From Flip-flops to Heels

I arrived in Kremenchuk a week ago today from Kiev, and it’s not been an overwhelming week, but it has been full. This photo is the view from the apartment where I am staying with Jayne, my host and mentor for the summer. If you look just beyond the line of trees, you can see the Dnieper River.

Last Thursday and Friday I had the opportunity to spend some time with Jayne and her Christian Education class at Kremenchuk Regional Bible College. On Thursday, they did a craft day in their class, to try to give the students some simple ways to incorporate crafts into their lessons. We made sand art, except we used salt. One of the photos is of me participating in the craft time.

The other photos are from the picnic we took with the students on Friday evening. We went to the Dnieper River and cooked dinner over the fire and just talked with each other a lot (well, I listened a lot). We did foil dinners, shish-ka-bobbed meat, and s’mores. The students had not had s’mores before, so it was fun to introduce them and watch them have fun roasting the marshmallows. The photo is of one of the most exciting moments of the picnic, when the cruise ship that goes up the Dnieper came past our picnic spot. Everyone was so excited, so they had me take a group photo. It was kinda funny to see the huge cruise ship in the same river with tiny fishing and motor boats.

On Sunday, I had the opportunity to visit all three services that meet in the same church building. The morning service is the mother church that has been focused on church planting to meet the needs of their community. The two other services of the day are actually daughter churches that are meeting in the same building for the time being. One afternoon congregation is reaching out to the younger generation with a more contemporary service. The second one is a congregation made up mostly of recent converts, many of whom are from drug and alcohol backgrounds. It was a long day but it was a blessing.

Other than that, my other big activity of the week has been guliating (goo-lee-ot-ing), which is a wonderful Russian word which means to meander, to take your time walking around, it’s kinda a Russian thing. It means that I’ve been walking around the city, just to see what’s there, and to watch people. I’ve seen some interesting places in the downtown area and I’ve enjoyed walking along the “Riverwalk” of the Dnieper (it’s a little different from the San Antonio version). During my guliating excursions, I’ve tried to blend in a little more with the other people on the street, so I’ve begun wearing my sandals with a heel on them instead of my flip-flops. I still end up looking like a Westerner, but hopefully a little more Ukrainian.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to. I’ll add more photos later.