I've spent the last 2 weekends on the road. Good trips. Last weekend I went with our Pastor and a couple other guys from church to a youth conference near Ivano-Frankivsk, about 4 hours away. As best as I can tell there were about 6 area churches involved for the one day event. I wasn't entirely sure what my role was leading up to the event but I was prepared to preach if needed and I knew I was going to present the Introduction to our Youth Ministry Strategy to a group of leaders. Sure enough, I preached the opening session. It went alright I guess. That afternoon I presented our strategy to a room full of youth workers from 5-6 churches. I thought it went really well. I know one of the churches is really interested in contracting with us to Coach them but I think money is a little bit of an issue. And another church that was at the event sent some of their workers to the other conference I attended this past weekend.
This past weekend, the Ukrainian organization I work for- Ruka Dopomogy- sponsored a regional youth leaders training event in Lviv. Lviv is supposedly the most European city in Ukraine. The little bit I saw was beautiful. I'm hoping to go back one weekend soon and just visit. At the conference I preached on Friday night and then I taught two workshops on "How to Plan a Mission Trip" on Saturday. We offered 3 different "tracks" for youth workers so there was a variety of things happening. We had a couple different church worship bands leading worship and they were really good!
A highlight of the weekend was staying with a Ukrainian family. So...I was staying with the "In Laws" of the brother of one of our partner Youth Ministers. Got that? It's easier if I name names. Ivan is the brother, I was staying with his wife's parents. Ivan and his wife have a 2 year old girl. His wife's mother also has a 2 year old girl. The little Aunt and Niece could almost be twins. SO CUTE!
On Saturday morning, the Ukraine Director for A21 (an international anti-trafficking organization) spoke. She presented some great information; I hope we get some good feedback from that. It's such an important topic here. One of the crazy statistics she presented was that 80% of repatriated trafficking victims (those who were originally trafficked to another country and eventually sent back to Ukraine) are re-trafficked. How tragic! And I bet the number is even higher for victims of domestic trafficking.
I took some pictures but forgot my camera this morning so I'll to post again later this week. This should be a relatively slow week for me and I'm hoping to nail down some appointments and details because I'm receiving a World Race Team next week!!
This past weekend, the Ukrainian organization I work for- Ruka Dopomogy- sponsored a regional youth leaders training event in Lviv. Lviv is supposedly the most European city in Ukraine. The little bit I saw was beautiful. I'm hoping to go back one weekend soon and just visit. At the conference I preached on Friday night and then I taught two workshops on "How to Plan a Mission Trip" on Saturday. We offered 3 different "tracks" for youth workers so there was a variety of things happening. We had a couple different church worship bands leading worship and they were really good!
A highlight of the weekend was staying with a Ukrainian family. So...I was staying with the "In Laws" of the brother of one of our partner Youth Ministers. Got that? It's easier if I name names. Ivan is the brother, I was staying with his wife's parents. Ivan and his wife have a 2 year old girl. His wife's mother also has a 2 year old girl. The little Aunt and Niece could almost be twins. SO CUTE!
On Saturday morning, the Ukraine Director for A21 (an international anti-trafficking organization) spoke. She presented some great information; I hope we get some good feedback from that. It's such an important topic here. One of the crazy statistics she presented was that 80% of repatriated trafficking victims (those who were originally trafficked to another country and eventually sent back to Ukraine) are re-trafficked. How tragic! And I bet the number is even higher for victims of domestic trafficking.
I took some pictures but forgot my camera this morning so I'll to post again later this week. This should be a relatively slow week for me and I'm hoping to nail down some appointments and details because I'm receiving a World Race Team next week!!
1 comment:
thanks for the update, clinton... it's amazing to me to see it fall together like it does, but amazing in a "wow-God-is-great" way, not in a "wow-I-wasn't-expecting-that" way. My heart breaks to hear those statistics on trafficking, tho. Being re-trafficked must be a hope-quenching thing. My prayers are ever going out. Keep up the faith!
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