Category: Travel

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2 Weeks

** This is a guest post by Mike Hopcraft.

Wow! ย I can’t believe that 2 weeks have gone by. ย Lisa and I haveย thoroughlyย enjoyed Ben and Ang’s wonderful hospitality. ย I am so glad that Lisa has been here before and that Ben was such a willing guide – I would have been lost many times over. ย Not only with the language but with the driving! ย Ben could be a rally race car champion!

Helping at the YWAM work day was very satisfiying. ย Seeing two of the interior walls being built for the new kitchen and the volleyball court levelled as well as LOTS of other clean up was great! ย It was neat to see how the whole YWAM team works hard, laughs a lot and encourages each other – what a great team.

We were able to see lots of the sights of Kiev as well as Lviv. ย In Kiev we saw the Iron Mamma, the war memorial, Lavra,ย holodomor memorial, Khreshchatyk St. and many more sites! ย I learned so much about the history of Ukraine, Kiev and Lviv. ย I really like old buildings and… doors, funny eh? ย Anyway, Lviv was a great place to take pictures of both! ย Ben, Jay, Lisa and I took the night train to get there (at 6am!!) and we walked up and down almost every street in the old part of Lviv. ย It was absolutely amazing. ย Not only did we cover lots of the streets but we went ‘under ground’ for supper, which included secret passageways and hidden doors! ย We also had a dizzying climb to the top of the bell tower and had a fantastic view of the city! ย At the end of the day we went back to the train station to wait for our train, which was scheduled to depart at midnight. ย We arrived at about 9:30 and it was very nice to be off our feet after a long day of walking. ย On the way back our train stopped for about an hour and that train car got quite warm – no need for those wool blankets. :)

Thanks Ben and Ang for being such great hosts! ย It was wonderful to spend so much time with you and your kids. ย May God bless you for the work you are doing in Kiev.

Mike.

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Forbes 100 Wealthiest Billionaires

I read the list from Forbes and noticed that there were a lot of Russian’s on it. So I copied the list into excel and found that most (36) of the top 100 billionaires came from the United States (not surprising) but that 12 of 100 (2nd most) came from Russia.

Russia is not a poor country. Russia is incredibly wealthy in terms of natural resources, similar to Canada. But there is one glaring difference. In Canada, wealth is spread throughout the country (only 1 Canadian is in the richest 100). In Russia there are 12. Even taking into account population figures, 34 million in Canada to 140 million in Russia, about 4 Russians for 1 Canadian – the figure is startling. It is not a “fair” ballgame for Russians. Where did those Russian’s make their money – always in natural resources, either metals or fossil fuels.

What does it matter? What can I do? Pray. Pray that wealthy, important figures would meet Jesus. It has happened before that when unsavoury greedy people meet Jesus it transforms how they live and give (insert your favourite followers of Jesus, like Matthew the evangelist or Zacchaeus the wee little man). Pray that Russia would understand the gospel, brand new life without earning, without penance. Pray that peoples basic needs would be met, simple but adequate housing and warmth, hygiene (you take for granted your toilet, I know it because I do too), opportunities for work and pleasure. Not only lifestyle needs but inner needs too, mutually loving and beneficial relationships and joy-filled homes of peace. And if you’re like me, pray now because you’ll forget to later.

*One more side note, Ukraine also has 1 of the top 100 wealthiest men. The list below by country.

36 United States
12 Russia
7 Germany
4 Brazil
4 France
4 Hong Kong
4 India
4 Mexico
3 Chile
3 Sweden
2 Colombia
2 Italy
2 Malaysia
2 Saudi Arabia
1 Australia
1 Canada
1 China
1 Cyprus
1 Ireland
1 Japan
1 Nigeria
1 Spain
1 Switzerland
1 Ukraine
1 United Kingdom

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Whew!

That is the sigh that came out of my mouth when I thought about the past few months :) We started a new ministry team, got busy teaching in local churches around Kiev, and now we are on a teaching/recruiting tour of the SBS’s in Europe. Two weeks ago Angela went to Sweden to teach Leviticus in the SBS there. Looks like 2 students will be coming to do Titus this fall with us from there. After that we got home and a day later we all drove to Germany. This is where we will run Titus Project this fall, so we came to build relationships and teach in the SBS here. Ben taught ‘How to Preach’ and our friend Josh taught 1 &2 Samuel. Unfortunately, we have been having some visa problems so now we will stay here in Germany until the end of the month, and hopefully get everything all worked out. Please pray for us. Our kids are sick too, so pray for the kids…and the parents- cleaning up after they get sick is never fun.

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Georgia … the Country, not the State

In Georgia our team had an amazing opportunity to teach at one of the only Kurdish churches in the world! We taught the book of 1 Peter to them, chapter by chapter every Saturday and Sunday Night for a month.

One particularly unique moment happened when we were teaching Chapter 3:1-6. These versesย emphasize the influence that the behavior of believing wives can have on non-believing husbands. All of a sudden a few of the women started sharing that their husbands were not believers. We gathered them in the middle and prayed for them to have strength, wisdom and the ability to really live out this truth in their lives. The tears were flowing and the atmosphere was filled with a tangible presence of the Holy Spirit. It is moments like those that remind us why we are teaching Godโ€™s word!

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Christmas Fun!

Budapest, Christmas Morning

The sun is shining in the windows and the cinnamon buns are cooking in the oven. It is Christmas! Cassie and Jay wake up happy. It is going to be a good day. After eating some yummy cinnamon buns (that turned out okay even with no brown sugar), we gave our gifts to Jesus- Cassie did a dance, and then we talked about the angels that appeared the day that Jesus was born. Then it was present time. Cassie opened up Barbie Bride (for the wedding obsessed girl) and Jay opened up a Hot Wheels Boat (for the transportation obsessed). Then they got one gift to share – a game of memory with cards from the movie Cars (which is the new favorite in the house!- not Cars 2 just the first movie, they haven’t seen number 2 yet).

It is always hard to be away from extended family on Christmas day, but we are thankful for our little growing family. Hard to believe next year we will have three kids on Christmas morning.

Merry Christmas everyone!

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The Rest of God

It depends how you read it. The title could imply ‘the stuff about God you have missed’ but actually it is a book about rest. Our Pastor from Canada sent it to us and it arrived appropriately the day before we left on vacation.

We got in the car early the day after we graduated our Titus Project students and drove all the way to Budapest. It only took about 14 hours (including a 2 hour border line up). ย The next day we got up early and drive to Croatia where Ben and Josh (our good friend) taught a week on ‘God’s Father Heart’ to a DTS. But officially on Saturday we started our vacation. We drove down the coast of Croatia and have stayed in two cute little villa apartments. Tomorrow we will leave for Italy and then after a few days there back to Budapest. 5 squished in our little car (us + Josh) makes it a great road trip, lots of memories, screaming children, food everywhere! FUN!

But in all of this travelling by car I (Angela) have had a chance to read a lot from this book and am being inspired to really practice the art of rest, not ‘shutting down’ or ‘crashing’ or even ‘amusement’ but real, soul-reviving, spirit-saturating rest. Thanks Bruce for taking the time to send the book!

 

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Be My Valentine

We are leading Titus Project training program right now, first time ever in Ukraine, first time ever in Russian, first time ever with 9 staff for 9 participants, first time … there are a lot of firsts here! One of those firsts for us is co-leading a team with someone.

So we’re really excited to be leading together with Valya (“Valentina”). We will head to Georgia when the 3 weeks of training are finished. Actually, Valya has done much of the work setting up outreach, including scheduling and budgeting. God was very gracious in providing her for our team, because on it we have another family (from Netherlands) like ours (a family with a little boy and girl) and another lady named Luba who only speaks Russian. We may look kinda funny, lots of kids and not so youthie (the “y” in ywam is supposed to stand for youth), but that won’t stop us – or more importantly, it won’t stop God from touching peoples lives! Thanks for being a part of our team Valya!

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Travelling with Children

So lots of our friends often ask us how it is travelling with kids. So I thought we’d do a little bit of a journal of sleeping since leaving Canada:

The Flights
Depart Calgary at 15:30
9 Hours to Amsterdam – kids sleep about 4 of those (thank you gravol!), Ang 2.5, Ben – zippo!
Layover in Amsterdam is 4 hours long, Ben gets 20 minutes on the cold floor another 40 min sitting with legs draped over luggage carts.
2.5 Hours to Kiev – Jay – 2.5 hours, Ang 1 hour, Ben and Cassie – zippo! (sensing a pattern?)
Arrive Kiev at 16:40 the next day, skipped forward approx 9 hours.

Night 1
8pm Start with a warm bottle of milk, mix in equal parts love and gravol, hope for the best! :)
11pm Wake to crying baby … crying is the nice way to say it. Ben sleeps through it, Ang saves the day. Cassie is zonked out.
1am Wake to screaming baby … screaming is the nice way to say it. Ang makes warm bottle of milk (no additives), Jay was just hungry. Ben feeds baby. (How do parents do it?) Cassie remains zonked out.
4am Wake to screaming baby … hear a small thud. Pitter patter. “Mommy, Jay is crying”. Evidently, Cassie is no longer zonked out. Dad rescues the day, mom and Cassie fall into a deep slumber.

Wonder how naps and Night 2 will go? Stay tuned! :)

Night 2
10pm Kids are sleeping peacefully, parents think, maybe this will yet be a great night.
1am Thud .. pitter patter, “Jay is crying” says Cassie. Bottle (no additives) for Jay, change his bum and life is back to normal.
1:05am Thud .. pitter patter, “I don’t want to sleep in there with Jay”. We convince her to sleep in her bedroom anyway.
1:10am Thud .. pitter patter… This time we move her to the living room couch.
2am Thud .. pitter patter… Cassie is still wide awake. Gravol for mom and daughter. Convince her once more to stay on the living room couch (Cassie flips and flops worse than a fish out of water).
3am Thud .. pitter patter… We give in and she moves from the living room couch to beside us in our room on the floor. Jay hasn’t made a noise since about 1:30am.
4am Ang finally falls asleep, Ben is left listening to the girls sleeping. After some oatmeal, rooibois tea and a peanut butter sandwhich (still haven’t gone for a proper shopping trip).
almost 5am Finally drifts off to sleep.
1pm We finally open our eyes big enough to get out of bed. We’ll definitely have to set the alarm tomorrow night – even Jay didn’t wake up! Jet lag definitely won this battle.

This is starting to sound like a big brother episode.

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Homecoming

No we didn’t get all dressed up, but we have had a wonderful homecoming!! Our family and friends and church have embraced us with open arms! We have been plagued with a bit of sickness during these 5 weeks in Canada, but being with people we love has made a huge difference and we wouldn’t trade this time! One more week here and then we head back to Ukraine! We are excited to start staff training for Titus Project! We’ll update our picture page soon with shots from Ben’s new camera. If you want to see him receiving him camera (Surprise!) then go our video page.

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A little bit krazee!

We graduated our SBS class last week on Friday. On Sunday we flew to the Netherlands where we began a 5 day intensive teacher training seminar with graduates from their own SBS. Well, we’re almost done, but its definitely been a whirlwind.

Although we’ve seen glimpses all week long of our participants teaching abilities, tomorrow is the real test – when they teach Inductive Bible Study through the Epistle to Philemon. Of course there was limited time this week, but we’ve given them as much as we could without overloading them. How will they do, the real test!

We’re really excited for them as they prepare to go out and teach the Bible in many places. Some will stay here in Holland, some will take flight to Indonesia. But no matter where they go, they will be better communicators of God’s incredible Word! What a privilege to serve his kingdom like this – thank you for being part of our team!

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At the Front Door

When was the last time you lost your keys and had to break into your own house? Wait a minute, I didn’t lose the keys and we sure didn’t break in. Actually, it was an innocent mistake. Have you seen Cassie lately? She is so innocent! She talks so sweet, she smiles like a princess; “of course honey, you can help us open the front door to the apartment”. No problem. “Can I hold the keys too?” she asks. I mean, what are the chances that this little girl will lose them within 15 steps of our apartment door – inside the building?

Alas, it could happen to anyone. Up to the 8th floor we go and as we are stepping out, sure enough, clink clink. Down 8 stories drop our keys, through the gap between the elevator car and the 8th floor – the crack is only a couple inches.

Of course, breaking into an 8th floor apartment isn’t too simple. Thankfully we were hosting a school event that evening and our friends (who speak Russian and know how to get things done around here) were coming over. Sure enough, in less than an hour they elevator guys opened up the bottom and searched through half a foot of cigarette butts to find our keys. Thank you Yulia and Daniel and Tetyana for helping us!

It’s all part of growing up, although from now on the keys will stay with Mom and Dad! :)

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To Be The Bride

The other day Cassie and I were “pretending” in the car. She was the mom with 4 kids. “Okay Cassie, how many are girls?” “Well, 1 is a girl, mom”. “Then how many boys would you have?” “3!” Math already?! She must take after her Daddy.

Speaking of Daddies, last week we travelled to Lviv, Ukraine and we saw at least 10-15 brides taking pictures all over this small picturesque city. Cassie was of course enthralled with them all day! She kept saying that one day she would marry her Daddy. Awww.. It was so cute!

 

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9 of Them

We will teach all 9 of them this week. 9 people who have been spending the last 6 months studying the bible verse by verse. 9 people who have fallen more and more in love with God. 9 people who are from 8 different countries. 9 people who are not just learning for themselves but desire to impact this world. Rogvi, Daniel, YeonSoo, Dima, Ester, Paivi, Sarah, Rasa,and Tamra. Like a small drop of water can have a huge ripple effect, so too will these 9 people make ripples in the lives of thousands of others. We are thrilled to be here in Sweden, get to know them, and teach them the books of 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah. Weย’ll feature a few of their stories over the next two weeks.

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The Orthodox Church – Experience #1

Our first experience with the orthodox church happened in late May 2009. We were visiting Kyiv while considering where we might relocate Titus Project in Europe. As part of our visit, one of our hosts by the name of Tim Huddleston, now a treasured friend, took us for a tour around Kyiv.

As we learned, one of Tim’s hobbies was really understanding Kyiv’s history. It turns out to be very rich and interesting (but more on that later). Anyway, one of the landmarks on his tour was St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral. Writing this nearly two years later, I barely remember anything. I will briefly introduce two things that I do remember because they really struck me, but we will only go into depth in subsequent posts.

The first thing I remember was how different it was. Angela and the ladies put on scarves before we entered. There was the paintings and the dim light with candles and a few other things that I really hadn’t experienced, even in the old catholic churches I’ve entered in other European countries.

The second thing I remember was Tim’s comment. It was a teachable moment and he took the opportunity. He said that although worship may be very different than what I am used to, do not quickly pronounce judgment on it because there are many many positives to it and things we can learn from. It was, and remains, wise advice.

So why begin recounting our experiences with the Orthodox Church here? There are a few different reasons, but probably the most important is that the Christian church is vast, and vastly diverse in its style and character. To breathe Ukrainian air is to breathe a mixture of Christian faith. Need a picture? Consider how puppies are tied to the same pole, yet as they run around and around, they get tied together even while they run in many directions. So while we are all rooted to the same Christ, the atmosphere and experience of his worship may be very different, sometimes crossing, sometimes running in parallel. I want to explore this relationship more fully, understand these other worship experiences without prejudice and with love. And in turn, hopefully, bring my own experiences to people who might benefit from them.