Soccer Clinic, Day 2

Done! We finished Day 2 successfully!

Some of our group are struggling with some allergy issues, but everyone is plowing ahead. The kids are loving every minute of it! Here are pictures from the day:

These guys wanted to help me with registration. Alona (yellow shirt) was actually extremely helpful several times. They labeled themselves "managers."

One of our translators, Nikita, explaining a game to little Yarik.

I included these two pictures to make a point: Jake (one of the Alabamians) looks SO much like a Ukrainian guy that even the Ukrainians can't tell! Jake is the one in the top picture, but it's so crazy to me how Ukrainian he can look. The real Ukrainians are loving him!

I'm not sure if you can see or not, but the kid in green is in the midst of doing push-ups. He and another boy got into a little skirmish before the clinic started, and Pasha (one of our friends from church) had them both do push-ups.

This was my new friend.

Soccer Clinic, Day 1

Soccer Clinic, Day 1: Check.

Things went so well today! Between the camps in two different locations, we had around 80 kids/teenagers attend. I'm betting we'll have more tomorrow...we gave out free t-shirts today. :)

Pictures from the day (with intermittent fun facts, of course!):

Morning stretches/warm up. I opted for the job of photographer...

...mostly because of activities like this! Good job, Amiee and Rachael

Bible story station. They did Noah's Ark, and after the story was told, the kids got the act out the story. Such fun!

Hannah and I turned into water wranglers. Those suckers are hard to manage, let me tell you.

Dad giving instructions to his and Mrs. Val's group.

Mrs. Val overcoming language barriers and directing traffic.

Action shot...can you see it?

We put the tarps down for the Bible story station, but it was windy and needed backpacks to hold down the corners. I went to fetch backpacks and returned to find Kyleigh and Nastia creating their own method of holding down the tarp. Geniuses.

This isn't a picture to demonstrate how tired the girls were; this is actually Rachael telling a story. In her station in the clinic, they did an activity where anyone who missed kicking the ball in turn had to do push-ups for the number of times that the ball HAD been kicked. Rachael missed kicking it once and started to get down to do push-ups. Before she could, one of the Ukrainian guys got down and did her push-ups for her. It reminded all of us of how Jesus took our punishment for us. Neat story.

Go team!

Baptism Day!

Today was a really special day- Baptism Day! My good friend, Nastia, along with several other friends, were baptized in the river. It was a GREAT day for baptism! The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, and it was just so nice. We sang several songs, and one of the church elders gave a charge to the baptism candidates.

Nastia and me before the service.

Nastia and Zhenya. So goofy.

Ira and me. These are our excited faces!

Getting ready...

After Radik led us in singing, he bent down to corral one of his daughters. As he was doing this, the other daughter sneak-attacked from behind!

The charge to those being baptized.

Round 1: Alona and Olya.

Round 2: Nastia and Alla.

Yay!

Zhenya is so cool that he gets two baptizers.

Nastia getting a rose from a little friend that she tutors in English. Presh!

Stay tuned for Soccer Camp, Day 1!

Happy birthday to Rachael!

Today was Day 2 of the team's stay, AND it was Rachael's birthday! Happy birthday to Rachael!

Rachael walking into her "surprise party." Amiee totally had her blindfolded beforehand.

Rachael posing with her signs.

Amiee leading us in morning devotions.

At the beginning of the day we sang for Rachael, had cupcakes, and had a time of prayer/blessing over her. We also spent time this morning preparing fliers for our two soccer camp locations this week. After lunch, we hit one of the neighborhoods and posted/handed out fliers and prayed over the soccer field. Following that, we totally did the touristy things around town: monastery, exchanging money, souvenir shops, monuments, pictures...you know. The Rowland/Kayla/Mindy clan joined us for our activities, which greatly added to the fun! Here's some documentation of said adventure:

Everybody working on fliers. See all those suitcases? That's just a fraction of all the donations that were sent for the camps!

See, we're all veterans of the touristy stuff, so we hung back and took pictures of ourselves: Page, Felesha, me, Amiee, Pam.

Nastia doing her tour guide thing at the monastery. She's so good at it. Such a pro.

One of the buildings on the monastery compound.

Girls from the team hanging out in the galushki bowl. It's a must, of course: Amiee, Rachael (in the spoon), Jillie, Katy, Kyleigh, and Sarah.

Kayle and Tuesdae.

Amiee and me.

Part of the girls- at the white rotunda (Jillie, Katy, me, Kyleigh, and Amiee.

Look who showed up! And, we matched (yes, I'm wearing purple- even though it looks gray)

The Alabamians have arrived!

That's right: there's another group of Alabamians in Poltava! They arrived today with all of their luggage (thank you, Lord!), which was PACKED OUT with zillions of donated soccer paraphernalia. The Lord has provided so much for this project!

What is the project?

Glad you asked. This group of volunteers will be leading soccer clinics 4 days next week in 2 different areas of town. We'll be in the Sady region of Poltava in the mornings and in the Levada region in the afternoons. The Ukrainians who come will be participating in soccer drills, scrimmages, and Bible storying during the resting/watering rotation. It'll be fun. I'm excited! (even though I, personally, have zero athletic ability). I pledge, here and now, to do my best to get good pictures.

Stay tuned!

I love a good jaunty Russian song

At church this week, we sang many jaunty tunes, but this one that we sang during the offertory was my favorite. Amiee and I wanted to do some "Fiddler on the Roof" dancing but refrained, given that we were in a Baptist church. :) Enjoy!