July means retreat. Retreat means staying in the village and stayin in the village means relaxation.

Group shot

Every July we have our annual staff retreat. It’s a time to get away, to hide from the busyness of ministry and rest together.

Everyone comes prepared to camp out in tents for two nights/three days. The дача (country cottage) is reserved for fixing food and for a few people to sleep in. We take time to just chat, eat, pray, eat, play games, eat, worship, eat, take walks, and eat some more. There is always good food, always.

Setting up home

Like flies to meat…

Roasting bread on a stick

Sometimes we have some kind of agenda or program. This year, our only agenda was to pray for each other and have some time of devotions. It was simple but refilling.

Worshiping together

Playing Dutch Blitz

Every retreat needs a hammock

Every time I come out to the дача I feel like I’m back at home in the country. You never know what you miss until it’s gone.

Highlights from this year are having four new staff with us at staff retreat, having a hammock, playing with a slack line, having a few bikes, making bread over the fire, and having Lance there was a huge personal highlight!

Resting together

Watching the sunset

American idiom: That really makes my blood boil!

Ukrainian version: That really eats my liver!

Yep, next time you want to use the idiom “boils my blood” just use “eats my liver” instead. It’s the same thing!

If you have been receiving my email updates, you will see picture updates of the building that is in progress. (If you don’t receive my email updates and have always wanted them but didn’t know how to ask… you can click HERE to see last month’s update and then click on ‘subscribe’ in the top left corner to receive next month’s update!)

I always show pictures of the outside of the building since that has been the major part of the construction so far. Recently though, there has been some major progress on the inside and it is much easier to get up and down without remembering what it was like to crawl on a jungle gym.

For the first time today, I got a tour of the whole building! WOW! There is so much space and LOTS of possibilities! I’m super excited to see how everything will look when it is finished!

First floor:

Dining Hall

The kitchen is also on the first floor but I couldn’t get a good photo of it.

Second floor:

There are two classrooms and an office on the second floor with some lounging space.

“… and this is what a conjunctive adverb looks like.” Future statement in the future classroom.

April can’t wait for this classroom to be filled with students!

Potential office

Third floor:

Third floor is mostly all bedrooms. There are 4 showers (2 girls, 2 guys) which I didn’t bother to take a picture of since they are really just dark looking brick closets right now. There are four bedrooms total on the third floor.

Bedroom for the geometrically inclined

Double balconies in the bedroom? Yes, please!

Fourth Floor:

“He leads me into a spacious place…”

Fourth floors is really a glorified attic that will be turned into a living space. A place to relax, hang out, sleep, chat, it’s a multipurpose room! There is also space for another bedroom.

View toward city center (west)

View to the east

Looking to the south

There is also a basement to our new building. I couldn’t get any pictures since there isn’t any lighting there yet. The basement will be used for community events and storage space.

A connection is made (or reconnection, depending on view).

A teaching opportunity.

A sudden invitation.

A bumpy bus ride.

Arrive at a home in the Карпа́ты or Carpathians.

Teaching with Lance

I had the great opportunity to teach in the Carpathians along with three others, Andri, Allison and Lance. We were asked to staff a retreat time for the staff of the Ternopil Missions Institute. This was their first staff retreat and the first time they had someone come to do any teaching.

Building team

We had fun partaking in team building games, relaxing together, teaching, praying, and some sightseeing. We taught on topics such as team, relationships, unity, confrontation, and healthy boundaries. We did a lot of debriefing which is basically taking a step back and reflecting on what has happened both good and bad in the past years. This team of people had never been able to have someone help guide them through this process. Allison and I helped them create a timeline and go through all the fun and happy memories to the sad and tearful memories.

Seeing a castle

Not always easy to get a picture while I’m teaching, but here is one while I was closing up our time of creating a timeline. The hanging green, blue, and purple chickens in the background were used to create a mobile to demonstrate how taking away one piece will completely alter the mobile. Each piece needs each other to balance and it will take time to adjust when one piece is taken away. The same applies to a team or family when one member leaves. Transition takes time and will cause some imbalance at first.

Here is a short video clip of Baba Halya reciting some childhood poems from memory. My coworker Allison lives with her and recorded her recitation. This is a great glimpse of Ukrainian culture! Every child is taught poems in school, the same ones their parents learned which are the same ones their parents learned!