Afternoon Missions Work- Emily

What an experience this afternoon was! Throughout tonight we are going to try to have different team members write a post about their experiences.

This afternoon after sports camp Denise, Dani, Jennifer and I went to a home that had 8 young children (20 months to 11 years old) and that is all that we were told going into this. When we got there the children immediately clung to us and wanted to be held and for us to play with them. They put out a table cloth on a little table with a plate of cookies to serve us. We had a bag of gifts for the family (clothes, toys, etc.) and also a bag of food for them. The children wanted presents so we gave each of them a stuffed animal. The mother and father, Lily and Michael, are Christians who have lived in Ukraine but moved to Arkansas for some health issues with Lily for about a year, and are now back in Ukraine. They have 8 children- 4 boys and 4 girls. 3 of them are adopted by Michael and Lily, and they are the guardians of the other 5. In Ukraine it takes years to get the adoption paperwork handled so it is still not official. They are new to Irpen Bible Church.

The children asked if we would go outside and play with them so Dani, Jennifer, and I went outside with Mariana, Michael's sister who lives with them and is like their full time nanny. The children first showed us a bush that had raspberry growing on it and they picked them and ate them straight from the bush. They then drug us around to the backyard where we kicked and tossed balls with them. They then wanted to play "preatke" which is hide and go seek, but there was really no place to hide in their yard so we decided to play tag. Of course they wanted us Americans to chase after them. Even though we were so exhausted from camp this morning, it was such a blessing to be able to run around and play ball with these children. While we were outside Denise stayed in and talked with Michael about their family's story. Each child's story was completely different and were crazy things such as one boy was in the hospital for 2 years in a steel crib, one girl was abused by her father and tells Michael that she still wakes up at night dreaming about her father chasing her mom with an ax.

Before we left, Michael asked Denise to pray for the family. While she was praying the 11 year old girl, Olya, started bawling and she did not want us to leave. She has been a camper this week in Sport Week so we told her that we would see her tomorrow morning. They could not stop saying "spasiba, spasiba!" which means "thank you, thank you" for coming and visiting them. The entire family stood in the driveway as we drove off and waved. It's amazing to think that just the simple game of playing tag with these kids made their entire week.

There are so many other details and stories that I could write about forever, but this is just a brief overview. Thank you for your prayers and support over this entire trip and God is definitely showing Himself here in Ukraine this week.