Ukrainian for the Summer: Weeks 2-3

Okay. Originally I planned on uploading a blog a week, to update y’all on everything that’s been happening.

Obviously, considering that this is like, week five and I’m on my second post.... that didn’t happen.

But in my defense? It’s been a W-I-L-D couple weeks. So I’ll give you the quick and dirty breakdown of the past weeks two through three, and we’ll tackle weeks four through five next time, mkay?

Week 2: Dazed and Confused

Sunday, June 27

Day Six: I don’t know what you’re saying, but I think I like it.

I went to church with Joy today. Not in one of the onion-domed, blindingly-gold, 1600s churches. (Although we passed two of those on the way.)

No, Joy’s church was in a 25-floor office building near a vet’s clinic. We rode the dimly lit elevator to the very top, and followed a trail of green apple stickers that had been stuck to the floor. I paid so much attention to these stickers that I walked right past our hallway.

We were the first people there. With no keys to the room, we waited in the hall. It deadended a few feet away. The floor beneath my feet looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since… ever. I scuffed the linoleum with my sandal, trying to scrape away some dirt, but the grime adhered to the tiles. It looked less church, and more about-to-be-murdered-by-an-escaped-convict. When I heard footsteps around the corner from where we’d come, I wasn’t sure if I should expect the pastor, or Johnny from “The Shining”.

Thankfully, it was the pastor. He and his sister and his son and nephew greeted us and unlocked the door. It’s polite in Ukraine to wash your hands as soon as you enter a house or building, since, you know, our hands are actual cesspools of disgustingness. As I scrubbed my fingers over the kitchen sink, I took in the little church. It looked a bit like an office building. I was in a kitchen/office, with a desk and filing cabinets tucked beside the countertop and sink. The wifi password had been tacked to the wall above the desk. There was a tiny bathroom, a cramped sitting room where the two boys were now playing, and what could have been the conference room.

Of course, this was a church, so this particular “conference room” was for meetings with, well, God. There were a few rows of chairs, a projector hanging in one corner pointed at a whiteboard, and a wall AC unit, which the pastor was currently trying to turn on.

The gesture for “The remote’s not working,” is universal in all languages. I watched as he shook the remote, knocking the end of it against his palm. His holy touch must have fixed it, because there was a beep and whirring, and cool air slowly chugged out of the unit. Praise the Lord, because I’d already sweated through my dress at that point.

Folks trickled in slowly, and Joy introduced me to them. I tried to keep the names straight in my head, and racked my brain for greetings and pleasantries. Alas, I’m not good at small talk in my native language, and in a foreign one it’s even harder. But they were all very friendly, and we nodded and smiled at one another, trying to be polite even if we couldn’t speak.

After twenty minutes of this, the fifteen of us clustered into the conference room. I tried to sing the songs that were projected on the screen, but other than “Icuc” (Jesus), I had no idea what I was saying. After songs and prayer, the pastor put the passage up on the screen. I sounded out the letters, my mouth moving silently as I tried to make sense of the reference. Eventually, I realized it was Proverbs.

The pastor preached and I listened, utterly clueless as to what he was saying.

When it was time to pray, I bowed my head and waited for the chorus of "ahmeen’s" that meant it was over.

And as we sang the closing song, I gave up trying to pronounce all the words and just hummed along.

And as out of the loop as I felt, I also knew how loved and welcomed I was there. Maybe it’s cheesy, but these people were my brothers and sisters. We sang to the same God, just in a different language. Our churches look different, but God works in both of them. These were faithful, diligent men and women, who loved Jesus.

It was the most comfortable I’d felt all week.

•••

Monday, June 28

Day Seven: Ukrainian McDonald’s and Sushi.

My brain.

Is.

Mush.

This morning, Joy had a language lesson and I worked on Ukrainian homework. Afterwards, we went to McDonald’s for lunch.

There’s five American restaurants in Kyiv: Cinnabon, KFC, Domino’s, and McDonald’s.

And Ukrainina McDonald’s?

It’s kinda nice.

They have fancy teas and better McFlurries and special-flavored milkshakes.

After lunch, we walked back to the apartment building where my Ukrainian lessons were held. It was my turn.

My teacher, Helen, drilled me on lists of verbs and how to introduce myself. I stumbled over eight-syllable words, so long that by the time you reached the end, you’ve forgotten the beginning. Helen chattered about adjectives and how they change to match the noun, and how the noun changes to match the amount, until I had to beg her for a quick break.

She continued to murmur about tenses and word order, until I excused myself to use the bathroom. If I heard anymore Ukrainian, my head was going to explode.

After two hours of that, Joy and I went home. We had to grab veggies for dinner, and stopped at one of the dozen produce stands that speckles our street.

Then, because tap water isn’t safe to drink, we needed to take the huge, 19 liter water jug over to get filled.

As soon as we walked in the door and I kicked off my shoes, I turned to Joy.

“You look exhausted,” she informed me.

“I feel exhausted,” I assured her.

I crawled into my room and curled up on the bed. My head felt like it had been put through a blender. Random letters and various words kept floating into my thoughts, but I didn’t have the mental capacity to remember what they meant. It felt like my pureed brains were leaking out of my ears.

Of course, Helen had given me homework for our lesson tomorrow, so after an hour or so I oozed out of bed, slid down the hall, and plopped onto the living room couch to start memorizing conjugations and adjectives.

That night, I flopped into bed and begged for a dream world without possessives or past perfects or participles.

And let me tell you.

I slept like a baby.

•••

Tuesday, June 29

Day Eight: I am unstoppable.

After yesterday’s mental jiu-jitsu, I wanted nothing more than to lie on the couch for the next two days and mindlessly watch animated cartoons. My brain still ached from the previous day’s lesson, and the idea of going out into public, surrounded by unknown words plastered on signs and random jabbering from strangers sounded like Dante’s tenth circle of Hell.

Unfortunately, I had another lesson that morning.

And this one I was tackling on my own.

Joy and I had agreed a few days ago that I should try to travel on my own, and since we had separate lessons going on at the same time, I would need to get myself to Helen’s anyway.

And guess what y’all?

I did it.

Allow me to break it down for you:

Step one: Get out of the door.

I found the keys, unlocked the door, and made it to the lobby without a hitch. Granted, I didn’t see a single person, so that part was pretty easy but still. Walking out of the building and down the street, all on my own, gave me the sense of power that I imagine the Wright brothers, or Peter Parker felt. The world was mine.

Step two: Get my marshrutka.

This part would test my cultural aptitude. Would I be able to flag down one of the yellow and green beasts that prowled the streets? With their masters who muttered and snapped out questions that I couldn’t understand? This step also required me to interact with another human: I needed to hand the driver money, and tell him it was a ride for one. I didn’t have anything smaller than a 100 hryvnia note. A marshrutka only cost 8 hryvnias. And people hated making change.

But there was no way I could walk the five miles to class.

This was my only option.

So, I gritted my teeth, tried to adopt the stoic, cool indifference of the people around me, and waited for my bus.

After what felt like years (during which time I played multiple scenarios through my head, including being sent back to America for my gross misconduct of using a ₴100 note for an 8 cent ride), I saw the green beast shuffling down the street. I threw out my arm. The beast paused, jerking to a stop.

“Odyn,” I muttered, tossing the note onto the bus driver’s middle console. He grunted. I froze. Be cool. Just be cool. The driver slammed the door shut, and sent the bus lurching forward. I gripped the pole in front of me and waited. It wasn’t over yet. I had to get my change back, and, when the time came, call out my stop.

Bus drivers here are pretty daggone talented. They can simultaneously drive stick, count change, smoke a cigarette, watch for waiting passengers, and perform oral surgery, all while talking on the phone.

While the marshrutka sputtered forward with a growl, I watched the driver count my change. His phone was pinned between his shoulder and ear. His calloused, leathery fingers searched through his box of bills as he swerved back into the lane of traffic. He tossed me a couple banknotes. I snatched them up and stumbled over to a free seat. That was the easy part.

The hard bit was finding my stop. I checked off landmarks in my head as we went: Belmart, Epicenter, mural of a giant baby, lake… the lake meant we were really close. That was when I was supposed to call out “next stop.”

I’d run the words over and over in my head, but suddenly I doubted my pronunciation. Was it “na stenokay” or “na steno-v-kay”? What if one was a cuss word? What if I accidentally called the driver’s mother a leathery cow? That seemed unlikely but I didn’t know.

At this point we were almost past the lake. I was running out of time.

“Nah stan-- stenokey.” That definitely wasn’t right. Dang it.

However, the bus driver didn’t seem to care. He didn’t even look up from rolling his cig. Had he heard me? I tripped forward to the front of the bus to wait by the doors. He’d notice me waiting, right?

The bright green Novus grocery store, the one next to my language class, slid into view. Was he going to stop? As I opened my mouth to call out again (maybe it was ‘na stenovkay’?) the marshrutka screeched to a halt. Good thing I had the pole in a death grip. Otherwise I’d have been dumped onto the floor of the bus, where surely the other passengers would have laughed at me, before sending me to Siberia for touching the floor. But I stayed on my feet, and stumbled out of the bus, into the morning light.

I turned and watched the bright green monster trundle away.

“I’m incredible,” I muttered to myself, before tripping over a pothole.

•••

Wednesday, June 30

Day Nine: Jess, Joy, and Jane Austen

Today was an off day. Joy and I watched the three-hour-long Sense and Sensibility movie from BBC. We ate popcorn and chocolate chips.

It was a solid day

•••

Annnnnd… here’s where this whole “weekly blog thing” starts going downhill.

I can give you the briefest sketch of what happened, but honestly? It was kind of a long time ago, so I can’t give quite the detail that I have been.

But let me tell you some of the things I’ve learned from this week:

When working in ministry, ONLY WRITE IN PENCIL.

See, my teammates and I had been planning on leaving for our first camp on Friday. But then we were told we wouldn’t be able to arrive until Saturday. And then… we found out that we’d have to wait until Sunday to go to the camp.

So we decided to use Thursday for shopping and planning. Only, one of the missionary kids fell the night before and needed to get x-rays to check if he broke his arm. And then, that same night, their family’s car got towed. So instead of shopping, Joy and I spent the day working on our lesson planning.

Friday, we finally made it out to go shopping. Afterwards, the other student intern and I spent the afternoon putting together a trampoline for our teammate’s family.

Week 3: English Camp

On Sunday, we made a two-hour trip outside Kyiv to a camp in the middle of the woods. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to tell you about the entire week in this post. So let me sum it up like this:

Close your eyes for me. Imagine summer camp. Not like it is in the movies, with random twelve-year-olds making out behind the cabins and sneaking off to go jump in the lake. No. Imagine instead the weight of the sun on your shoulders, random games of pick-up football and volleyball, early mornings and late nights. Think about new friendships forged over shared gum and learning how to weave bracelets. Remember when, during the songs and evening program, the kids you just met would grab your arm and haul you to the stage to dance and sing. You felt awkward and unsure, but then, so did they. And that was the beauty of it. You could be foolish because they were foolish with you. You could scream at the top of your lungs over random Minute-To-Win-It games because everyone else was. You could throw your whole self into get-to-know-you activities because that was the whole point. You endured weird camp food (I’m talking cold pasta alfredo for breakfast and chocolate bars at every. single. meal.) because afterwards, while you walked back to your cabin arm-in-arm with people who last week were complete strangers, you guys would groan and laugh at the craziness of it all.

I didn’t really go to summer camp as a kid. I did church camp, but I went with, well, my church. So I knew people. These kids? They met each other on the busride, and suddenly they were inseparable. And age difference? Didn’t really matter. I’m talking seventeen-year-olds chanting the names of tiny fifth graders.

photo by author

Not only was it fun to be foolish, but being one of thirteen Americans in a sea of Ukrainians made me… kinda awesome. On the first day, a gaggle of pixie-esque middle school girls timidly approached me. I smiled at their obvious leader, a girl sporting a hot pink t-shirt with the words “What do you meme?” on it, and a lavender bucket hat. Our interaction went something like this:

Me: “Pryvit!”

Meme-Shirt Girl: “Hi! Are you, uh, America?”

Me: “Yes, I’m from America.”

Meme-Shirt Girl: “What is your, ah, name?”

Me: “I’m Jess! What are your names?”

Meme-Shirt Girl: “I’m Iryna, and this is Inna, and this is Marina.”

Me: *to myself* Yeah, I’m never gonna keep them straight. *out loud* “Nice to meet you!”

Iryna: “You are pretty!”

Me: “Oh thank you! You guys are so pretty too!” (What else do you say to that?)

Marina: “You are a-- um-- pretty American!”

Me: “Haha, thanks!” (I can’t take compliments. It’s really bad.)

Iryna: “Will you… uh… study us English?”

Me: “Teach you English? Sure! But only if you teach me Ukrainian, too!”

Iryna: *giggling* “Okay!”

They looked at me, expectantly. I smiled back at them. Did they mean right now? What did they want to know? Inna jumped in, then, grabbing one of the other nearby girls.

Inna: *murmuring in Ukrainian, pointing at me; the two giggle*

Me: “Uh, what did you say?”

Iryna: “She said, ‘This is our pretty American friend, Jess! She will study us English.’”

Despite feeling horribly awkward, we found a table and a translator and I introduced them to some American slang. Our table slowly filled, and kids were jumping over each other, arguing or laughing in Ukrainian and Russian. While I told them about “lit” and “slaps” and “bruh” and “vibe”, they tried to teach me some Ukrainian slang. (I was hesitant to use it, though. Something about the way they laughed when I repeated the phrases made me think they were pulling my leg. Later I found out I was right to be wary.)

But the best part of camp?

It was about Jesus.

Here’s the thing. Ukrainians want to learn English. Like, really bad. In fact, they’re so eager that they’re willing to listen to Bible stories if it means they’ll get a chance to practice their English.

Team 5 babyyyyy (photo by author)

So we talked about Adam and Noah and Moses and Jesus. Sometimes in English, sometimes in Ukrainian or Russian. My team, Team 5, was made up of older kids. Thoughtful, curious, goofy, loud, and genuine kids. And let me tell you, they asked some serious questions.

Questions like:

• Who made God?

• How did God create the world in seven days?

• Why should I listen to God?

• Why go to church? (Remember, Ukraine is predominantly Eastern Orthodox. Think LOTS of rituals.)

• Did your parents make you go to church? Would you make your kids go?

• What if God’s not real? What then?

• What do you do when you feel lost?

• The Bible is more like fantasy. Why should I believe it’s real?

• If Jesus is God, how did God die?

• Isn’t the trinity sacriligious?

And more.

As someone who grew up in the church, who was raised on a steady diet of Bible and fellowship with other Christians, these questions never really took up space in my mind. God created the world in seven days because He’s God. He can do that. We go to church to be with other believers, to hear the Word, and hear from God, and worship Him. Why wouldn’t I want to go? Of course the Bible is real. I mean, Josephus and Esebius and Herodotus all back that up.

But then… what if I hadn’t been raised in the church? And my parents hadn’t poured the Word into me, and been examples of Godly living? What if I hadn’t gone to a Chrisitan high school, or a Christian college?

Not to mention… what if my grandparents had grown up in an era where Christianity was banned? In fact, the facilities our camp was using had once been a communist propaganda camp. Teens had been shipped here every summer and taught for weeks that God was dead and to shake their fist at the sky. Less than fifty years ago, the same room we were currently using to teach about Christ had been used to curse His name.

But you know something?

The most important thing is the gospel.

Until that gets through to us, nothing else is going to make sense. Until the Holy Spirit digs past the sin and doubt and rebellion that stops up our hearts, we will continue to feel confused and frustrated and aggravated. Until we accept that all-important event, the Bible will be nothing but a book of fairy tales.

The most important thing is the gospel.

And, like I said early, there is a lot more I would like to say about this week at English Camp. But this post is already miles long, and I won’t ask you to read anymore right now. I’ll share about it later, I promise.

For now, let me end with this: Ministry is hard. Language is exhausting. Planning is impossible. But God is good.

Thanks for everything English Camp!

English Camp 2021 (photo by author)