We are now hours away from leaving for Ukraine. Time has gone by fast! God has provided for twelve young people, and two staff couples to participate in this trip. What a blessing it has been seeing the students grow in their preparation, both spiritually and practically. We also rejoice in God’s provision...our entire team's financial support is completely raised, and we praise the Lord!
We leave early tomorrow morning from San Francisco, and will arrive in Kiev, Ukraine on Wednesday afternoon. We will then spend two days finalizing any errands of camp preparations, before taking an overnight train ride through the Chernobyl zone where we will pick up around 60 children, and continue on to a camp on the western side of Ukraine, near Poland. The following eight days we will be assisting a Ukrainian church in staffing a camp and providing clubs and Bible lessons, as well as “camp counselor” type positions. Our sample daily schedule is as follows:
7:00 am Wake Up
7:15 am Leadership Meeting
7:30 am Personal Worship & Prayer
8:00 am Wake up cabin kids
8:30 am Raise flag and morning calisthenics
8:50 am Skit
9:00 am Breakfast
9:30 am Free time with children
10:00 am Bible lessons
11:00 am Sports Activity
1:00 pm Lunch
1:30 pm Quiet time for children & staff prep for clubs
3:00 pm Clubs (basketball, balloon making, English, gymnastics, etc.)
4:00 pm Snack Time
4:30 pm Game Time
6:30 pm Dinner
7:30 pm Evening Service
9:30 pm Children wash-up/shower
10 pm Cabin Discussion Time
11:00 pm Lights Out
As you can see, the days will be full, so we ask you to pray for strength and joy as we serve these children. We desire to be effective in our communication and interaction. We will then return to Kiev from camp, and return home, arriving back in SF on July 27.
We are so grateful for your encouragement and prayer, and know that God will use you greatly in your ministry in this way! Bud zdorov (goodbye in Ukrainian)!
this is a test to see if i'm able to post
ReplyDeleteHere's the latest information I have since the night of 7/13/10:
ReplyDelete* Flt 262 was diverted because of weather to Buffalo, NY. They later boarded a plane and made it to JFK airport but were too late to make the connection on Aerosvit flt 132.
* Nate and Pastor Rick informed us that Delta Airlines will provide a place to stay for the night of 7/13.
* Justin will work with Aerosvit Airlines on the morning of 7/14 to figure out the flight itinerary...but it seems that the next flight out will be on Thursday...stay tuned and pray.
9:00 am on 7/14/10
ReplyDelete* Just got off the phone with Pastor Rick. Justin is working with Delta Airlines to work out the travel itinerary. He's getting calls from lots of folks and requests that we use the blog for our updates.
* only 3 kids are missing...KIDDING! Everyone is fine!
* As i get info I will post to this blog
7/14 @ 9:50am pst - this just in from Pastor Rick
ReplyDelete* here is the latest. First everybody is having a good time and is healthy they had a good night sleep last night. They are still working on flights with a Aerosvit, but the first flight out is thursday night. It is a full flight in our team is on standby. Justin is getting Aerpsvit to make committed seats for the friday flight, putting the team in kiev on saturday. We need to pray that something opens up on thursday. I have suggested to justin to check on whether or not delta could get them to another city that would fly into keiv sooner. But that would take cooperation from delta. So they are still working on arrangements. I'll update you again when i know something more. Please try to refrain from calling justin as he cannot tie his phone up with everything he is trying to arrange. Thanks for your patience.
7/14 @ 11:27 am pst - another update from Pastor
ReplyDeleteRick
* I just got off the phone with Justin. Aerosvit is being difficult and will not release the tickets for the team to fly with another airline. Right now, Delta is saying that they could fly the team to Moscow and then allow Aerosvit to take them into Kiev, but Aerosvit will not give up any funds from the tickets from JFK to Kiev. We need to pray that Tom, the Aerosvit Representative in NY will get cooperative with Delta and allow them to divy up the costs and burden of flying the team over. If they would agree, the team would fly out tonight. Otherwise, they'll most likely wait until Friday :-(
I did talk to Natasha in Kiev, they were having a prayer meeting at their church for our team :-) They indicated that they will make whatever arrangements are needed - most likely a bus - to take the team directly from the airport to the camp if they miss the train. They are being super flexible and are willing to do whatever it takes. They're great folks!
That's it for now - everyone is back at JFK waiting developments in case things happen quickly. I'll let you know if and when things change. All is well under the direct supervision of a sovereign and gracious God!
7/14 @ 4:07 pm pst - Update from Pastor Rick...Answer to prayer!
ReplyDelete* MIRACLE! - Delta has agreed to fly our entire team to Kiev FREE! Its an incredible answer to prayer! They'll leave JFK for Moscow at 4 PM PT, and arrive in Moscow around 12:00 AM PT (10 AM Moscow time). They'll then fly from Moscow to Kiev arriving in Moscow either at 3:30 PM local time or 11:30 PM local Kiev time. PRAISE THE LORD! They'll be on Delta Flight #30 from JFK to Moscow.
The two most important items for prayer (beyond their safe journey) is that a) their luggage arrives with them (its been in storage at JFK all night); and, b) that they transfer in Moscow to the 2:30 PM flight to avoid a 10 hour layover in Moscow. They will not be allowed to leave the international terminal gate area that has few amenities (a couple of vending machines). Yaroslav Machinsky has told me over a couple of Skype conferences that he will personally be at the airport to welcome the team. He also indicated that they will now be taking a 74 passenger bus instead of the train. It will be a 6 hour drive instead of the 10 train ride. Yaroslav also indicated that the new president of Ukraine has mandated that whenever a bus like this travels it must have a police escort! So, the bus will be protected for the entire 6 hours on the road! God never ceases to amaze me with His blessings!