Day 1 in Ukraine! :)

The flight from New York to Kyiv was pretty much the longest thing of my life and i barely slept but talking to Luda was very nice.

The Radooga camps this year are being held at a campus of a Seventh Day Adventist College in the town of Bucha. The drive from the airport to the camp was an adventure to say the least. Everyone in Ukraine drives like they are the insane motorcyclists in America. Everyone passes illegally, stop lights are optional, and lanes are nonexistant.. and when there are lanes, there are two cars to every lane.. it was incredible- i've never seen anything like it.

We got pulled over by a cop, too.. but not in the convential way that we're used to back in the states. The police officer stands on the side of the road with a long, rectangular red wooden paddle thing and points it at a speeding car. Supposedly we were doing 100km in a 60.. But there was no ticket, no "license and registration, sir", no siren, and no court. Oleg Magdych (who looks like Johnny Depp) just paid the cop 10 grievna ($2 U.S. Dollars!!) and we were off.

Kyiv has so much character.. it seems almost like a battle- a struggle for power. Every building in sight is either half finished or run down.. but then a quarter mile down the road is an exquisite shopping center and a brand new McDonalds. i guess that is the combination you get in a post-Soviet country.

Our dorms are pretty nice.. it's two bunk beds in each room.. and two rooms share a bathroom (which aren't the nicest things in the world). Our room (before the campers come) is me, Lindsey, Chelsea, and a girl named Samantha who came earlier than the rest of us from Alabama. The room across from us are some of the translators: Anya, Ira, Gulya, and a nice lady from Alabama named Deb.



L to R: Anya, Samantha, Ira, Gulya, Lindsey, Me, Chelsea




Camp 2 American Staff:
Lindsey, Chelsea, Grant, Megan, Samantha, Johnny, Paul, Marcus (Magnus), Don, David, and I..

and i couldn't be more excited for what God is going to do these upcoming days here at Radooga. :)



Lindsey: "I feel like i'm hungry but not really"