Checking in.

This past week has been challenging. My 10 year old host brother is acting just like a 10 year old, unfortunately. But that has only been an addition to other crazy events. Last weekend I spent Saturday and Sunday night in Rievna, which is about 400 kilometers west of Kiev. Me and a couple of the people from the mission team here in Kiev traveled over to visit the missionary couple from Holland that is living there. Over the weekend we visited 2 of the small Christian Reformed Churches in the area to check in with the pastors and elders and to see in which ways these churches need support. It was helpful to see the practical side of the mission work here in Kiev. Originally the plan was to travel straight from Rievna to another town a short drive south for a 3 day conference with the families of the Reformed Seminary students. But Sunday night did not turn out as planned.

While at the house with the missionary couple and the other missionaries from Kiev, I was checking my email in the study and then out of nowhere, blackout...nothing. I wake up lying on the floor with everyone standing around me and I am clueless. A couple of the guys help he sit up against the wall and ask me a few questions like, "do you know where you are? do you know who WE are? how are you feeling?". I was so confused. I recognized the people around me, but could not remember there names. I was still wondering why I was sitting on the ground and why I was not sitting at the desk checking my email anymore. Other thoughts running through my head included, "why is everyone staring at me? what just happened?" I was trying my hardest to answer the questions they were asking me and I was sure I knew the answers, but y brain was just not cooperating. And then after about 10 minutes of just sitting against the wall utterly confused, it all clicked. The one thing that I did understand and I was able to say..... "I just had another seizure." The man sitting next to me confirmed my realization and explained that they heard me fall. When they came upstairs to see what happened they found me on the ground moaning and shaking violently.

Honestly my first reaction was anger. I was so mad. This was not supposed to happen again. what is wrong with me. I am taking medication to prevent this. But the biggest problem was that I was already a month past the 6 months I had to wait to drive again. I just had to make it home for the summer and I was free to drive where ever I wanted. I had not (have not) driven a car in 15 months! I was crushed. It took all of 15 minutes for my thinking to clear up and to feel normal again. That night we decided I should go back to Kiev for a day or so before the conference. I took a small bus back on Tuesday. They call these things marshrutka's. They are basically an old, rickety, 20 passenger micro bus, and they are fairly inexpensive. If you need to get somewhere in Ukraine, there is probably a marshrutka that can take you there. Anyway, I took the 5 hour trip back by myself, which I found to be entertaining seeing as I know about 15 words in Russian, and everyone else on the marshrutka knew about -2 words in English. I thought it was funny and made the the best of it. The old babushka sitting next to me had about 2.3 gallons of old grandma perfume on, and half way through the trip she decided that my shoulder was a prime spot to take a nap on. I wish I had taken a picture. On Wednesday we traveled to the conference and things continued on as normal.

I actually enjoyed the conference quite a bit. The 2 speakers were a couple of pastors that had flown over from Holland, Albert and Albert. One of them was my teacher for my Cross Cultural Issues in Missions course that I had while still in Holland. It was really good to see him again. The topic of the conference centered around Covenant Relationships between ourselves, God, our families and friends. The place we stayed was very similar to the seminary I was at for the first week here in Ukraine. The meals were full of mystery meat, the dorm we stayed in was an adventure in itself, but the last night was by far the best. I have discovered by way of experience that hanging out in a sauna is a very popular way for Ukrainian men to socialize. So The last night of the conference about 10 of us hung out in the sauna for a while. It was quite an experience.

Well that's all for now. More to come soon. Thank you for all of your prayers and support.