The Blogs I Stalk. . . regularly

There are several blogs that I regularly stalk. Blog Stalking is a great past-time. It can be educational, inspirational and entertaining. Most of the blogs I stalk are from folks I know...but not all of them. I've even met some people and made some friends of people I was previously cyber-stalking.

My purpose here is turn-on my readership (all 3 of you) to some of my favorite blogs. Here they are, not necessarily in order of importance.

http://thesift.atlblogs.com/ This is my oldest niece's blog. She's a beautiful mother of 3 energetic boys and a precious girl and she writes with amazing insight into everyday things- especially in regard to raising a Godly family.

http://myapplecheeks.blogspot.com/ Not to be outdone, my 2nd oldest niece also writes with a great deal of dry-humor about all things family- she and her hubby have an adorable little boy and a little girl on the way.

http://pronouncedtwee.blogspot.com/?zx=f0cde57ab8045e60 My friend Thuy (pronounced Twee) and her hubby Ryan tag-team write this really smart and playful blog. Thuy was one of my "kids" in Gulfport and I had the privilege of performing their marriage.

http://hallfamilyadoption.blogspot.com/ If you've never followed an "Adoption Blog" (everyone's doing it...everyone I know that adopts, that is), then you're missing out on putting a lot Kleenex to good use. My friends, the Halls, from Birmingham are currently in Ukraine for the 3rd time in 8 years adopting a child. Follow their journey. Pray for them. Get inspired.

http://www.betheglory.blogspot.com/ (Kim's Blog) and http://tony.tbclife.net/ (Tony's Blog). More Adoption blogs. Tony (Pastor at Temple Baptist in Hattiesburg, MS) and wife Kimberly just completed adopting 4 Ukrainian siblings. Amazing, tender and tranparent stories of their journey.

http://www.sethbarnes.com/ Seth is the Director/Founder/President of Adventures in Missions (The World Race people). I think he's a pretty brilliant, thought-provoking discipler and writer.

http://theworldrace.org Go here to access hundreds of World Racer blogs. If you don't know any of them...pick one from near wherever you live and be their prayer partner, encourager- blog commenter for the year!

http://268generation.com/blog/ Louie Giglio's Passion Blog.

http://www.ellenholder.blogspot.com/ My friend Ellen, a Mississippi girl, serving 2 years in Peru.

http://reflectivereasonings.blogspot.com/ Another MS Girl. She's a heck of a lot deeper than I am and a fairly regular commenter/encourage on my blog.

http://luckyburgerboys.blogspot.com/ Dave Eliff is a kid I met last year at an IMB Conference. He's serving in Cambodia, which is one of my favorite countries.

http://kerussocharis.blogspot.com/ I could care less about Southern Baptist Politics...but Pastor Wade Burleson, a former IMB Trustee brings a lot of things to light...and on rare occasions he brings his hobby for Historical Research to the table.

http://allthingsmaroon.wordpress.com/ I don't have any idea who this guy is- most of his blogs are about Mississippi State University sports with a few random topics thrown in.

http://buzzardroostus.wordpress.com/ Don't know this guy either, but I feel like I should! Another MSU Sports blog from a Baptist Preacher perspective.

http://www.nems360.com/pages/insidemississippistatesports The NE MS Daily Journal's Beat Writer for Mississippi State...this is where I get the scoop!

http://mrsec.com/ Here's the scoop on SEC Sports in general.

That's enough for now.

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.

World Race Final Debrief in Kyiv

I can't believe it's been nearly a month since I last blogged. I haven't been that busy...well, at times, yes I have been.

A good bit of the last two weeks was spent preparing for and assisting The World Race. F Squad was in town for Final Debrief. 11 Countries in 11 Months and it all ended here. I think it ended on a high note.

Some of the squad members arrived almost 2 weeks ago. I met Brian & Stacey Alonzo at the train station and helped them transfer to a bus so they could visit a team in Ivankiv. Brian and Stacey are launching the August 09 Squad in just a few months! I also helped them find a place to stay for a few days here in Kyiv (thank you Peipons!)

A few days later Ashley, Pamela, Tara and Jen arrived to make additional preparations. Thanks to my friend Allyson, they had a place to stay too.


















Finally, last Friday the teams arrived from North, South and West (they had been serving in Lugansk, Ivankiv and Moldova). Seth and Karen Barnes along with the Hindes and the Shearmans also arrived. It was a long day but everyone got picked up and transported to Dozvillya- the retreat center about 30 minutes south of Kyiv.

I was blessed to serve them a little bit, spend time with them, worship with them, get some "debrief" time myself with Seth and attend their final WR Banquet. They cleaned up nicely!

My friend Stephanie Fisk- who traveled with B Squad in 07 was the Squad Leader. What a star! She just completed her 2nd World Race in just over 2 years! Also helping with this Debrief was Allison Johnston-she was the C Squad leader that shadowed A & B back in 07 and she launched the G Squad currently in Romania.

So there ya go. A busy couple of weeks.

I have 7 more classes! Yahoo! Still don't know for sure what I'm doing this summer but the plans are, Lord willing, to split time between working with camps around Kyiv and down South in Lugansk.

Tomorrow night I'm hitting the overnight train to Odessa for a quick visit with some friends- will be back in Kyiv early Monday morning for my last full week of classes.

Farming & Famine

Growing up in the Mississippi Delta it was not at all unusual to drive at least 2-3 hours in any direction and not see anything but flat farmland as far as the eye could see. From even the slightest ridge one could see for miles. At one time the Delta was covered in ancient bottomland hardwoods but by the time I was around they had been reduced to a few sparse windrows and small patches of 2nd and 3rd growth woods.

Drive for 1o minutes out of Kyiv and you encounter stretches of vast fertile, mostly flat (but sometimes slightly rolling) farmland that rivals the mid-western US and fairly dwarfs my MS Delta homeland.

This past weekend I accompanied some IMB friends to a tiny village a couple hours NE of Kyiv to work in a garden. A local Pastor in Kyiv recently bought the property that has a 100 year old home and barn and perhaps 3-4 acres of land. Just like I saw in Lugansk last year, nearly every homestead has a sizeable backyard for gardening.

Here's the thought I was struck with (and today's history primer). The land here is SO fertile- it was considered the breadbasket of the former Soviet Union. An old Ukrainian proverb has it that if you leave your spade standing in the soil, you'll grow Spades!!

There are large farms now, but all in all it is still much closer to the MS Delta of old that was once covered with small family farms (and large plantations too).

So...the history lesson. Following the Russian Revolution in the 20's, Stalin engineered a "Forced Famine", the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932-33. The stated goal was to force small landowners and farmers (peasants) into large collective farms sort of synoymous with communism. To this day Russia mostly denies any intent to force a famine and refers to the period of history as a severe natural event. But at least 18 countries have gone on record to agree with Ukraine that it was engineered and was a crime against humanity- a genocide meant to dispel Ukrainian nationalism. In just 15-18 short months as many as 10 million people died. One history book I looked at said at the height of the famine, 17 people died per minute...25,000 per day. 1/3 of those that died were children. Many of the old men and Babushkas alive today survived this horrible event.

As I spent a few hours in the countryside the scale of such an event blew me away. We are talking about a farmland half the size of Texas yet Stalin was able to so effectively enforce the collectivization of grains and crops and other food sources so as to wipe out up to 25% of the population in some regions, and even higher in some villages. One book I read said this, "...any attempts to grind grain or collect crops from the vegetable gardens were regarded as a crime against the State and punished by execution by firing squad."

So I was tilling the earth in this little garden, considering that a seed dropped anywhere in the yard would yield something...and then I was considering all the gardens throughout the surrounding countryside...and trying to imagine what it would be like to be under penalty of death to pluck a stalk for myself. Crazy.

A Few Thoughts- Easter, etc

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was able to enjoy two weeks of Easter- April 12- the same Easter those of you in the Western World enjoyed, and April 19- Easter according to the Orthodox Calendar.

This is not my first time- actually my third time to be overseas during Easter. It's always interesting! Here are a few observations.

My favorite Easter tradition over here is the very common greeting: "Christ is Risen" and the appropriate response, "Indeed He is Risen"...often repeated 3 times. It's much cooler than just saying "Happy Easter"!

Another cool tradition is that Orthodox Christians begin taking baskets of (usually traditional) foods to church on the Saturday night prior to Easter Sunday to be blessed by a Priest- all in preparation for a really big family meal after church on Sunday morning- in many cases, these Christians have observed Lent so "breaking the fast" is a big deal. So all night long you see families going to church together to have their food blessed. I could make an observation about how there's really no need for them to stand in line to do that...that they are a Priesthood of Believers and they can ask the Lord to bless their meal themselves if they want to...but then again...who am I to judge...in the States our baskets are filled with plastic grass, plastic eggs and chocolate bunnies!!!

One thing I have to remind myself of is that there are amazing, committed, solid followers of Jesus within the Eastern, Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox traditions. And there are some that are caught up in a system of rules and traditions and have no concept of a personal relationship with Christ.

Wait a minute... that pretty much describes Christianity back home too doesn't it?

Twice in the past week I've heard or seen a reference to an apparently famous Ukrainian proverb: "Hope Dies Last". At first blush it would seem synonymous with our "Hope Springs Eternal". But as I read about the history of Ukraine and experience the culture more each day, as I observe and hear about the generally fatalistic attitude that people in this part of the world have- I can see that there's a difference in the two proverbs. "Hope Dies Last" seems to me to imply that, though it may be the last thing to go...it can in fact, die. The history of the Ukrainian people, especially in the last century is tragic. During WW1, during post Russian Revolution, WW2 and the Communist years that followed...this country lost more people than any other country in Europe- maybe the world. They've lost hope many times. Pray with me that Jesus, the Hope of Glory, is made known and made famous throughout this land.

Easter Week

Two Easters in 8 Days! Last Sunday of course was Easter in the Western World, celebrated by the English speaking churches here as well. This coming Sunday is Easter according to the Eastern Orthodox Calendar. I haven't decided yet if I want to go to an English or Russian speaking service. In any case, I do want to go downtown near the Russian Orthodox Monastery just to observe. I understand people by the thousands will be there to have baskets of food blessed in preparation for big family meals on Easter Sunday that will mark the end of the Fasts associated with Lent.

In accordance with the upcoming holiday (Holy Day) I will not have class on Monday and I'm trying to decide what I want to do with a long weekend. I'm waiting on Customs/DHL to clear a package that was sent for a World Racer to me; if it clears by Thursday, then I may book a train for Lugansk on Friday and deliver the package in person while visiting friends down there. I still want to go to Odessa and to Crimea sometime too.

This coming Friday is our 2nd Schoolwide "Cobrania" or meeting. It's a fellowship time for students from all the classes to share a little of what we're learning- in Russian, followed by a traditional Ukrainian meal. You may recall that during our first such meeting I basically said, in Russian, "I'm Clinton from the US, from Mississippi. I'm studying the Russian Language. After that I don't know what I'll do"

This time I'll say something like, "I want to recite 2 verses from the Bible, John 3:16 and Jeremiah 29:11" and then I'll proceed to quote them from memory...in Russian mind you and THEN I plan to sing Matt Redmon's "Blessed Be The Name", also in Russian. Don't be too impressed- I really don't know enough Russian to formulate such sentences; I'm just being a parrot. The trick I guess is to say it all correctly!

Ukraine Invaded by The World Race

The World Race is here.

It started innocently enough about a month ago... three pretty girls passed through for a look see.


















And then a few days ago my old friend Jake arrived and gave me an excuse to go back to TGI Friday's and since he brought some sunny weather with him, then we were able to spend a few days exploring the sights.























But then the dam broke.

Enter 49 World Racers. There's no sneaking around with this bunch!

Upon their arrival they were transported to the village of Kiylov, about an hour outside of Kyiv to rest and prepare for Debrief. We were able to recruit an American Missionary friend to spend a few hours with them for a Cultural Briefing of Ukraine/Eastern Europe.

A staff member from the UN here in Kyiv will give the squad a briefing regarding Sex Trafficking (Ukraine, Moldova and Romania are among the leading "Source Countries" for international sex trafficking).


On Thursday the squad will relocate to a retreat center nearer Kyiv and will be joined by Coaches from the States that will lead their debrief.

It's been fun having them around. It's given me an opportunity to practice my language in an effort to help make arrangements for them and the level of cooperation from ministry friends here in Kyiv has been amazing. God is in this.