Back to Kyiv

Saturday July 11, 2009

This was the last day of the VBS classes. The group in Ternopil finished class and then took a two hour drive to Lviv in western Ukraine near the Polish border. This area of Ukraine was under Polish rule for many years and was the center of many activities. We think of old buildings in America that are 50 to 100 years old. Buildings in Europe go back many centuries. We had an opportunity to visit the Armenian Church in Lviv that was built in 1363.

Sign on the Armenian Church indicating its age.


Entrance to the Armenian Church.


As we walked around the center of Lviv we found this street artist drawing one of the local features in chalk.

Sunday July 12, 2009

Ternopil Pastor Taras Kokovskiy watches as Polly Joubert posts some of the craft projects before the church service.


Following the church service, the VBS students gave a concert of the songs they had learned during the VBS program.


VBS students and teachers gathered on the front steps for a group picture.

Thoughts of Faith Ukraine VBS is over for another year. The volunteers will return to Kyiv tonight. Some will travel by van, but most will travel by overnight train. They will leave their cities from early to late Sunday evening and arrive in Kyiv from 4:00am to 9:00am. There will be a bus to the Dubek conference center, time to freshen up and breakfast. Then it will be a sack lunch and off to St. Andrew St. in Kyiv. This is a famous shopping district for Ukrainian souveniers where vendors line up along the street for nearly 1/2 mile.

Late Monday afternoon the volunteers will return to the Dubek Center for dinner and then to pack for travel. The bus to Kyiv Boryspil Airport will arrive at 3:00am for the hour long trip to the airport. They will check in for the 6:40 flight to Amsterdam. From there, there will be return flights to Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit. Please keep all in your prayers until they are once again home safely.

Thank you for following the 2009 Ukraine VBS Prihoda (adventure)!

Kermit Traska

VBS in Kremenets

Friday July 10, 2009

We traveled the approximately 60 kilometers between Ternopil and Kremenets arriving at the church at about 8:30am.

The church is in the center of the town of about 20,000 people. It is a good place to sell what you grow. Today you could buy fresh red currents, black currents, blueberries, red raspberries and black raspberries.


The congregation, with the help of Thoughts of Faith and many others, were able to buy an old restaurant building and convert it to a church building. It is the nicest looking building in the town!


The American volunteers in Kremenets include (left to right) Stephan Babinec, Bill Stiefel, Jaimie Waack, Alyssa Mews, Tammy Schunk, Brent Peterson and Julie Cox.


Before the classes began, Pastor Roman Andruntsiv (far back on right) led the group of American and Ukrainian volunteers in prayer. On Monday, the first day of VBS, there were 101 students. The high count has been 124, and today there were 118 students. The students are divided into four groups by age: primary - 6 to 8 years (22); lower-middle - 9 to 10 years (27); upper-middle - 11 to 13 years (49); and upper - 14 to 18 years(20).


What's that word? It's in English. English based on the Bible lesson is one of the four lessons of the VBS program.


Ihor, a professional music teacher, taught each group for 40 minutes during the four morning sessions. The students will present a concert of the songs they have learned at the end of the morning worship service on Sunday. They will invite family and friends to come to the worship service and to hear them sing.


The young children get into their craft project for the day.


VBS is big news in Kremenets. The weekly newspaper "Dialog" had a picture of the American and Ukrainian volunteers and an article about the VBS program.

Tomorrow, Saturday, is the final day for the VBS lessons. Each group will take part in the worship service on Sunday. Please keep them all in your prayers as they complete their work in the congregations throughout Ukraine and travel back to Kyiv before flying home.

Kermit Traska

VBS in Ternopil

Thursday July 9, 2009

Ternopil is in Western Ukraine. It is one of the two oldest of the 25 congregations in the Ukrainian Lutheran Church, the other is in Kyiv. Ternopil is also the location of St Sophia Seminary of the ULC and the home for the Gift of Life program that provides mobile medical and dental care to the underserved populations of Ukraine and also 5 pro-life counseling centers. The VBS program in Ternopil dates back to 1995 and has been held in this congregation every year since then. This year there is a total of 27 students in the VBS program, 3 in the primary class, 12 in the middle class and 12 in the upper class.

The VBS team in Ternopil consists of (left to right) Elise Brown, Olya Tkachenko Elertson (from Ternopil now teaching at Wisconsin Lutheran High School), Ihor Kokovskiy (translator), Amanda Burk, Pastor Taras Kokovskiy and Polly Joubert. Polly has been the lead person preparing the craft projects for the last several years for the ToF Ukraine VBS program -- thanks Polly for all of your work!


At the beginning of the class a student brought a bouquet of flowers for Polly Joubert.


Polly Joubert goes over the Bible lesson for the day with the help of a translator.


The students add color to one of the craft projects that helps to explain the Bible lesson for the day.


The students are busily at work on the craft project as the pyramids of Egypt begin to take shape!


Singing is an important part of the VBS program. Here the children practice songs that they will sing for the Sunday service.

Tomorrow is a visit to the Kremenets congregation about one hour north of Ternopil. This will end my tour of five congregations in Western Ukraine. VBS has also taken place in seven other congregations in Eastern and Southern Ukraine. Ukraine is about the size of Texas and would be extremely difficult to get to all 12 VBS locations in only one week. We pray that the VBS program will continue and next year the visits will be to those other congregations.

Thank you for keeping up with the VBS program in Ukraine.

Kermit Traska

VBS in Lazarivka

Wednesday July 8, 2009

Today I traveled from Ivano-Frankivsk to Lazarivka to visit the VBS program. It is nesting time for the storks. Yes, in Ukraine, the people also believe that storks bring babies to the families. It is believed to be good luck for the family if a stork chooses your home as a place to build a nest.

Three young storks in a nest by a "lucky home."


The church building in Lazarivka dates back to the early 1900's when it was occupied by a Lutheran congregation. The congregation ceased in 1945 when Communism took over Ukraine. The building was used as a community building. In the mid-1990's, with Ukraine independence, the building was returned to the re-started Lutheran congregation and restored for church use. This is where the VBS program is being held in Lazarivka. Lazarivka is a village of 450 people that is 3 kilometers off the main highway between Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil. There are 31 children in the local school and 26 of them were in the VBS program today.


The VBS team in Lazarivka includes (left to right) Katherine Cleven, Beth Krause, Julia Telko (translator), Pastor Oleksandr Husar and Rachel Skaaland.


The craft projects were divided between the upper (on the left) and primary (on the right). There is limited table space, but the children seemed happy to make do with the space they had whether on a table or on another bench.


This boy of about 7 or 8 years was standing on the road about 50 yards from the church building. He seemed interested in what was going on inside. Pastor Husar went to talk with him to invite him to the VBS program. He said: "Not today, I am too late. But, I will be the first one tomorrow!"


Pastor Husar led the closing prayer at the end of the VBS session.


I explained to the children that some of the pictures I was taking would be on the Internet and asked if any of them had access to the Internet in their homes. They said: "No, but we can get the Internet on our cell phones!" Some of the children have cell phones and they quickly programed www.tof.org into them. What a "connected world" we live in.

Tomorrow I vist the VBS program in Ternopil.

Kermit Traska

VBS in Ivano-Frankivsk

Tuesday July 7, 2009

The city of Ivano-Frankivsk is named after the Ukrainian author Ivan Franko. His statue is in front of the hotel that I am staying in in the Old Town area of the city.



The VBS team in the Ivano-Frankivsk congregation (left to right) Peter Heyn, Sharon Anthony, Steve Ludwig and Pastor Serhiy Romanyuk. Today 48 children attended the three classes that are divided into primay (23), middle (9) and upper (16). They meet in three rooms of a business center near the center of the city.


The primary group made Joseph's Coat of Many Colors and were singing songs in both Ukraian and English.



The middle and upper groups craft project was to make a cross from clothes pins.



This placque was on a side street near the hotel. It recognizes Theodor Zoeckler as a German evangelist who was instrumental in helping to start the Lutheran church in Western Ukraine.

Tomorrow, Wednesday I'll be off to Lazarivka about 40 kilometers north of Ivano-Frankivsk. After VBS I will then travel on to Ternopil to visit VBS in both Ternopil and Kremenets.

Kermit Traska

VBS in Kamyanets-Podilski

Monday July 6, 2009

Volunteer VBS teachers in Kamyanets-Podilskiy (left to right) James McCulloch, Rev. Neal Schroeder, Judy McCulloch and Selah Elmquist.


The opening devotion was led by Pastor Andriy Honcharuk of the Kamyanets-Podilskiy congregation. The congregation meets in the local chess club.



There were 27 students in the first day of classes. They were encouraged to bring their friends for Tuesday.



The 2009 VBS lesson book and a Ukrainian Bible.



The students couldn't wait to start coloring.



Lunch for the volunteers included homemade borshch made by Oksana Mrychkovskiy, wife of the congregation president.

After lunch Victor Mrychkovskiy drove me half way to Ivano-Frankivsk where we were met by Pastor Serhiy Romanyuk for the remainder of the trip. Tomorrow I will visit the VBS program in Ivano-Frankivsk and add more photos.

Kermit Traska

Monday and Map of Ukraine

It is already Monday and the VBS classes begin today in 12 congregations all across Ukraine. A map of Ukraine is above to give you a general idea of the 12 locations where VBS is taking place. On Sunday our hosts in Kamyanets-Podilskiy took us on a tour to visit Chrystal Cave and a 12th century castle. In the evening we visited the Old Town with many buildings and a castle from the Middle Ages. About 750,000 visitors a year come to Kamyanets-Podilskiy. There is a family from Pennsylvania in the hotel. Last night as we were waiting for the lights on the castle to come on, we heard English being spoken. There was a man and his wife and another man from Australia. The single man was not traveling with the others, but had met that day on a bus going to the castle. It's a small world after all. The one man's grandfather left the Ukraine city of Kolamiya in 1944 because of the war.

Today I visit the classes in Kamyanets-Podilskiy and then travel on to Ivano-Frankivsk to attend the classes there tomorrow.

Thanks for following the Thoughts of Faith, Ukraine VBS program.

Kermit Traska