I'm Back!

Wow, guys, I am really sorry. It's been almost a month since I blogged last and that's pitiful. I was planning on blogging before I left for Radooga to do the whole "I'm going out of the country so don't expect me to blog" thing, but our flight got changed and my hour of time got cut to like 15 minutes and I didn't have time to blog. So then I felt really bad and I knew everyone was going to get mad at me, but I thought "oh well, I'll blog when I get back." Well, I got back from Radooga and had 3 days before Student Life Camp. But those 3 days ended up being really busy and I again failed to blog. We got back from camp yesterday and I am finally able to catch you up on everything.
Let's start with Radooga. I have one word: Awesome! I mean, I had heard Calyn and Lori talk about things that happened and how great Radooga was, but I didn't really know until I went for myself. As you now know, our flights got messed up before we left and we had to change some flights. We met the team from South Carolina that we were working with that week at the Cincinnati airport. I wasn't sure how well we were going to mesh with them, because it seemed like they all had their friends and were fine. But anyways, when we got to Paris the next morning we missed our flight and found out we were going to have to stay the night in Paris. I figured "hey, if we're gonna get stuck somewhere, Paris is probably the best place to do it." They airline paid for our hotel and meals, so that was awesome. We went and saw the Eiffel Tower and the Notre Dame cathedral and ate at this sorta cute but sorta sketchy French cafe. Oh yeah, and we met this guy who was going to Ukraine to meet some chick he met over the internet and he missed his flight too so he walked around with us. He was definitely sketchy. Hey Duane, if you're out there, I hope you found your wife, man.
We finally made it to Ukraine and we got to the Kiev airport. We walked out of customs and I was soooo happy to see Calyn and Lori waiting for us. We rode to the camp they caught us up on what was going on at Radooga. Since we were a day late, we didn't get to start our week with a day in the city like normal. But we did have orientation the first 2 days we were there. We learned about the history of Ukraine (sort of), shared testimonies, learned some Russian (Privyet chuvaki!), and visited English classes. We started to get to know the team from SC better. Nicole and I played ultimate frisbee with them and they were impressed at how good we were and I think that started to break down barriers and open up conversations. I found out that they were really cool and I got to know most of them quite well over the 2 weeks in Ukraine. The housing and stuff isn't bad. Except for the occasional cold shower and not being able to flush your toilet paper, I would actually consider it good. The food on the other hand, not so much. Every meal you had a meat and a starch and either a slice of cucumber or a wedge of tomato. The food was sometimes okay, but when it was, it would be like chicken and rice...for breakfast, kind of weird, don't ya think? But hey, it's camp food. Real Ukrainian food is actually good. Anyways, when the kids finally got there, we welcomed them as their busses pulled in and then they went to English testing to be placed into a class. Normally, there are around 100 pre-beginners, but this time, there were only 13. In a way, that was good because it meant that most people knew at least some English, but I was supposed to be teaching a pre-beginner class with Nicole and we ended up teaching a beginner class. This meant that they knew quite a bit more than we thought that they were going to. But, English class went well the whole week. We taught them new words, played games, and sang the "Baby Shark" song, which they loved. At the end of the week they made up words to it and sang it to us.
Throughout the week there was celebration in the morning (after breakfast), then English class, lunch, then the kids went to their church group time and we got ready for recreation, then we had rec, dinner, then evening program and, last but not least, Party Zone. Party Zone was like Late Nite at Student Life, except it was way better. We did the camp dance during Party Zone, and it was one of my favorite parts of the day. Before celebration, evening program, and Party Zone, we made "Two lines!" and gave the kids high fives and danced around while they came in. At first they were kind of freaked out by it, but by the end of camp we were giving them hugs and they just loved it.
On repentance night, Paul, the speaker, gave an altar call for kids to accept Christ and about 100 Ukrainian students gave their lives to Christ. It was so awesome to see God work in such a big way. That was probably the best part of the whole week.
During camp, I lived with 3 other Americans, a translator, and 4 Ukrainians. I got to know the girls in my room pretty well. They were all so sweet. I know for a fact that at least one accepted Christ. I'm pretty sure 2 others did too. The other girl was really scared about going to anything. She would just stay in the room the whole day except for English class and meals. But, by the end of the week she was going to everything and, I'm not sure whether she became a Christian or not, but she at least was starting to open up.
Everyone was so awesome that I don't have room or time to tell you about it all. This is already so long, so I'll try to give you the short version. All of the translators were awesome. Katya was in my room and she was so cool. She fell in love with my vanilla body spray, so I left the rest of it with her when I left. Nekita was so much fun. He always kept us laughing with his craziness. Anya was so incredibly sweet. She was the translator for our English class and I don't know what I would have done without her. The all-summer staff was really cool too. Carli did rec and she was so awesome. I love Carli. I got to spend some time with her on the last night we were there and we had some good times talking and falling asleep to Zoolander. Amberly and Cliff did worship. Amberly lead the singing and Cliff played drums. Amberly is so sweet and I loved watching her when she lead worship because she was so energetic. Cliff was fun. He made fun of people a lot, and I was no exception, but I did manage to have a serious conversation with him and I figured out that he's a pretty cool guy. Justin lead drama. We decided that he shouldn't be in charge of teaching us Ukrainian history, but he was also a cool guy and he was good at drama. The all-summer staff on team B were cool too, but I wasn't able to get to know them that well. I did, however, get to know the tech/camera people who were from Ukraine, Roma, Andrey, Sergey. On the last night we were there we stayed up all night long so we could hang out and talk. We told jokes and figured out that they don't translate very well, but they were still hilarious because of Roma's facial expressions. The time flew by and we had to leave for the airport before we knew it. Getting home was not nearly as difficult and I slept on and off pretty much the whole way, so it went by pretty fast. When we got back it was like 6 something so we went to Village Inn to get some real breakfast food for dinner.
I have so much more to tell, but if you spend any amount of time with me, I'm sure you'll hear (or already have heard) stories. I'll have to tell ya'll about camp later because I'm tired and this is really long. I'll also put some pictures of Radooga up later. But for now, paka!