The first day rained out but this last saturday went really good. There was about 6 skaters who came out. The ages was 9, 14, and 18ish. The park in Glensfalls has closed down, so that might have helped to get some of them to come out. One of the guys who came out used to work at the park in Glens. I know the gospel was shared to at least one skater clearly while others around heard them talking. Summer camp got promoted and it sounds like 3 of them would love to come this summer. We have one more session next weekend. Please be praying for a lot of kids to hear about it and come out.
I have recently sent my Camera back to Nikon, because of a little issue, with my built-in flash. I don't like using flash, but sometimes I need it. I really didn't want to send it away for such a tiny issue in my head, but I needed it to get repaired. I was trying to count how long it would be until I could take pictures again, and trying to figure out all the good photos I would miss out on taking, and the memories that go with them. Hopefully I can find someone who will let me use their camera, if not, I am sorry for the photoless blogs that will be posted in the future.
I got myself some new shoes today for $35 at Zumiez, a pretty good deal. They feel like the Vans "Old School" but with a little more solid soles, however you still have all the board feel and flexibility. Can't wait to start skating these.
Today was super hero day. Some people don't know the meaning of "Super Hero" we had about 5 Jokers, first off the Joker is a villain, second he is not super, he has no super powers, just a plain old bad guy. And then you had the large group of people who claimed to be in civilian clothes of their super hero. Some I would give credit too, but most didn't resemble any super hero civilian outfits. Paul M. as Peter Parker, took all the photos for me.
Epic Battle against the Villain Ninjas
Probably one of my favorites, is Joe, as the guy from Assassins Creed.
This week is spirit week at school, so instead of class dress we get to dress up according to the theme of the week. Yesterday was what you want to be when you grow up. I dressed up like a old man sailor. Then today was decade day, we dressed up from a very old decade back in BC. There was about 5 of us as shepherds (Kyle,Adam, Owen, Me, and Kevin), everyone else from 50's-90's and Kylie from the future.
I don't like doing things the normal way, I like things interesting and create. I was playing with things on my desk and found some flannel graph and decided I would ask Kylie to the spring banquet using it (The same girl I took to the Ukrainian Banquet). She had lots of homework to do, so I was trying to find a good time to ask without being to much of a distraction from her work. And eventually I decided I would just wait until the next day. However at dinner I figured it out, she was sitting in the slightly elevated part of the dinning hall, facing the lower level. There is a little wall between the levels. I stuck King Dale, and servant girl Kylie up like a little puppet show, on the other side of the wall, dancing them around a little bit, until she noticed and began laughing. I peeked my head over the wall, to see her response, which was "Yes". Then I showed her what I would have done if she said "no".
This was the last full day, we where going to go out to evangelize in kiev and then we had a special banquet in the Ukraine. A lot of the Ukrainian guys wanted to take american girls. I told them to stay away from my american women. They tried to make a deal with me that they will take the American girls and I can take a Ukrainian girl. I wanted to take Kylie, but I didn't want to ask her like everyone does it, because that is no fun. I really didn't know what I was doing. Owen saw me hiding behind a tree and asked me what I was doing, I told him I was going to ask Kylie to the banquet. Then I got him to help me. There was two benches facing each other, so Owen sat on one, and called Kylie to sit across from him. Owen filmed the experience with my camera sticking half way out of his shirt. I wanted it to feel all secret agent like. So I called to her from behind the tree, when she looked back I told her to look forward and pretend she was talking to Owen, while I talked to her. So from behind the tree I asked her to the banquet. Here is a little video below.
For the last day the whole Ukraine W.O.L. B.I. staff and student body with all of us from New York, headed out in a storm of evangelists to Kiev. We split into about two groups of 50 people, one group went somewhere else, and my group went to this like central park place with some monuments and stuff.
Once we arrived I saw 4 kids skating, so I immediately walked over to them and began trying to talk to them. The one guy spoke english pretty good, but the other 3 didn't understand at all. Two different people shared the gospel in Russian with them and I shared it in english with him twice. We had a good time skating together and built a good friendship based on a common interest called skateboarding. I left them with Gospel Tracts and camp promotions, gave them some stickers from SFNJ (New Jersey Skate Ministry) and got a email to stay in contact. There was no conversion, but Christ was shown through skateboarding.
The one in the red spoke english. I had to leave them for a little bit to sing to draw a crowd for the rest of my group to evangelize. I told him he could come over if he wanted to so he did, and stood up next to me where I was singing.
I'm not sure how many accepted Christ, but I heard about a few of them that did. After evangelizing for a couple hours we headed back to the campus to get ready for the banquet.
Waiting for our ladies.
Me and My cute date
I brought the Apricot Jam the babooshka made for us. Luckily one of the girls on our trip was given flowers in Kiev while evangelizing. She gave all us guys a flower to give to our date. I added some custom flowers I picked from outside the window, and taped a Resees Peanut Butter Cup to it.
We had a time of sharing the things we learned from the past week. Their was a lot of thank you's to the Ukrainian students for their friendship and servant hood.
My roommates for the past week.
My closest friends and their dates.
The next morning at 3am we headed out to leave for the airport, most of the students woke up to wish us a final good bye. The week went bye very fast, it felt like we just got there and it was already over, I wish I had another couple weeks there. It was a ton of fun. It was about 3 hour flight to Munich, Germany. I slept the whole way. Then 8 hours from Munich to NYC.
Learning some Japanese on the flight.
We flew right over Iceland where the volcano went off a few weeks earlier, and canceled lots of flights. I am not sure if we could actually see the volcano however the pilot said that some of the clouds we see might be volcanic ash.
Thank you for your prayers and financial support. I am very blessed to have gotten this opportunity. I would go back if I have the chance again, I enjoyed serving there, and learning for the experience. I don't fully know now, but I know God will use the things I experienced to guide me in the future. Thank You everyone, I hope you enjoyed my blog post about the trip.
