The final trip in Ukraine was to visit Odesa on the Black Sea (which looked as blue as any other body of water). Viktor's family had lived here for many years and it was his wife's home town. The 4 hour drive south was on a good divided highway. We stayed in the seminary and had breakfast with the missionary family for the southern region. Alexander and Olga had three children.
On Saturday, Alex hosted the kickoff for three clubs in Odesa. They came together to have Awana games and Bible times.
There were more than 80 kids from 3 to 14. Leaders were from all three clubs. Half the children did games while the others did Bible games and story time. Then they switched. At the beginning they had prayer, a short Bible message and greetings from Viktor, the director of AWANA for Ukraine and me, a visitor from the AWANA club in Buffalo, MN. It was fun to watch all the activity. They were like the kids I work with. I just couldn't understand the words they said.
On Sunday we attended a large Baptist church in Odesa. What a surprise when the first preacher was an American who spoke with a translator. The second half of the service was a wedding. The bride spoke English so part of the service was in English. The music for the wedding was handbells! Besides the wedding, they also celebrated a 50th Anniversary that day. We felt right at home as we met Viktor's relatives and spoke with a few others who used English.
We got back to Kiev in the early evening so we could pack and get ready to leave on Monday.
Viktor and the other AWANA missionaries made us feel welcome, took time to show us their country and fed us physically and spiritually. We were very blessed.
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