This weekend, I went out to a town (about 160 km from Kyiv) to help with an afternoon English club. What I was treated to was time among the cutest and most wonderful little church. It simply was awe inspiring.
When I arrived in town, lunch at the home of my friends S and N was the first plan of the afternoon. S and his wife N hold the English club and Bible lesson every Saturday as an extension of the church they are leading. Eight of us squeezed around the little kitchen table and enjoyed homemade borsch and time to visit. After lunch we headed out to the school where the English club is held – which turns out to be in the auditorium of the school.
There was singing, an English vocabulary lesson, some repetition with the words, a game encouraging the children to read and speak in English and then we sang some more. Everything during the afternoon was either spoken in Russian or translated into Russian, so we sang in Russian (my favourite). After we sang we played another game, had a Bible lesson and sang some more. To finish the afternoon off we had a snack of tea and cookies. It all seemed quite simple and usual for me … until something struck me as interesting.
When it came time for snacks at the end of the club, several little boys went to the back of the room and brought forward two small tables. Then they assembled chairs around the tables in a neat little circle and as they were doing this one little girl passed out cups for tea and another prepared the loose tea in the pot and put extra water on to boil. The plates of cookies were set on the tables and after a prayer all the kids sat down around the tables and began to pour tea for each other and visit. It felt like the room was full of a bunch of proper adults … not fifteen or so six to sixteen year old kids. That is when I realised it. That was how the whole afternoon had been.
The past two hours had been spent watching a group of children honour, respect and participate in learning about and worshiping the Lord. It was a child who welcomed everyone at the door, a child who chose and lead the music (I found out later that he even makes the poster boards each week with the words to the songs he chooses to sing), a child who thought up the game to play before the Bible lesson and it was a group of little girls who put together snack time at the end of the club. This time of fellowship and learning was merely facilitated by S and N and accented by me as an English speaker – the real work, the deep love and ownership for the time was done by the children themselves. I was so moved by their dedication and desire for that time in the afternoon with their friends; I can do nothing but picture it with wonder and amazement.
It certainly brought home the truth of
Let the little children come to me … (Mt. 19:14)
Just look at the blue sky! Who knew the sky was still blue!? I did not know so many shades of grey could exist (till I moved here); however beautiful I think all those greys can be ... I am and will be forever faithful to my favourite shade of sky. 
For Ukrainian Christmas I had planned and prepared to give gifts of candy canes to my neighbors and people I interact with on a semi regular basis. Old Mrs. B had put together the greatest box full of Christmas supplies and sent it to me well in advance so I would have time to put together the little Christmas bags with candies and cute little ribbon ties. I wrote a poem about Christmas and the candy cane and had it translated into Russian.
Then we have the chicken-mushroom salad with mayonnaise, chicken, pineapple, mushrooms and whole black olives.
The third salad is the crab salad that is made with mayonnaise, crab meat, eggs, cabbage and corn.
These are only a few samplings of the many different salads I can eat here. There are a lot of salads that have beets or carrots in them. It really just depends on where you are eating or who you are eating with.
In with the new.
