Ukraine Update
Here is an update we received from our student team serving in Ukraine:
July 5,2010
Our translators showed up yesterday so that we might have the opportunity to meet them and get to know them before we started working with the children… We all were extremely excited to have the kids showing up. The children’s parents started bringing them to camp right after we finished eating, and they kept coming throughout the day! We have about 270 children at the camp, which is such a blessing! We just hung out with the children on Sunday. We were all ready early Monday morning to begin our official first day of camp. We start with workouts at 8:15 (everyone is there from the young ones to the old ones) where we stretch, jump, and all sorts of things that make some people crack and moan… which I have to say is pretty funny. That is followed by a short devotion. After, we went to the cafeteria in shifts to eat breakfast. After breakfast we all went off to serve wherever we were needed. My translator and I had the wonderful pleasure of working with the children ages 6-10!!! They are so precious and eager to have you play with them…after they get to know you of course! With the help of my translator, I was able to talk and play with the children for hours until lunch was ready (which was a little late today). Later in the evening we had service and disco which was funny. The Lord has truly been helping us and pouring us out for His name’s sake. The prayer of our group has been for the Lord to pour us out and allow us to be His hands and feet, little did we know He would answer in the ways He has. He has sent us to prayer many a time, both as individuals and as a group!
July 6, 2010
Tuesday begins the same as Monday morning with stretching, devotions, and then breakfast. After breakfast, we all (translators and Americans) hung out, while the children are each at their stations. We talked about what we would prepare to do with them in rec for the day. We gathered together and discussed the friends we had made and several other things, followed by prayer. We then proceeded to go to a small village approximately a 7 minute walk down the road. We grabbed a few translators and Ukrainian friends who are working at the camp and went to this small village. We are getting to know each other which is helping us in prayer for one another. While walking back from the store, I was talking to Sasha, and we are going to become Facebook friends… lol… It is pretty big over here too, a lot of our translators have asked us if we have one and then told us their names to find them… (which is easier said than done when Russian is in them mix… 
). When we got back it was about time for us to head over and do rec with the 6-10 year olds. When we got over there, the children were so happy, they were jumping all over “the Americans” they had met the day before! They all try to talk to you, wanting you to understand what they are saying, sometimes you can and sometimes you can not, but that is why the Lord has blessed us with translators who are able to effectively translate for us. We still have much to do today, rec with the older children, 11 and up started a little while ago. If you would like to be praying for us, you can pray for God’s strength, character and love to flow out of us and that He would sustain us when we get tired. God bless!!!