“Wow,
it is nice to finally be home!!”
I stopped and looked at Sergey, to whom I had addressed the remark
with a shocked look on my face. “I just said it was nice to
be home, referring to Kyiv, as my home.”
I made that comment after returning to Kyiv after nearly two weeks
away. In early August, after a little over two weeks in Kyiv, I departed
with Joshua and Maurie Hanauer (the two American interns from the
past year) and three Ukrainians for a vacation adventure to Crimea.
I would love to go into details, for it truly was an adventure, but
I will refrain for the time being. My website will soon have a narrative
account of the most interesting aspects of the experience, but I will
offer a few of them here.
Six of us embarked on this exploit, we three Americans plus Sergey
(the UEC manager), Anya (an art student), and Olya (a student at ICU).
After an 18-hour train ride, followed by a two hour cramped van ride,
we arrived in our paradise. We bargained at the town square for accommodations,
which ended up entailing one room, with three beds and a couple of
razor thin pads for the floor. For the next week, we truly experienced
life to the utmost. We swam in the crystal clear, jellyfish laden
waters; we hiked, roasting our lunch at the top of the mountain we
conquered; we stuffed our mouths with Georgian pork kabobs at least
once each day; and, of course, we slept as much as we could manage
in our accommodations. For a group of people who hardly knew each
other before departing, we became quite close by the time the end
arrived, and were all extremely sad to see the Black Sea fade into
the distance through the windows of our bouncing, crazily driven van.
However, arriving back in Kyiv, after my second 18-hour train ride
of the week, I was not quite as excited as everyone else to depart
early the next morning for the Nyvky church’s annual “Cherkasy
Conference.” I should have known better. Although it meant a
second straight week on the floor (this time with eight other guys
sharing my room), the conference proved a totally different, yet an
equally as invigorating experience as our Crimean adventure. Closeted
in a house with about 30 other people, living, sleeping, cooking (on
one stove), worshipping, laughing, studying, swimming, praying, and
everything else became a group affair. Before the conference, I knew
Anya and Olya well because of Crimea, and had met several others,
but afterwards, I had an entire network of friends I dearly loved.
At the conference, we concentrated our study on the strange and seldom
studied book of Ezekiel. Chris, Lena and several church members gave
lectures on related subjects such as archaeology, the temple, and
ancient history, and also offered their insight into the book. I led
one group discussion on C.S. Lewis’ conception of heaven, related
to the hope Ezekiel offers Israel at the end of his book in the form
of the temple, and, somehow, I also ended up in charge of the drama
presentation. Before the conference, talking to Chris, we decided
a good task for the drama presentation on the final night would be
to mimic the production I was able to see in London when I became
stranded there due to an airline strike on my trip to Kyiv. “Ezekiel
in 27 minutes,” we decided the title to be, borrowing from the
“Complete Works of Shakespeare” comedy I enjoyed. This
task ended up being quite involved and complicated, but these difficulties
and complexities made the reward all the sweeter. We presented the
book in its entirety in a series of television shows.
We had a pantomime channel, showing Ezekiel’s vision four headed
creatures and his experience of the “strong hand of God.”
We acted out a cooking show, complete with human excrement, bones,
and a Ukrainian addition of “salo,” or fat and a fairy
tale hour, where a “babushka,” grandmother, told the story
of the two adulterous sisters in Ezekiel chapter 23 (Dema and Anton
played these two women wonderfully). We also included an Animal Planet
type of show about sheep, a Discovery Channel archaeological expedition
to the “Valley of Dry Bones,” the “Daily Prophet
News,” which reported the atrocities set to happen to Tyre,
Egypt, Edom, and others, and a building show giving exact directions
for temple construction. Overall, our production was a smashing success,
greeted with howls of laughter and enthusiastic applause. The most
rewarding aspect for me, though, occurred after this praise ended.
Hugging, sharing smiles and looks of relief with the rest of the cast,
I realized that I had not known any of these people's names only a
few days before. I did forget to mention that following our 27-minute
production, we started all over again and reenacted the entire performance,
the entire book of Ezekiel, in five minutes, of which many in our
cast were skeptical about the success.
The closest experience I have ever had to that of the conference in
America is Otter Creek’s yearly summer church camp; both offer
a place of retreat, of rest in a non-traditional sense, and of growing
closer to others who share a common love of Christ. This last effect,
I believe, is responsible for my unconscious utterance I mentioned
earlier. After Cherkasy, I felt like I had a community, a network
of friends and Christian companions, not unlike the ones I left behind.
Before the conference, I had not met my roommate, Oleg; afterwards,
I felt like we had been friends for years. Before the conference,
I worried when I needed help because I did not know whom to ask; afterwards,
I know that if I ever need someone to help with a class or project,
I have grinning friends that will be eager to offer their assistance.
Back home in Kyiv, I knew I had much work to do. The transitional
period ended when I returned from Cherkasy and work began; several
tasks were awaiting my return. Zhanna, my non-English speaking, somewhat
crazy, Russian tutor was waiting to resume my lessons. Joshua and
Maurie Hanauer were returning home to America, and all the internship
belonging, which they still had, needed to be moved to my apartment
and organized. I also began learning the operation of the UEC, especially
the much-heralded, quirky new database called LAMP. Aside from these
tasks, I knew my classes on C.S. Lewis and Science and Religion would
begin soon, so I started preparing. Lastly, I have been wanting desperately
to share my pictures and thoughts without the hassle of the incredibly,
and frustratingly, slow internet connection, so I began teaching myself
how to construct a website.
These past two weeks have passed incredibly quickly because these
tasks have absorbed me entirely. The semester had not started, so
everything needed to be prepared, all loose ends finished before the
influx of students and chaos of school began. However, more and more
throughout them, as I slowly determined and began following a daily
and weekly routine, I have felt my inward sense of location, of belonging
switch to Kyiv. Our apartment now contains dishes, pots, pans, a glorious
set of knives Maurie graciously donated, a washing machine, cleaning
supplies, and all sorts of other things with which I had little experience
in my past college years.
This week I introduced C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce to a class
of 15 students, and began a class to follow up the summer’s
Let’s Start Talking mission. I will be teaching English to this
class of mixed ages and abilities by teaching a survey of the message
of the Bible. This first meeting we read the story of creation, and
I was forcefully convicted of the power of God’s word read by
itself and the inadequacy of my own words in comparison. Friday night
I will begin my class on Science and Religion with a class of almost
20. This subject being one of my passions, I am extremely excited
to teach about how these two areas of life relate and what each says,
or can say, about the other. I will also demonstrate the current movement
in cosmology towards intelligent design due to the increasingly delicate
and “fine-tuned” nature of the universe that is being
discovered daily.
Finally, I have decided to help Grady Bryan, another missionary who
works with the Nyvky church, with his Shakespeare and Composition
classes at International Christian University. Although I will not
be helping him teach directly, I will be offering reading help, writing
assistance and tutoring to his students at the UEC in order to try
to make contact with these students and invite them to our students’
functions. Next semester, I may take a larger role in assisting him
with his Composition class. Also, this Saturday will mark the first
“Student Night” of the year and we will also be attempting
to get a group of students to come out and join us on a nearby field
for a little Frisbee or football that morning. Another activity of
which I somehow found myself a part is the new choral ensemble forming
at the Nyvky church. Although we are still looking for funds to purchase
an instrument to assist with practice, this Saturday marks our first
official practice and our inaugural performance is set for November.
Overall, I have difficulty describing or explaining to people how
I feel at this point about being in Kyiv. I do miss my family and
friends, terribly at some times, and the chill in the air this week
made me miss playing football, but I am not “homesick.”
I no longer feel like I am away from home. Although I am anxiously
awaiting the “culture shock” that I have been told occurs
after two months or so, I feel quite happy here in Kyiv. The young
people in the church are so eager to learn, insatiably wanting to
know about God, Jesus, the Bible, Christian history and everything
else, and it refreshes me.
Our
television set has no sound; I have seen only a few of movies, at
various places, and I am severely restricted in my internet access
by time and patience. We hand wash all of our dishes, have to shop
and cook everyday if we want to eat (or go to Macdonald’s),
hang our clothes on the balcony to dry, and walk everywhere. However,
I smell fresh flowers walking by the street vendors each day; I sing
with my roommate as we cook and wash dishes; I read and write almost
every night because I am not distracted by the television or computer;
and countless times, walking down the street, feeling the warming
sun, I cannot help but smile with the saturating happiness of work,
activity, and purpose. God is blessing my life here immensely, and
I love living and working in my new home.
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