Passing Through

(and they come in bigger sizes than that.)

26/04

This past weekend, VP was host to a half dozen American evangelicals on a lightening tour of Ukraine. I was asked by a churchgoing teacher at my school if I might help with some translation, and I was more than happy to offer my inadequate services for a chance to meet and greet our visitors from Tennessee. The chance to translate never actually came into fruition, as they brought their own professional interpreter (whew!). But as I sat in the back of the auditorium and listened to their sermon, I became fascinated by the experience of being on the receiving end of a missions trip (not that I was ever on the giving end).

I suppose it is a given that if one holds strong convictions, then the opportunity to share these convictions with others might eventually lead one to far away places (i.e., Peace Corps or missionary work). But when two neighbors find themselves on the same far-away swath of land on account of two very different sets of convictions, I think, face to face, they can only baffle each other.

15/04

My apologies for the delay. I have spent a lot of time away from this computer, but would still like to keep people reasonably well informed about my service. I will strive for monthly updates at the very least. Try to hold me to it. Since my last post, I have taken on a few extra projects, including a weekly English Club at my school. I also have taken on some private tutoring (demand grossly outweighs supply [specifically, of my time {I am approached on an almost daily basis}]). So these things, along with my daily class load of English and German lessons (and my own Russian language tutoring), are keeping me plenty busy work-wise. Another big factor in the schedule of any given day can be summed up with the simple ‘how long will it take me to walk there?’ In the case of my Russian tutoring, round trip might be more than an hour, depending on if I want to attack, or crawl up, the hill back home. It is quite literally a two-kilometer ascent. Shallow, but ascending nonetheless. Now if I could only learn how to plan a lesson in less time than it actually takes to teach it, I could really start freeing up some time…