Today's the day!

It's official, as of 45 minutes ago: I'm heading to Ukraine today! My bags are half packed on my bedroom floor, with the other half strewn about just waiting to find its place. At 6:30 tonight I will embark on an 18-hour journey from LAX to Moscow to Kiev, all by my lonesome.

Why, you might ask?

Well, I've got this crazy sister over there--Anika's her name. She and some friends moved there just a little over a year ago. Seems there were some kids at an orphanage there who'd captured their hearts, and they wanted to love on them full-time. They started their own nonprofit organization, Open Arms Ukraine (www.openarmsukraine.org), and went to work showing these tough, cast off kids how much God loved them by helping care for their everyday needs. Along the way, they've established some pretty sweet relationships and done some pretty awesome things with that originial orphanage, a prison or two, some different churches, and plenty of individual kids. It hasn't been a walk in the park, but through it all they've been giving and growing and learning and loving, and seen some pretty cool results.

And now it's that time of year once again: summer camp!

That's where I come in. Me and a team of 4 other Americans, and 6+ Ukrainian churchgoers are heading out to that orphanage--the Pravda orphanage--in the next few days, ready to help Anika, Annie, and Melissa put on one wild and crazy camp for the 100+ kids sticking around over the summer. They've planned a SUPERHEROES theme this year, and are going to be teaching through some of the ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (click here for an idea of what these are!). As Anika put it, these kids have heard again and again ABOUT God, but they don't really understand WHO God is and WHAT he's like. So through this camp, they (I mean, WE) hope to show these kids a little more clearly who God is, how much he loves them and wants them--just as they are! And to do that, we're going to show them how much WE love them by putting on 10 days of teaching, rec, crafts, and all manner of Super-craziness!

So how can you be praying? I'm glad you asked! :)

>Pray for our team: that we'll gel and work well together as we're running the day-to-day stuff of camp. That we'll have a common love for these kids and unity of purpose--to show these kids who God is and how much he loves them!

>Pray for the camp: that all rec, crafts, teaching times, and any other logistics will get figured out and things will go smoothly! That everyone will be injury and sickness-free, and that anything that could go wrong, WON'T.

>Pray for the kids: that they'll be open and receptive to all of us crazy people coming to their home--and more important, that they'll be open to the good news about Jesus that we're bringing! That kids will decide to follow Jesus, and truly LIVE it, even in the midst of so much crap in Ukraine.

And now, all you happy people you, it's WAY past my bedtime! I'll do my best to post updates (and maybe some pictures!) while I'm gone, but for now...good night!