Story time...

Story time from Ukraine (in no particular order):

1. On our last night before flying out of Kyiv, the church we partnered with sponsored a festival/ time in a local park. We had invited all of our new friends to join us. We had dropped them off at a metro station after camp and then spent the afternoon sight-seeing before heading to the park. At the park, about 14 of our 20-somthing campers showed up! It was such a great time of visitng and talking about events/ decisions that took place at camp. Following the time in the park, all of the Americans and all of the Ukrainians went to McDonald's for dinner. While at McDonald's, two more campers arrived to visit. After a little while, their story came out. These two guys were from Lutsk, a town several hours and a long train ride away from Kyiv. They had decided that morning when dropped off at the metro that they wanted to reunite with everyone that night, but since they had no where to go in Kyiv, they spend the day walking around. We were so excited that they had come to visit...then we found out the rest of the story. In waiting and coming to visit us that night, they had missed the last train to Lutsk until morning. They were planning on walking around Kyiv for the rest of the night until the next day's train.

2. Learning campers names was difficult at first. Here's why: 2 Valyas, 3 Tanyas, 2 Yulias, 2 Lubas, 3 Sashas, and 2 Sergeis. Gee whiz! The funny part is that one Tanya and one Yulia lived in my room with me and the other Tanya and the other Yulia were in my class!

3. I'm not athletic. Or coordinated for that matter. And, I really hate camp games. Mostly because of the aforementioned reasons. Well... One bright, sunshiny day in Voron'kov, Ukraine, I was suckered into playing multi-faceted, highly physical camp games. I was actually doing well and holding my own for the first few rounds of running, jumping, balancing. Then came the "dribble the soccer ball around this pre-defined area while racing the other teams." May I point out that soccer is second nature to Europeans? This was a walk in the park for them. Not so for the American. I start out and am doing pretty well for the first 5 steps. Then, like a flash of lightening, the world turned upside down. My life flashed before my eyes, and after an eternity bound in a split second, I found myself not standing anymore but rather lying flat on my back as other teams raced by me trying not to laugh. I'm not even sure how it happened...

More to come.