Me and Sergey...If all I did on the trip was meet Sergey it was worth it all.
We are home from Radooga. It seemed like it took forever to get there and once we got there the time went by way too fast. It was an amazing experience I hope none of us will ever be the same after. For those of you who wonder why Lori would want to stay let me say...I completely understand now. I've delayed writing this post a couple days now just because it is so difficult for me to do justice to what took place with words. This really is a case of, 'you had to be there'. So here goes nothing...
Chapter 1: Can you have your group at the airport in 20 minutes?Our adventure began with a phone call from the travel agent on Wednesday morning. Originally we were scheduled to fly out of Tallahassee at 2:42pm on Wednesday. So you can imagine my surprise when the travel agency called at 11:40am and asked if we could be at the airport by noon because our later flight had been cancelled. Wow. So the calls began. Each call wasted more time as I said over and over...'no I am not kidding. Grab your bags and go to the airport now.' We did pretty well. Most of us were there shortly after noon. The last one arrived (no names) at 12:38pm. Fortunately for us Delta was very accommodating.
Chapter 2: Stuck in Paris
When we arrived in Paris we only had about 30 minutes until our next flight was to leave for Kiev. With man this was not possible and I guess God was not willing. So we missed our flight. I went down to talk to the Delta rep. There were no more flights to Kiev that day so we were stuck in Paris. I went back upstairs to share the news with the group. You should have seen the disappointment on their faces. Actually, I should have seen the disappointment on their faces but all I saw were huge smiles. So Delta put us up in a nice hotel for the night with a great buffet dinner & breakfast. We spent the afternoon site seeing in Paris and than got some much needed rest. It was a huge blessing to be able to recover from the trip in a hotel in Paris rather than a camp ground in Ukraine.
Chapter 3: Where’s Team 5?
We were affectionately known as Team 5 while in Ukraine. You would think they could have come up with a creative name for us like say…NEXT! Just kidding. Anyway, apparently the Radooga staff did not get the word that we were delayed 24 hours so they showed up with big bus to pick us up...while we were enjoying Paris. The big bus carried one person..Ryan. Ryan was kid from Montgomery. He was a minor traveling alone so we were supposed to meet him Atlanta and escort him to Paris and than Ukraine. As it turned out because of our flight changes he was the only one on team 5 to arrive on time. Maybe he should have been escorting us.
Chapter 4: The Camp Ground
Finally we arrived at the camp ground in Ukraine. It was a fascinating place. It was built as a training ground for young communists. How ironic that it is now being a place where the gospel is being preached to young Ukrainian men and women.
Chapter 5: Meeting the Kids
After arriving at the camp we spent the first couple of days going through Orientation. On Monday the kids finally arrived. My first encounter with them was doing English testing to place them in their proper English class. It was a pretty fun process. Many of them knew English amazingly well. Others not so much.
Chapter 6: The Roomies
After the testing I went to my room to find out who I would be rooming with. This was a fun experience. Nobody in my room spoke English…and there was no translator in my room. This was going to be fun. I would say something to them in English. They would say something to me in Russian and than to each other in Russian and than they would just start laughing. It would have made a lesser man a little paranoid. The irony is over the next couple of days even though we didn’t speak the same language these boys and I would become like brothers. One of those kids was Sergey. He would make the week for me.
Chapter 7: Water good, water very bad?
About day 3 Sergey was onto me. I would get up each morning around 7:00am. Mainly to think through what I was going to talk about in morning celebration. But a side benefit was a hot shower. Sergey figured this out one morning. He asked when I got back from the shower, ‘water very good or very bad?’ In English that means was is it hot or freezing. I said, ‘very good’. He said, ‘tomorrow you wake me…7:00?’ That was the last hot shower I had until after the kids left.
Chapter 8: Repentance Night
O.k. Enough on the minors. Here’s what you really need to know about what happened at camp. On Friday night it was repentance night. The gospel was clearly preached and over half the kids at camp gave their lives to Christ. What else do you need to know about what happened at Camp Radooga? That’s all that matters and that made it worth every bit of effort it took to get there.
Chapter 9: Repentance Night & Sergey
The story of the week wouldn’t be complete without Sergey’s story. After repentance night the team was all in the worship center just reflecting on the night. Someone came in and said, ‘Todd Sergey is outside and wants to talk to you’. In the best way he knew how Sergey told me he had given his heart to Christ. The reason we were in Ukraine was becoming abundantly clear.
Chapter 10 : You like fish?I came back from rec one of the days exhausted. I was ready to catch some z’s. That was a dream that would not come true. Something better was in the works. When I got to my room Sergey had moved my pillow to a bed next to his. He asked, ‘you like fish?’ Apparently he does. For the next hour and a half we looked through this book he had of fish pictures. He would tell me ‘I have’ as he pointed to each of the fish that he owned. Apparently he has a lot of fish. At the time I was tired. Looking back on it I wouldn’t trade that hour for anything in the world.
Chapter 11: Tearful GoodbyesThe last day of camp sucked. Sorry if that is strong but there is no other way to say it. I was playing Frisbee when my boy Sergey walked up and said in the little English he knew… “I sad. I miss you’. I knew right then this was not going to be a good day. He walked away. So did I. Frisbee wasn’t an option any more. We would say goodbye about three more times before the day was over. Finally we were on the bus heading for Kiev knowing the kids would be gone when we got back.
Chapter 12: The City
We left and went on a tour of the city of Kiev. It’s a very pretty place. We saw some Cathedrals, Independance Square (the heart of the Orange Revolution). Most of all we got to eat. That was excellent. It had been awhile since we had a real meal.
Chapter 13: Coming HomeI almost expected coming home to be a headache. Fortunately, my fears were not realized. We arrived ahead of schedule to a very nice welcoming party. As good as the trip had been it was great to be home and see Laurie & Drew. Josh is a Camp so I’ll see him tomorrow.
Chapter 14: Back in the Grind
So the next day it was back to work and trying to get two weeks of work done in three days. We leave for Student Life Camp on Friday. I am really excited about that and all God will do in the lives of our students. I pray they get a little taste of what we experienced in Ukraine. I hope they get to see God move.
