Thug Life

That means “Happy Birthday America” in Ukrainian.

WOW!  That’s about all I can say.  WOW!  This has been the best experience ever.  Yesterday, we started off our 4th of July planning for the camp we are going to on Tuesday.  I can’t wait.  This is going to be SO much fun.  I was talking with my new friend Ira (or Yra, I’m not sure how it is spelled) about the camp yesterday.  Here is our conversation:

Ira:  You have to be careful about snakes.  There will be a lot of them at the camp.
Kristin: Are they poisonous?
Ira: No…well some.
Kristin: Excuse me while I go change my pants.

So, adventure all around!  At least I know there will be snakes.  That makes it less of a surprise and less likely I am to pass out or urinate on myself in front of the group.  I mean, we deal with rattlesnakes in Texas, right?  Even though the only rattle snakes I have seen have been at the Rattlesnake Round up and they were in a cage or made in to some awesome form of clothing.  I’m totally getting a pair of a**less rattlesnake chaps when I get home.  Off. The. Chain.

Ok, sorry, I got distracted.  So, we went on a tour of the city after our planning meeting.  WAIT.  Before that we went and ate lunch at a New York style pizza place!  How fun is that?  We went with David and Shannon and David’s mom (Jenny) and brother, Jake.  Let me just take a moment to tell you how absolutely wonderful these people are.  They are wonderful.  Every single Goran in Ukraine (Currently, there are 5 in L’Viv).  I can’t tell you how grateful and blessed I am to know each one!  Anything we need, they provide.  They are just amazing.  And they’re fun.  So, we go eat lunch.  Then Kristi, Jake,  Jenny, Danny (David’s other brother) and I take a tour of L’Viv.  It was so much fun.  Lot’s of walking and lots of stairs, but completely worth every moment.  The history here is so fascinating.  And the architecture is beautiful.  I’m going to bring some ideas back to PSC.  There is a point of L’Viv called the High Castle.  It is the highest point in L’Viv…maybe.  I’ll ask, but you can see the entire city from up there.  So, we decide to make the trek up to the High Castle.  It started pouring.  So we ducked into a little underground bar.  It is exactly what I pictured Ukraine to be like.  Stone walls.  Singing people.  Vodka.  Beet soup.  Ah-mazing.

When the weather cleared up, we headed back to the Goran’s to have our 4th of July cookout.  There were hamburgers, hot dogs, brownies, apple crisp, potato salad, deviled eggs, watermelon, berries.  It was a feast.  We played games that Jenny taught us.  She is a drama teacher and so they were drama games.  It was a blast.  At one point I was laughing so hard I was crying.  It was fun.  Then we decided to try and get to the High Castle at night.  It started raining again.  This time with a little bit of hail.  It was like we were back in Lubbock.  We pushed on.  Now, if you remember a few months back when Brenda, Tara and I decided to go caving.  That “little” hike.  Yeah, it was a lot like that only in the rain…with more stairs.  The view from the top was well worth the 8,000 stairs.  It was beautiful.  And from the top we saw some fireworks.  Ukrainians shoot them off at weddings.  A tradish that I think Americans should pick up on.  Although, the Americans I know probably shouldn’t even handle fireworks once a year, so I retract that last statement.

After a long day, Kristi and I came back to the student center and crashed.

This morning, the church service was here.  It was beautiful.  I was teary- eyed at one point.  The songs are American songs translated into Ukrainian.  It was beautiful.  There were quite a few people here.  I loved it.  Then we went to a Ukrainian version of Luby’s and were planning on playing volleyball this afternoon.  I know what you’re thinking.  Kristin K. playing volleyball?  Yes, I was going to try…once.  But it started to pour rain again, so now we are at the student center.  Kristi is taking a nap and Little Roman and I are hanging or “chilling”, if you will.  We’re sitting in silence because we can’t understand each other very well.  We had a staring contest…he won.  I don’t know how his eyes didn’t dry up.  I hope I wasn’t scowling.  He’s probably scared. 

We have a video conference call to Kristi’s parent’s church at 5:00 then we are having a girls night where Shannon, Jenny, Kristi and I go to the ballet and then dinner.  Best mission trip ever.  Kristi and I find it amusing that Kristi’s parent’s church is in the middle of nowhere in East Texas and FUMC (the million dollar church), our church and SPONSOR,  can’t do a video conference or even an e-mail.  Yeah… But I guess when you have a church of 5,000 and there are 3 overseas missionaries (two of which are from the Thomas family) you can’t expect much.  Oh well.

Miss you and love you all…excuse me LOVE Y’ALL!!

Enjoy some pictures: