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!