Disclaimer: These daily blogs are based on journal entries during my two and a half week trip broken into seven installments. Over the next week, you will learn more and more. The idea behind doing it this way is so you can go through the process of experiencing a portion of my experiences in the same progression of events that I did. The goal is that by the end of the seventh blog, you will have the context to understand why and how I intend to continue serving these people.
Prayer is ALL: Day 5 -- August 8, 2013
The house full of Ukrainians and Americans were up at 7:30am for the staff devotional, today led by American team leader Jeff Mueller. The devotional was about Galatians 1:6-10 and 5:22-26 and was a reminder that we are here to spread the Gospel and nothing else, and as representatives of God’s love, to act in accordance to the Fruits of the Spirit. After devotional, we ate breakfast or morning meal as they call it—we had an off brand of cocoa puffs and fresh bananas from the farm of our in-field host!
We soon left for the Gypsy camp where we spent the morning and early afternoon. We did the same worship songs as last night, including the one English song Every Move I Make, which is a song I grew up with in my church’s youth ministry. Now as a leader within that same youth ministry, it is still a frequent favorite of our students. After worship, we broke the kids up into three groups based on age. The group I had were the oldest of the group of kids in the village (ages 12-17). In this group would be about a half dozen guys who I would grow quite fond of and based on our interactions throughout my time at this village, the fondness was mutual.
During these groups, the kids receive a Bible lesson and do a craft themed with the message of the Bible lesson. After that, we broke all three groups up into two gender-segregated groups: the boys went to the field to play soccer, and the girls got their nails painted bright, vibrant colors to coincide with the Bible message of seeing yourself as a beautiful, beloved child of God. After these activities ended, all the kids gathered for a game in front of the church to win chocolate filled wafers for which all kids eventually won. I did not participate in this though, because the national host wanted to show me something in the village.
I will preface this with the fact that late last night, after writing in my journal, the whole team got together to learn a little bit about each other, and the team found out that almost immediately upon returning to America, I start school to pursue a Master of Divinity, a degree that makes individuals theologically prepared to become pastors.
Therefore, with that prefaced, the national host pulled me out of the activities with the kids temporarily to show me a second church building in this village, one that had been built by the American Baptist Church just a few months ago. This church building however did not supply the village with a pastor and came with no guarantee of one. This church building was well built in my opinion; windows placed strategically for maximum ventilation—it was noticeably cooler—solid foundation and walls of cement, and a roof that could withstand heat, rain and wind, but not fire. The church is hidden behind the home of the father and son who worked with the short-term Baptist missionaries who came with materials, blueprints, and people to help build. The father and the son (40s and 20s seemingly) came in the door-less building with us and spoke to us about the church, the community and the impact we had for about 45 minutes—the national host translated for me. “We aren’t able to bring the joy to our children like the joy you bring. It’s so clear to us that just because we’re poor, God has not forgotten us.” This Gypsy village has about 200 families, with nearly 70% between the ages of 0-17. Not all those kids are orphans, but substantial amounts are orphans. The families’ entire livelihoods are from government welfare for their children. Ukrainians who do not work receive the equivalent to about $200/month for every child they have under the age of six. This is why they have so many children; many families with 5-8 children, spread out in bunches so when a couple kids have grown above six years old there are more coming to keep the government money coming—the families literally use the government money to raise their entire families. If a family has no children under the age of six and does not work, they get no help from the government.
When the father had asked what I do for a living, I said I had just graduated college with credentials in economics with a research focus on microeconomic development and that I would soon become studying to become a pastor. His eyes widened and immediately asked me to pastor the community and help guide them economically. What ended up being my first pastoral call, I declined citing my lack of verbal or written understanding of their language. I recommended that they pray as a community for an organization willing to train one of the Gypsy converts in a seminary setting so a Gypsy could minister to fellow Gypsies, to be most effective. He told me he would do that and asked me to “pray about becoming their pastor anyway.”
Therefore, with that prefaced, the national host pulled me out of the activities with the kids temporarily to show me a second church building in this village, one that had been built by the American Baptist Church just a few months ago. This church building however did not supply the village with a pastor and came with no guarantee of one. This church building was well built in my opinion; windows placed strategically for maximum ventilation—it was noticeably cooler—solid foundation and walls of cement, and a roof that could withstand heat, rain and wind, but not fire. The church is hidden behind the home of the father and son who worked with the short-term Baptist missionaries who came with materials, blueprints, and people to help build. The father and the son (40s and 20s seemingly) came in the door-less building with us and spoke to us about the church, the community and the impact we had for about 45 minutes—the national host translated for me. “We aren’t able to bring the joy to our children like the joy you bring. It’s so clear to us that just because we’re poor, God has not forgotten us.” This Gypsy village has about 200 families, with nearly 70% between the ages of 0-17. Not all those kids are orphans, but substantial amounts are orphans. The families’ entire livelihoods are from government welfare for their children. Ukrainians who do not work receive the equivalent to about $200/month for every child they have under the age of six. This is why they have so many children; many families with 5-8 children, spread out in bunches so when a couple kids have grown above six years old there are more coming to keep the government money coming—the families literally use the government money to raise their entire families. If a family has no children under the age of six and does not work, they get no help from the government.
When the father had asked what I do for a living, I said I had just graduated college with credentials in economics with a research focus on microeconomic development and that I would soon become studying to become a pastor. His eyes widened and immediately asked me to pastor the community and help guide them economically. What ended up being my first pastoral call, I declined citing my lack of verbal or written understanding of their language. I recommended that they pray as a community for an organization willing to train one of the Gypsy converts in a seminary setting so a Gypsy could minister to fellow Gypsies, to be most effective. He told me he would do that and asked me to “pray about becoming their pastor anyway.”
After further questioning, the CRC church had about sixty regular attendees from the village before the pastor was sent away and the Baptist church had forty attendance pledges from the village from people who did not first attend the CRC church. Unfortunately, with no pastor in either, this village does not have church services on a regular basis. The village has several leaders who lead prayer groups every so often because with no Bible translated in their Gypsy dialect and with none of them able to read or write in Ukrainian (the closest language translation of the Bible for them); prayer is their only source of communication with God, aside from the occasional missionary to come through.
At lunch, we had soup of chicken broth and corn, peas, egg and potatoes, however I could not really eat because our in-field host gave the men some fresh peppers from his garden and after nearly burning to death from the spiciness and regaining power of my overheated head, my appetite was gone.
At lunch, we had soup of chicken broth and corn, peas, egg and potatoes, however I could not really eat because our in-field host gave the men some fresh peppers from his garden and after nearly burning to death from the spiciness and regaining power of my overheated head, my appetite was gone.
In our free time, we went swimming, and I thought they meant to the river by the village, however we drove to an absolutely beautiful lake that was a well known Ukrainian and Slovakian attraction. The lake was within two miles of the Slovakian border, and it is a good thing because we left our passports in Kyiv, purposely. The water in this lake was clear and clean. People there rowed in boats around the lake, people climbed the cliff to jump into the water from 75+ feet up, and others swam with the fish. The picture to the left is a picture of the American team: Chelsea, Jeff, Greg, Mallory, me, and Tatiana. After a little fun in the Ukrainian sun, we went back to the Gypsy camp and played with the kids on the field with the grazing cows and ducks, although both left soon after we arrived.
After playing with the kids, we did the program in the CRC building with a skit about the power of prayer, which is something the parents took very serious, since the parents of faith have no pastor, they rely almost entirely on prayer (not necessarily a bad trait to have), so these kids have seen prayer many times in their short lives. After the skit, Jeff shared his testimony with the kids about how Jesus has transformed his soul and how the Gospel can do the same for them. Then Chelsea and I led worship again with three songs in English: Happy Day, Every Move I Make, and Our God. After program ended at about 10:15pm (about a half hour past sunset), we headed back to our in-field host’s home to sleep.
RSS Feed
