Riders On the Storm

     Thus Saturday ended camp. With rain, photos, hugs and goodbyes. It's been a long few days. As usual, it will be some time before we are all able to completely process our thoughts about the camp. I've been doing it along the way through this blog. But there's is still much more to think about. I've already been asked if I'll be coming back next year. I also need to think about my effectiveness as a team leader. But as it is, I think I can offer some preliminary ideas. And since it's the weekend now, I'm going to include Sunday into this post as well. Both were long, busy days. I guess I'll throw a little Monday into the mix as well....considering this is Tuesday and I'm typing in my kitchen at home. There are a lot of photos here so you might want a cup of coffee or tea as you read and peruse this post
     We all woke on Saturday later than normal. Thanks to a high-energy week, most of us were a little late for breakfast. We had our final team time after breakfast to find out who our Secret Friend from then past few days had been. The Secret Friend game was an assignment given on Thursday to help bring the team together. The motto was "Friendship isn't a big thing, its a million little things."

Just a few of the gifts from my Secret Friend.

     We needed to do nice things for our assigned friend (given out at random). Give candy, make a mini quest, make a list of our plans for the future. Basically do a bunch of nice, little things. I've got to admit, I was a bad Secret Friend. I only did three things for my friend. By comparison, the person who had my name gave me candy, made two cups of mint tea, wrote a poem and two notes, and even two paper airplanes. I found out Saturday that my Secret Friend was Nastia, our team translator.
     For the remaining hours of the camp, the word that best describes it was photo-centric. We looked at a photo gallery taken by the camp photographer. Inna, who was in my English class, is an excellent photographer. She was able to capture hundreds of great moments from camp. And following her photo session of all the staff and campers, we made our way to the bus.
     The rain came down aplenty. The photos were legion. The goodbyes endless. And we almost left Brandon. He'd slipped back inside for the restroom and we started pulling out as he came running out. Someone shouted that "we forgot our American," bringing the bus to a sharp halt. Once we were on our way, the trip was relatively smooth.
     As an interesting aside, during my time here last year, I was able to visit a Ukrainian wedding. On the ride back to Kiev, we got to see an Orthodox funeral. Or at least the procession to the cemetery. The family and priest walked out in front with flowers and a sign. A flatbed truck followed along behind with the casket, open and displaying the deceased. Behind the truck was a long line of cars either from the funeral or stuck behind the lengthy procession. It was interesting to see it as I had never been exposed to this part of Ukrainian culture before.

Chicken ravioli with spinach, tomatoes, and red sauce.

     We made it back to Kiev with no trouble. After disembarking the bus at the office, we made some final goodbyes, and then loaded into our taxis. It was supposed to be a relaxing afternoon, which we did do to some extent. But it didn't last for long. The team needed dinner. Unfortunately the place we chose was about the same distance walk as Puzata Hata from our hotel and it wasn't the fastest to be cooked. But what we did receive was excellent.
     Following dinner, we had to make the trip back to the office for a team debrief. Along with some interesting pizza from Dominos, it was a good time to go over some of our preliminary thoughts. While we didn't all have complete ideas, the general feeling about the camp was positive. In the coming days, we'll be able to process all our thoughts and write them down so that the staff can be able to improve the camp next year. The positive ideas tend to stick around for a while. But the negatives and needs-addressing should be talked about as soon after as possible. Towards the end, it was brought to my attention by Pastor Max that my posts were too negative. And I guess so some extent they were. I prefer to think of it as honest.
     You may have noticed during the week that things weren't completely positive for every aspect of camp, specifically my health. I want to add a caveat emptor that what I experienced is not the normal way of camp. (Let the excuses now fly) I was under a lot more stress than normal while I was preparing for camp. I was buying tickets, organizing meetings, planning lessons, dealing with life stuff. On top of that, some years are better, some not so much.
     Even for the well prepared, not everything about camp is rainbows and unicorns. There's the time change and jet lag to get used to. There is sometimes strange food and new surroundings to explore. And on top of that, you need to teach five classes and be an integral part of the camp staff.
     That's not to say everything is bad either. This, at the very least, is a life-changing experience. You will be immersed in a new, exciting culture. You might make new friends that you will have for the rest of your life. You will have an impact on the lives of up to thirty students who are, in one way or another trying to improve their lives. Along the way, you'll be challenged, encouraged, stretched, inspired, uplifted, and supported.
     If you've been reading along with this blog, wondering if you should consider going with us next year, you should. But don't do it for your health or for a vacation. Do it to help improve the lives of others and to help raise up the next generation of Ukrainian Christians.
     We finally all got back to our hotel around 10PM. But with my overactive mind, I didn't actually sleep until after midnight. I should have gotten to bed sooner because in what felt like no time, the sun was streaming through my window and keeping me from sleeping well past 7:30.

     After another good breakfast at Puzata Hata (and a forgotten bottle of water by me), we got in our taxis and made it to church over an hour early. Around 11AM, things started getting really fun with reunions of friends we'd met in years past. Three of the people from the Manchester team last year, Rachel, Rachel, and Andrew returned for this year's Liberty Camp Pt 2. Jerry Rahm returned as well and delivered the sermon as well. It was great to see old friends again, both former campers who are now staff as well as Big City church members who I haven't seen so far on this trip. I wish we had more time to spend with them. Perhaps next year we'll come a day earlier or leave a day later. Something so we have some extra time to spend with friends.

     Unfortunately, time flies to quickly when you're having fun. We departed church about 30 minutes after it ended to meet some of the students from camp for lunch and sightseeing. Well, I thought it would be some. It turned out that all of red team and 80% or so of the other students were there to hang out with us one last day. When I went to bed the night before, I said to Brandon it would be a good day tomorrow. I was wrong. It was a great day.
     For lunch, we stopped off in the middle of Kiev at a mall not far from Maidan. I had some kind of Asian-style dish from a place called Noodle Doodle. I highly recommend it if you're ever in the area. Noodles, with beef, veggies and a slightly spicy pepper sauce. It was a little expensive but, in this case, worth the cost. Interestingly, it's one of the first restaurants in Kiev to offer free refills on drinks. Sasha, my team leader, said it was the first time in his life that he has ever had a free refill. Growing up in the States, I've had that since I was a kid. It's interesting the things you learn when you travel outside your comfort zone. The other Americans ate at a place that does salads and one had McDonald's. The consensus was out though on whether American or Ukrainian fries at McDonald's were better.
     After lunch, I got to do something I had never done before. I climbed to the top (well, as far as we could go) of the bell tower at St. Sofia's Cathedral. After I don't know how many times I've been there, I finally got to go. My team leader asked if I wanted to go and with about a second of thought, I said yes. I'm glad I did. It cost 40 grivna and hundreds of narrow, winding stairs to climb up but the view is excellent. Just look at these photos.

A few students from the camp outside the bell tower.

North towards Padol and Andrew's Descent.

South-east towards Maidan and the city center.

North-east to St. Michael's Monestery.

Natasha climbed a bit of ladder to get this shot of us.

The cathedral inside the walls.

Looking down inside the bell tower.

Just some of the stairs on the climb up.

     I didn't buy any souvenirs on this trip besides chocolate. I'm not really interested in them. But it was fun walking with the students and staff from my team. I always learn something new from people when I walk around the city. Like there are more Jeeps in the city than I thought.

     It took a while for all of us to meet back up again. The teams had split into their different colors (GO GREEN TEAM!). While mine was off doing it's own thing, we stopped at Roshen and bought chocolate, stopped at Lvivska Chocolate and got coffee/hot chocolate, and generally just walked around and talked. Side note, at Lvivska Chocolate, I got the Lviv Hot Chocolate. It had cinnamon, amaretto syrup and a few more things in it and it was awesome. Highly recommended.
     After we met up with the rest of the team, we continued the walk down towards the river and then back up to Puzata Hata. By that time, and thanks to my big lunch, I still wasn't hungry. But most everyone else had a full meal. And in typical fashion, it was a good time of hanging out with friends before a final goodbye. We parted ways with most of them after dinner. The rest of the team still had to go buy chocolate so we walked back to Roshen for another round of buying. I don't know why I hadn't noticed it before but there's an interestingly named place right next to Roshen. Apparently it's a stationary store. Someone loves puns even more than David does.

 

Anna, me and Natasha

My arm, Natasha, Megan, David, Zhenya (hidden), Vika and Anna

     From there it took a while to get back to the hotel. We didn't roll into the lobby until after 10:15 that night. But it was good to finally get to bed. Sleep was completely necessary as Monday promised to be a long, long day.

     Our flight wasn't until about 2:45 Monday but we needed to be up and moving so we could pack, have breakfast and get on our bus to the airport. Considering all the things we needed to do, it wasn't hard to get it all done in plenty of time. The line to sign in was clogged with a big group ahead of us. Once they finally got through, we said our final goodbyes, made tentative promises to return next year and walked off towards security. The rest of the journey was relatively uneventful. I guess with air travel, that's the way you want it. But it was interesting in that our flight from Warsaw to JFK was on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. I've got to say, despite the long hours in the plane, it was a comfortable plane. The flight was smooth, I wasn't too hot. I did feel cramped towards the final few hours due to not getting up during the flight. However it was fun flying on that plane. I had a window seat that looked out onto the wing. Sitting on the tarmac, it looked big enough to play a game of Ultimate Frisbee on.

     That big ol' jet airliner carried us part of the way home to a slightly late arrival in JFK. Customs went smoothly, the ride home went smoothly, and I even got a good amount of sleep last night.
     So, the TLDR takeaway of that post was this. We rode a whirlwind tour from a rainy, stormy Saturday to the flighty Monday and made it home safely. I'll update in a few days to write about my real, final thoughts about camp and the trip. For now though, this post has run on too long. Like fish and guests, posts begin to smell if they stick around too long without being published. Nobody likes rotten 1's and 0's sitting in their drafts folder. So I'm hitting the Publish button and leaving you until the next bout of writing inspiration hits me. Have a good day.