They smiled and nodded and were probably laughing their heads off at those crazy foreigners as soon as we were out of the house. I hope we didn’t unknowingly offend them in some way, but in our ignorance we probably did. For the prayer meeting, which we learned they have every morning, we met at a thus far unfinished church which we prayed for. Again, we had our second breakfast before leading our last VBS. Lunch followed after, and then it was almost time to leave for Kiev again. We played volleyball with some guys for a while, where some of us (notably me) got to embarrass ourselves with our total lack of skill. After Tolik and the Tollivers arrived with the bus, we prayed with some of the Christians before leaving Brusilov and then we headed back to Kiev.

The rest of the day consisted of travelling on the bus and eating food at a nice restaurant that had a king-size rabbit (who could probably have eaten my cat). In the evening those of us not on the worship team for the next day got to relax for a bit.

Sunday began with breakfast and quiet time. We attended the KIBC church service in the morning, followed by lunch with the youth and singles of the church. We spent most of the afternoon there at the Tollivers’ apartment, just getting to know each other. In the evening, some of us went to the Spanish church where we met many of the same people we had met on Tuesday. Fortunately for us, one of them, Mariah, spoke excellent English and translated Igor’s sermon for us. After this, we were invited to the house of some of the youth members for a great dinner. The next day, as mentioned earlier, we did our last prayer-walk through downtown Kiev, ending with some souvenir shopping on Andrew’s Descent. The apostle Andrew is said to have been the first to preach the Gospel in this area. In fact tradition says that he prophesied from a nearby hill that a great city would one day be found there.

We ended our last day in Kiev with an enjoyable boat trip on the Dnipro river. It was good to be able to relax for a bit and simply consider the city we had been ministering to, although sometimes we were the ones who felt ministered to by a remarkable and diverse group of believers. While everyone seemed thrilled and grateful that we had come to Ukraine, I felt as though I had learned so much more from them than they had learned from us who knew so little of their culture and their ways. Whatever the case, as I saw the city, I realised how much I had loved it, for no apparent reason at all, and hoped to return some day. Sla-va-bo-goo.