Coupe' Potluck- you never know what you're gonna get!

I went to Odessa this past weekend. Yeah, everything about living here is an adventure sometimes.

To begin with- just buying the train tickets. I feel like I'm becoming a Pro- but in fact, it's mostly luck and/or God's good grace. I just smile and nod like an idiot and somehow end up with the right tickets! This time, I was late getting to the train station and missed my train by about 2 minutes. There was another train leaving an hour later and I thought I could probably swap my ticket for a small fee...but while I was waiting in line (apparently looking like an American!) a guy approached me and offered to sell me a ticket for the next train. After haggling a bit, I bought it for about $1.25 more than what I paid for my original ticket...but then he wanted my old one. That's when I realized that he probably got the best of me- I presume he got at least a partial refund on my unused ticket. Oh well... it would have been a bear for me to communicate what I wanted anyway!

So... I left an hour later and arrived in Odessa at 9 am Saturday morning. I shared a "Coupe'"- a small room on the train with 4 bunks with a lady that appeared to be asleep when I boarded. It was a quiet trip to Odessa. Some friends with IMB met me (and gave me a place to stay) in Odessa. The world is getting smaller over here for sure: While I was staying with one IMB couple, I ran into two other couples that I know AND ran into two girls from the SEND School that were also visiting for the weekend (they were staying with one of the other IMB families).

The two highlights of the trip were visiting Maxim's church Sunday morning. Maxim is a Ukrainian youth minister I worked with way back in 2004 the first time I visited Ukraine. As is often the case when you visit one of the smaller churches in Ukraine, you get asked to "share"- so I shared some of my testimony. The other highlight was that Maxim and I both got in touch with my friend Katya and she and her baby sister came to church. After church, I walked them home and spent most of the day with her family (communicating in broken Russian, English and Charades!)

Back in 04 I brought a team of students from Bayou View to Odessa for a week. We conducted 2-3 Children's Bible Clubs per day! At one club, I fell in love with 2 little sisters and their brother (Katya, Vika and Yura). I got to see them last year when I visited Odessa and now that I live here, I want to stay in touch.


The final leg of the trip turned out to be the most "interesting". As I boarded the train home, I opened the door to my Coupe' and discovered three women- probably all early 50's. They didn't speak English and I knew just enough Russian to get them good and intriqued. It was pretty hilarious. I don't know if one of them was "crushing" on me, or if she was interested in me on her daughter's behalf. Her daughter speaks some English, so the mother called her daughter and put her on speaker phone and we got to know one another for about an hour before we lost cell phone reception. Some of the questions included: "How old are you?", "Are you married? Have children?", "Why not?", "What do you think of Ukrainian women?" (I remember getting that question in Swaziland too!) When they learned I work with the church and with children and teens and want to work with orphans, you would have thought they just opened a box of puppies!

So funny...it's probably a good thing I didn't catch all they were saying to one another...I would hear "Mississippi", "Clinton"...and then they'd all get silly laughing.