Ministry in Ukraine

My month in Ukraine was unexpected but it was filled with ministry that brought a smile to me face. I got so many opportunities to work in areas I never had and while it wasn’t always comfortable, I grew so much through it. This month in Ukraine brought a lot of growth in every area and a lot of it was not comfortable but more on that in another blog. For now let’s talk about ministry this month! 

My team along with another team were partnered with a church called Living Water church in Mukachevo, Ukraine. They had so much going on! I feel like I say that every month but this church truly wanted to serve the community and bring a little American flavor to it. Since the head pastor, Joel is from California like me he seemed to always be wearing shorts and flip-flops and wanting to show the Lord to the community he was in. Ministry this month looked like a lot of English lessons, Royal Ranger meetings, and youth meetings. 

(Wednesday night English club and the shenanigans the ensued)

Our teams week usually started in a Wednesday and that was always English club and Youth meeting day. For some it also involved going to tenant housing and playing with children from the Roma community. I loved going and helping with the English club that day. I got to meet so many people from a wide age range. Some of them were very young, preteens and teenagers learning English both here and in school. Others were in their 60’s. Everyone just wanted to learn and have fun while learning! Every week has a different theme and since we were there over Thanksgiving and early Christmas season we got to teach about those holidays in the US. We got to teach them vocabulary words about the holidays and we got to learn how everyone celebrates. On our last week a member of the other team, Bailee and I got to teach an entire class and we got to teach about Christmas! If you know me you know how much I love Christmas. So, getting to learn how another country celebrates was so exciting for me. Bailee and I got to talk about how our families celebrate Christmas and we learned so much about how Ukraine celebrates. Fun fact! Ukraine actually acknowledges two different days for Christmas along with a colloquial Christmas-y day called Saint Nicholas day. Because a lot of Ukrainians are orthodox or raised orthodox they celebrate Christmas on January 6th while some celebrate on the Protestant day for Christmas which is December 25th. They also celebrate a day is December 19th and that day is usually the day families exchange gifts. 

On Wednesdays a group of us would also attend and/or teach at the youth meeting they had. Some weeks we would have a devotional and others the devotional would spark interesting conversations and even a light debate at times. I was always interesting how each week would turn out. 

(Both teams, our hosts, and few extra special people having lunch after a ministry day)

Thursdays was not as busy of a day but it was always sweet. Joel hosted a Bible study in his home every Thursday so our ministry for that day was prepping. Most weeks we would simply help clean and prepare for the Bible study. For 2 weeks there were also English lessons in a local village with Vanessa (she was another American missionary here that was teaching English all over the place in Ukraine). The Bible study was always a sweet time with laughter and fun. While the Bible study was often thought provoking it also allowed me to hang out with the people of the church and get to know them better. We would often play games like Monopoly Deal or Settlers of Catan (I hadn’t played Catan before Ukraine). I love whenever I can casually interact with the local people I meet, it is just so fun to see them in such a casual setting. 

(One of the groups of teens we got to help teach English with Vanessa)

Fridays…. Friday was definitely a FULL day. There were 2 different ministries we could choose from. We could either go with Vanessa to a village and have 7ish hours of English lessons or we could go to a public school and teach in at least 6 different classes of varying ages. Needless to say no matter what we picked it was a very busy schedule. For one week I went to the school and it was a very busy morning and afternoon. We moved from class to class and the students had questions ready to ask us. And man o man did they ask a lot of questions. I cannot tell you how many times I told these kids that I was from California. They were so excited to hear about our travels and all that we had seen. They were very inquisitive and were so excited that we came to their school to talk to them. The rest of my time I spent my Fridays in the village helping with English lessons. It was a lot but we got to play games and help them with crafts that helped them learn English. There some classes with children as young as 5 and 6 years old and other classes with older teenagers. We answered similar questions about where we were from and what we liked to do in our free time but mostly we helped them with simple English assignments and we got to help them with Christmas vocabulary as well.

(One of the many games we played at Royal Rangers)

Saturdays were a fun day! It was a ministry day but I always found it fun. Saturdays were always Royal Ranger meetings. If you don’t know what Royal Rangers is, it is kind of like the Christian version of Boy/Girl Scouts. It would usually begin with a group game, some weeks it involved a relay race if some sort and others it was a way of tying in what the lesson was about. For example, I was responsible for the game one week and I chose to play a version of musical chairs that I had seen in Kosovo. The way you play would be you start with 3 different teams and there are the same number of chairs as there are people. You would play the music, they would walk around the circle of chairs and when the music stopped they would all find a seat. Then each team would have a chair removed. Their goal would be to work together and find a way to fit everyone on their team in the number of chairs they were given. It is not that hard until you are down to one of two chairs. It tied along with the lesson about teamwork and how important it is to work together. The meeting would then have a devotional lesson and a craft or masterclass of some sort to teach them a life skill of some sort. It was always fun and an opportunity to share about Jesus with a group of kids from 5-16 years old. 

(Sunday morning service! 2 world racers got to be a part of the worship team this month)

Sundays were also a pretty low-key day of church and fellowship. Some people on both teams would often help with worship and a few of us would help set up chairs some weeks. It was so nice to be attending a church service every week. I had gotten so used to it in Kosovo so, it was so nice to be able to continue that in Ukraine. 

Monday and Tuesday were our Sabbath and adventure days. Those days were so precious and l will tell you all about them in another blog! Overall, this month in Ukraine was not the easiest but it has been my favorite so far. I loved the country, the people, and our hosts. I would love to come back one day and visit this special place that was my home for a month. If you are wondering if you should go to Ukraine I highly recommend it!