Little Ukraine

So this past weekend we were blessed to share at the Vegreville Alliance Church.  I really enjoy preaching and was given the opportunity on Sunday, but what happened afterwards really hit me.

First, on a lighter note, as my title mentions, Vegreville is like litte Ukraine.  We love Ukrainian Sausage from Stawnichy's and you really haven't eaten real Ukrainian food unless you have had their kubasa!  Well, my parents had a big barbeque afterwards and, because we are in Vegreville, we ate kubbie burgers as well.  My cousin David, who is not from Vegreville, asked what a kubbie burger is.

"It is like a Ukrainian sausage that has been made into a burger patty!"  I exclaimed.

He then shook his head, ate the kubbie burger and we laughed at the ridiculousness of the kubbie burger, yet, it is Vegreville, so the kubbie burger makes sense, only in Vegreville!

I am sure as we go to Ukraine, there will be many things that don't make sense, but they will only because we are there and it wouldn't work anywhere else!

Onto the afterwards stuff - We were visiting our good friends the Proberts on Sunday night and we got talking about how they came to Vegreville.  It is quite an amazing story, but to make a long story short, they tried for 2 years to move on their own and it didn't work, the trusted God completely and it ended with a miraculous yet random phone call on the side of a busy highway in Washington.

They said "We have no idea why God moved us to Vegreville, but we knew God was moving us to the area."

After our visit, I turned to Colleen and said "I know why God moved them here, It was for me!"

I worked for them the summer I graduated and looking back, I was probably not a great worker, yet they kept feeding me and letting me work.  At the beginning, I was eating lunch at their house, by the end, it was breakfast, lunch, supper and probably bedtime snack.  I will never forget that summer.  We did not necessarily speak of spiritual things but we talked about life and they shared their home and food and time.  And for that, I am eternally grateful.  I don't know where I would be without them in my life.

For a teenager, having someone take them under their wing has eternal value.  It wasn't about them needing to share their wisdom or immense spiritualism with me but to share life.  You can do that too, just be yourself.  You don't need to know what you are doing or how to mentor someone, just be real.  It will make a world of difference to someone who is trying to find out who they are in this world.