You know you're in the U.S. when......

*Note: this is a very special edition of the "You know you're in a foreign country" series, based on my thoughts and observations upon returning to the U.S after 13 months.

You know you're in the U.S. when.........


*Starbucks is around every corner
*You walk 10 blocks to and from a restaurant(in the evening) and don't pass a single other pedestrian.
*You have ice in every beverage....without asking! Or anyone scolding you about getting sick!
*You're walking down the street and everyone says hello or good morning to you.
*A stranger is passing, greets you, asks how you're doing and you're so surprised that you can't respond until after they have already passed.
*You're no longer used to AC and are cold in almost every building.
*You walk into a store and are stunned by how neat and orderly everything is and how wide the aisles are.
*You get super excited about having a good hamburger(and you don't even like meat that much).
*You can have Mexican food at a restaurant where there are REAL Mexicans and they don't cook the fajitas in soy sauce.
*You can buy corn chips, salsa, sharp cheddar, Hot sauce, non-fish flavored potato chips, etc.
*Every family owns at least two cars and lives in a home large enough for several families.
*You're overwhelmed by all the young Yuppies and their wealth.
*Everything and everyone is soooo clean.
*You can walk down the street in sandals and your feet aren't dirty when you get home.
*There are no wild dog packs roaming the street
*There are no people walking down the streets drinking beer or riding the buses drinking beer or sitting around drinking beer.
*Almost everyone has perfect teeth
*Buses go by and there's hardly anyone on them
*Almost all of the pedestrians are people walking or running for exercise, not to get from one point to the other.
*You don't hear the screech of the buses outside the window or the barking of the wild dogs or the yelling of the man selling fresh milk and cheese from the trunk of his car(straight from the farm).

Matchmakers, matchmakers, make me a match

And so the story goes........

The other day Mark(the leader of my team) received a call from a Korean man asking for my phone number. He thought it was someone looking for a musician and passed the guy's name and phone number on to me. I called the man, Joshua, and was a little perplexed after hanging up the phone, because he had never mentioned anything about music. He had only talked about meeting with him and his wife and then they were going to introduce me to someone. I was rather confused, but agreed to meet them in the center of town- today.

Upon talking this over with my roommate, Laura, we decided that it must be some Chinese missionaries that live here that some friends of hers know. Her friend, Tanya, had heard me play recently and had just been talking about me last week, so we were convinced that it must be this Chinese couple, because the man's name is Joshua. Upon arriving at the agreed upon meeting place, though, I found the Korean couple that runs Camp Canaan, the place where we do our English camps. I was thoroughly confused by this turn of events and followed them to a restaurant, waiting to find out why they wanted to talk to me about music. After chatting for a few minutes, the wife asked me if I wanted to be married, because.....................

one of their friends had seen me out at camp and really wants to be married soon and asked them to talk to me about this and arrange a meeting. He is a 48 year old unsaved Korean businessman who barely speaks English. His business has closed here in Odessa and so he's moving soon to Poland and would like meet me and then maintain an long distance internet correspondence, because he can "write in English better than he can speak." He told them that though he is an unbeliever, he really wants to marry a Christian woman like me. After being told that I am a missionary, he informed them that he wants to move back to Korea and that I could be a missionary there, because they also need missionaries. I was utterly stunned by this entire situation and was having a difficult time deciding how to respond to this completely unexpected offer. They explained to me that they had had an arranged marriage and that it worked out quite well for them and that he was a very kind and honest man.

He had actually driven an hour and a half out to the camp three times in the last week and a half trying to convince them to talk to me and they had finally agreed. He told them that I would know who he was, because I had looked at him. I have no recollection at all of him, nor do I recall looking at any Korean man. All I was thinking about was the campers leaving and how soon after them would we get to leave? Poor guy. I must say: it has always been a joke between my friends about how I am attractive to many different ethnicities: South-Americans, African Americans, Indians, Russians, Ukrainians, Serbians, Uzbekistanis, Turks, Georgians, etc., etc., but I do believe this is the first Korean that has ever tried to propose marriage to me. I'm still trying to decide what I think about the idea of an arranged marriage and whether I should feel completely mortified at this happenstance or just laugh hysterically about yet another crazy situation in which I find myself.

Julia

This blog post is dedicated to my friend, Julia, who came to do our first camp with us. I've heard different missionaries say that they wish their friends, families and supporters would actually come and experience just a little of what they do in their ministry. But that rarely happens. I have been extremely blessed in my first year of ministry to have my parents, my best friend, Tapley, and my good friend, Julia, all come and see a bit of what I do here. I was so excited to see Julia that one of the guys serving at camp started calling me "Smurf" all the time because I was smiling so much. In one way, that label made me really sad, because it made me realize again what a powerful thing friendship is and how difficult it is to not be with my friends. It made me sad that he noticed such a drastic change in my smile that he would constantly comment on it. It also made me extremely grateful for the close friendships that I have been blessed with back home. So this posting is dedicated to Julia, who came far out of her comfort zone to serve the people here and even more so, to serve me with her friendship. Love you!

She gave me a black eye and I'm still smiling. jk.
I had a "black eye" for our group's skit for Skit Night.

At the Black Sea for a picnic after church

On the "Tour of Odessa"

At the Odessa Opera House

Saying goodbye at the airport

English Camp Update

Camp #1 has now come and gone and half of the staff arrived back home last night. This was the largest camp that I've been a part of here(with around 100 people) and it went so well! We had such a great group, ranging in age from 4 months to one of our Canadian short termers in his 70's. The weather was extremely hot(around 95-100 F), but we got a small reprieve every evening when the temperature dropped some and a nice breeze came in. The camp is in a beautiful location about an hour and a half outside of Odessa and we enjoy getting out of the city and into the countryside for camp. Instead of telling you the daily schedule, I decided to take a picture instead. =-) There were also optional activities every afternoon, such as discussions on Creation, The Bible, and God and Evil.

We watched a fair amount of the video, "The Hope," in the evenings, which very clearly takes you from the beginning of the Bible through Jesus' death, burial and resurrection. It was a blessing to see so many of the campers struggling to come to terms with things they had never heard before but were beginning to understand. Only a few made the choice to put their faith in Christ as their personal Savior, but many, many more understood what it takes and simply said that they're not ready to give up their current life and follow Him. Though it's sad that they chose not to believe, it's good to see them struggling. Please pray for all those who were introduced to their Savior for the first time this week. Pray that they will continue to struggle with the truths that they heard and that He will continue to soften their hearts. Also, please pray for the follow up that we will be doing with all of those who live in Odessa. Thank you!!

For the rest of the camp pictures, click on the Title.

One of the English classes- the Advanced Intermediates

Craft Time

The ever popular nightly Uno games

Ice breaker games

On your mark, get set.....Go!!!!

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the craziness that is otherwise known as English camps. The schedule is crazy and exhausting, fun and frantic, orderly and chaotic....all at the same time. We're starting with Family Camp out at a base(June 23-Aug. 3) and then will come back to Odessa to do a day camp(Aug. 7-11) in our own neighborhood. All of our summer camps are Christian English Camps. The students come, knowing that they will get a large amount of English, but that many of the resources that we use are from the Bible and that we will be openly discussing "religious" things.

We keep our weekly English clubs "religion free," which enables us to establish relationships with the people and gain their trust. The people here are very quick to ask if we're a sect or cult and we do our best to work on establishing their trust and building friendships, so that they might eventually be interested in hearing about the God that we serve.

They come to the camps, however, knowing that we are going to talk about God. They can choose to come or not to come, but if they choose to come, they choose to listen to what we will share. We have a week of one on one time to share our lives and love of Christ with them. We hope and pray that His love will shine through us and leave them wondering how they can have that joy. They will work through studies from Luke in their conversation classes and will learn about the God/man who gave His life for them, that they might be forgiven of their sins and have new life with Him. Many struggle with the decision that is laid before them and most choose to reject Him. But our job is not to drag them to Jesus, but to point them in the right direction and show them that He truly loves each and every one of them. Please pray for God to soften and prepare hearts for the incredible message that they'll be hearing over the next couple of weeks.

Moving Day- Come and Gone

Welcome to life in Ukraine, or to life in any other former Soviet-bloc country. If the landlord's child is getting married, or another child is moving back in to town, or even if he wants to come to the beach for the summer, you will very likely be asked to move. It's very common here to move frequently if you're a renter- and not because you want to, but because you have to. So what happened?? I've been asked that question multiple times by friends and family back home who didn't even know this was happening until it was pretty much over and done with. Basically, it's like this: I signed a 10 month lease back last August and it was over on June 21st. In May I asked my landlord if they were planning on coming to the beach again for the summer. If they were, I wanted the time to find a new place. He assured me that they weren't(they live in Moldova) and that he was going to come to Odessa at the end of June to sign a new contract with me. When I went to pay for July, my neighbor told me that my landlord had called, changed his mind and that they would be here on July 10th, so I needed to be out before then. I found out about that on June 25th and he called to confirm it four days later.

At that point, I had no idea what to do, because the Girl's Retreat was starting and I didn't have time to look for a new place. Thankfully, God is in control of crazy situations and July 8th I moved in with two other single missionaries- about 20 minutes away from my apartment. It's definitely taking time to adjust:I no longer have two large grocery stores, two huge markets, church, and most of my co-workers within walking distance. I'm spending a lot more time on the stinky, hot buses and it's much more difficult to do that with my viola and grocery bags, plus it takes a lot more time to get anywhere. The area where I now live is much noisier, so I've had to go back to sleeping with earplugs and a pillow over my head to block out the street lights. I actually have a bed now, but it's pretty awful and I really miss my little pull out couch I've slept on for the last eleven months. Those things are minor nuisances, however. Really, it's a quite nice apartment and I'm so thankful for the quick provision of it and the willingness of Laura and Michelle to take me in on such short notice!

My new bedroom

How, you may ask, did you fit everything from an entire apartment into one bedroom? Well, the answer to that is...creative stacking and storage containers, as shown in the next two photos.

I can't stand clutter, so this will probably really get on my nerves eventually, but it's working for now.

You can't see this, but behind the front row in the cabinet is all of my kitchen supplies.

Kitchen

Tiny little bathroom- shower is to the right

Living room. My room is the door that you can see

My geraniums made the move, as well. If you look closely, you can see the grapes hanging on the vine that has grown up from the ground and are attached to our balcony.

Thankfulness-a 1000 Gifts

I am thankful for:

119)friends who let me move into their apartment shortly after finding out that I had to vacate mine before July 10th

120)other friends who helped me clean and move

121)the AIM World Race group, who greatly encouraged me during their three week stay here

back to front: Daniel, Brittany, Ashley, Anmari, Nathan, Andrea, me
(saying goodbye as they took the train to Kiev on their way to Romania)

122)all of the rain, which has brought cooler temperatures.

123)a good first Girl's retreat.

124)my progression in understanding the Russian language. My grammar is still bad, but I'm understanding more and more. As my brother says, "She's like a dog. She understands everything, but doesn't speak much."

125) the opportunity to spend several great hours with a friend from Camp Gloria in Russia. We met six years ago and have only seen each other one time briefly since then, but have tried to stay in touch with each other.

Valya and I

126)my friend Julia, who's arriving on the 23rd to do our first English camp with us! Please pray for her travel, acclimation and a wonderful time of fellowship, service and spiritual growth.