So much to say, So few Sentences

This probably ends the busiest week since we have been here.  It started Thursday night as we (I should say Colleen, I watched) baked cinnamon buns for my grade 11 and 12 classes to come visit on Friday Morning.  We had a blast as the pictures show

Grade 12 Class

Grade 11 Class

Oh ya, I forgot, before we did the baking on Thursday, we had to go get costumes for Fall Festival on Saturday.  Funny story, well kind of.  Last year, before Halloween, Colleen wanted to buy Ellianna a Tinkerbell outfit for $5 at Walmart.  I said "NO" as we already had an outfit for our child and it is a waste of money to buy another outfit that will only be worn once.  Then, KCA happened.  I have been peppered with questions, "What are your kids going as for Fall Festival"  When I said I didn't have the time, they said "But you have to dress them up" so the Pressure began.  I spent my energies (and my money later) to find a costume shop for my children.  I found one and lets just say I spent an astronomical amount of money just to fit in and be a "good" Dad.  If you have been to PRBI you understand Thought Analysis.  Well, the next morning I was analyzing my thoughts and realized that I did not buy the costumes out of love, but out of personal selfishness.  I did not want to be the dad who did not dress up his kids.  I didn't want to look bad, I wanted to fit in.  I wanted everyone to say how cute my kids looked, I...I...I not one unselfish motivation.  It hurts knowing you have been selfish when it comes to being a parent.  My kids did look cute but how they got there was convicting act.

Our little Spud

If you look closely, the three of us have matching face-paint!

We threw in a first haircut for Jolen (Ellianna has not had one yet)

Marking then began for report cards which the final grades were due on Wednesday.  I am definitely looking forward to an uneventful weekend.

Through it all, God taught me some amazing lessons about myself (which I did not want to learn, but am glad I did) and His grace and forgiveness.  Sometimes I think the Students are the teachers instead of me because I don't know how much I teach them, but try to be the student everyday learning lessons from the pure in heart!

P.S. I have been learning about Canadian English here at an American School.  First, if you wear a touque while using a serviette after poutine while on a chesterfield, they look at you funny.  And also, bells don't go, they ring.  As in "Did the bell go?"  Yes it went"  they look at you funny again.  And one more thing, The American  version of the war of 1812 does not involve Canadians.  Go figure?

Fit to be sick

Oh man, it has been a tough week.  Basically, fall has come with a vengeance to invade my body and keep me away from school.  It has been very pretty outside,

And it is neat because all around us there are maple trees.  So many maple trees that people are employed to rake leaves all day.  And then the next day, they rake the same place because more leaves have covered the ground.  As the leaves fall and they are all in the shape of a Maple Leaf, do you know what I am thinking?   Wow it feels like home, and no, I do not cheer for the Leafs.

Well anyways,  I have been at home battling sickness this week which has been quite difficult.  I had to get a sub, (thank you John P.) but the worst part about being a teacher is that even though I am sick, I have the same amount of work to do to have a sub to teach in class.  You have to come up with lesson plans, PowerPoint slides, be a good communicator, make up assignments.  All from the comfort of your bed, sneezing and sniffling away.  I should have just gone and taught because I am more busy now than when I was healthy, except, I couldn't get out of bed.

Fortunately for myself, John is very flexible so he was able to run my classes smoothly without any real hiccups.  So I got to go to work today and had some tests planned and as I gave them, I found out just what was taught.  It is not easy to make a test for stuff you "think" your students learnt.

Anyway, it was difficult to not have the energy to do more than 5 minutes of work before resting for an hour, but it sure taught me alot about humility as at one point, Colleen was in a language lesson and I was watching Jolen (Ellianna was sleeping) and about 1/2 was through her lesson, I had to give her Jolen and just lay down.  Man, you try to be everything to your kids and your wife and are humbled by a simple illness.

So, tomorrow we are having some of the students over for a party at our apartment as we live only a 5 minute walk away.  Colleen has been hard at work  in the kitchen preparing.

That is one exciting thing Colleen has found here.  She can do ministry by baking!  She loves baking and it is stress relief so when I bring baking to school, the teachers thank me for driving my wife to baking and ask if I can keep driving her crazy for their benefit.  I am truly the lucky one in this relationship as my stomach is never in want!!!

A prayer request we would have is for Colleen as she starts teaching Health at KCA.  Both for her preparing and teaching, but also for the children as they adjust to mom being gone some of the time.

We appreciate all your prayers and thoughts as we take each step forward in Christ day by day.

This Canadian is Thankful for Football (Soccer!)

First of all, on a somber note, I would like you to remember the McPhee family.  We went to Bible School with them, back in the day and he was my professor after he graduated.  Fellow churchgoers at GBF in Sexsmith, they heard God calling them to Uganda and left earlier this year.  While there, they had a baby girl around the beginning of September.  Last week, she started seizurning and they later found out she had holes in her heart.  Selah went home to Jesus last Friday and this Friday they had the funeral service.  Please pray for them and if you would like to financially bless them in this hard time you can click on this link http://tgcfcanada.org/donate/  and then go to Dave and Janna McPhee.  Thank you for holding them up in prayer at this time.

Thing around here have been hectic.  Jolen has started showing us his humorous personality

The kids now that it is October must wear a touque outside even when it is plus 17 because once October hits, children must wear touques because they could get sick, or we will get told our child is cold by everyone on the street.

Thanksgiving in this house has come and gone.  We celebrated God's goodness last Saturday as fellow Canadian friends of ours could not be here this weekend so we, being Canadian, had the luxury of celebrating it early.  It is funny working with a bunch of Americans where Thanksgiving is a huge celebration with a children's program and everyone dresses up.  We told them we moved thanksgiving and they could not fathom that the day could be moved.  I also told them it is celebrated on a Monday just to push them over the edge.

Fellow teachers at KCA were given season tickets to the local soccer team Dynamo Kyiv and they could not make it this last game so they offered me their tickets.  I jumped at the opportunity as I have never been to a futbol game in Europe.  You you think I am a huge fan of the Oilers, you have not seen a passionate fan until a Soccer game in Europe.

My favorite part of the stadium is the fence they put up so the rowdy crowd stays at bay

The stadium seats 70,000 people and there is not one bad seat in the house.  Bigger than Commonwealth Stadium and a much better view

Going crazy after a goal is scored

This section beats on drums all game long!

Those guys are good!  They do things with the soccer ball I can only do in my dreams and even then they are more creative.  It was crazy good futbol.  Ukrainian Premier League is the 9th best league in Europe!  On a side note, on Monday if England ties their game and Ukraine wins, they qualify for the World Cup!

The score ended up being 9-1 for Dynamo Kyiv so as my uncle Myron would say "Guaranteed Goals!"  So we got to celebrate quite a bit!

These tickets we got, on the centre line, and 25 rows up were 60 griven each, or roughly $7.50.  It makes it hard to justify $100 per ticket to see the Oliers sitting in the nosebleed section.

This was probably one of the most difficult weeks of my life as the assignments started piling up and I could not keep ahead of the game.  I texted Colleen on Thursday morning just overwhelmed and you know how people say they feel someone's prayers.  I literally felt her prayers and if you were up at 1:30 am on Wednesday night, I felt yours too!  Thank you for partnering with us as we celebrate God's goodness here and serve in ways we never would have imagined!

A Date with Dad!

So Colleen suggested I go on a Father-Daughter date with Ellianna this past Saturday.  On Saturday morning, we boarded the bus to a mall called Dreamtown and went on a date.  If you were to go into a mall over here, you would notice that nothing is very different.  Sure there are less people and no one speaks English, but they are laid out and look the same.  Malls in Ukraine are expensive places to go, in other words, if you are able to spend ridiculous amounts of money, then you go to the mall or you may go for a birthday party once a year if you are lucky.

For a mall to exist in Ukraine, the rational is that if 10% of the population can shop at the mall then it can be sustained.  Wow!  Only 10% go to the mall.  A stark contrast to Canada where the year I graduated, probably everyone could say they have been to a mall in the last month.  So of my grad class of 60 people, only 6 would have been to a mall.  Those are small odds where our mentality is volume produces profit and the Ukraine mentality is "the more exclusive the place, the more money we make!"

So the mall on a Saturday was not busy but we had fun walking around and getting lost in the hall of mirrors

The hall was probably the size of a small apartment but it took us around 30 minutes to get out

We had some fun running into all the mirrors and they gave me special gloves so I would not mark the mirrors for the next person.

Which Ellianna is the real one?

We were planning on going to McDonalds but, it was in the second half of the mall as we only explored a little bit but we walked by a pizza place and ate some pizza!

Why do I share this?

It is pretty simple, what is important in life?  When we leave Ukraine, will we be thinking "I wish I had spent more time with local Ukrainians" or "I wish I knew more Russian"

Or will we say "Ministry was so important to us that we missed our children growing up."

We had the privilege of going to a KCA soccer game last night and the amount of parent support who said "My kids are the most important thing to me (besides Jesus of course)" was astonishing.  The team we played against was a school of 600 students and our teams were quite outmatched yet, they had 1 or 2 fans and we filled the bleachers with the KCA cheer section!

The other schools joke that every KCA game is a home game!

I have learned that my kids and my wife need to know that they are so dear and important to me and sharing that love to Ukraine is my goal.  I hope and pray the world may see Jesus through my love for my family!