Ukraine Follow-up

I'm back! Well, sort of. I'm actually writing this somewhere over the Atlantic ocean on a Boeing 757 on my way home from Amsterdam! Nim's Island just finished showing; the credits are playing now.

The trip was really good, though there wasn't much for me to do. One of the things we did was take a tour of downtown Odessa (Oдeca) and the underground catacombs, where the resistance to the Nazi's lived/fought for three years!

Downtown Odessa has beautiful architecture.

This just looks like a false facade, but the building is actually triangularly built! I thought it was kind of interesting...

Facade... ... actual building!

Odessa's port:

and the street behind it...

(I'm not quite sure who that's a statue of...)

The Catacombs:

Their kitchen...

Their motivation...

This says "blood for blood, death for death"

Their "firewall" (I forget the actual term...)

The infirmary...

The memorial to them...

I've gained a lot from my "Summer of Chaos"; including the "courage" to call it what it really is- A summer of missions and outreach. At first I was embarrassed to call it Summer of Missions, because I know non-Christians read this blog and I thought it would hurt my readership. Now, I don't really care. This blog isn't for them- it's for me! Yea, it's nice to have readers/comments, and yea, I might not be overt about my faith, but I still want to reach out to people and I realize I shouldn't chance things around just to try to get more readers. If someone doesn't want to read my blog because I'm a christian, so be it.

After traveling to poorer countries this summer, I feel like a spoiled brat, to put it lightly. These people have so little! I wouldn't go so far as to say "They're so happy!" because, one, that's to cliché for me, and two, it's not true! These people are searching for something, but they haven't found it!

I don't know where exactly I was going with this, but let me end with this:

Go on a missions/international trip at least once in your life. You will be touched forever by what you see- I know I have. After my first trip three years ago to Costa Rica, I wanted to stay forever!

Bottom line is, seeing poverty on TV is nothing like seeing it first hand, and I'm so glad I've had the opportunities I've had.