Adventures in Lviv, Part I

Lviv

Byron's last post gave a clear idea of how the Lord got us to our hostel safely (thank you Russian-Italian lady!), but there's been more adventure in the last day and 1/2 that we'd like to share with you!

Let me start by saying, the Lord has really been driving home 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, which reads, "And He [God] said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly I will boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

With context in mind, we know that Paul is talking about having a thorn in his side, but I think this passage of scripture can easily be applied to what Byron and I have been experiencing on this trip... We've certainly had some "infirmities" or "thorns" of sorts, which have really shown us how weak we are, but how strong the Lord is.

So, here we go!

Date night at a pizza place

It all started when we tried to check into our hostel on Thursday... Our credit card wasn't working for some reason, and so we couldn't pay for our room. Praise the Lord, we had favor with the hostel attendant, and we still were given room keys. But we found ourselves a little panicked... We only brought enough cash to pay for food and transportation, not to pay cash for three nights at a hostel. We tried to put the worry out of our minds and decided we'd just wait until a new attendant arrived for work, and we'd have her run our card again. By the way, the language barrier added a little stress to the money situation as well.

We go to our room to count our money and realize that if we pay cash for our hostel, we will have exactly $15 cash left with us. Because of the time difference, etc., we decide to work on it the next day... Our priority at the time was to see the city before it got dark outside.

This is where just funny little attacks from the enemy started to happen. As many of you know, I'm

The stairs I fell down and the
chunk of missing wall

notoriously clumsy. We're walking down the stairs to leave our hostel and I note to Byron that the cement is really hot and somewhat slippery. No sooner did I say this and I slipped and started to fall down the stairs. I fell about three steps, about to go into a full roll, when I reach out to stop myself on the windowsill. Well, it's quite an old building, and I ended up breaking a huge chunk of the windowsill off of the window, sending chunks of cement flying everywhere. Fortunately, my steady-handed husband caught me before I could fall much further, and I only got a small cut of my foot (don't worry, I had my last tetanus shot in April).

The Lord really protected me, thank goodness, and I was able to walk fine after a few minutes.

Lviv is a beautiful city, rich in architecture and culture. We really enjoyed walking around, taking pictures, and eating McDonald's haha, but it was time to go back to our hostel and get ready for bed.

Toilet paper cover

When we get back to our room, I decide to take a shower. As I enter the bathroom, I notice a few things of interest. First, that there's a metal covering over the toilet paper. Second, there's a mop in the bathroom. Third, there is

The mop

only tile in the bathroom. No rugs, no carpet, no wood.


I step into the shower and turn it on... I kid you not, it is the highest pressure shower head I think I have ever used in my life! It was like trying to shower with a fire hydrant! Not only that, but the shower head was positioned high enough on the wall so that the water couldn't even reach my head unless I was standing half way across the bathroom. Everything in the bathroom was soaked too. I yelled to Byron

Shower head of doom

saying I needed help, and thanks to his genius mind, he remembered that we have a big bowl with us for washing clothes, so I have been filling that up in the sink and using it to wash my hair. The mop really came in handy when I was cleaning up the watery mess, by the way.

So, the next day, our money situation becomes more desperate. We discover that it's not our card, it's the hostel's card machine. We go to an ATM to get more cash and discover that Bank of the West (which my father-in-law has appropriately renamed "Bank of the Worst") failed to change our pin number (we changed it before leaving town because we had forgotten what the old one was), and left us unable to get money out of the ATM. We used the wifi to FaceTime call my mom (thank you iPhones!) and she started working on things in the states (no phone numbers for Bank of the West work abroad). Of course, there was nothing they could do, so we just had to rely on the Lord (talk about our weakness being evident!).

Right before going to bed, the hostel attendant came and told us we had to pay by the morning. We went to sleep a little nervous, but put our trust and hope in the Lord.

Lviv at night

This morning, there was another attendant working, thank goodness, who new exactly what to do with our card, and got it all working fine. We were able to pay for everything, and we still have money for food.

I think sometimes, as Americans, we are often so well provided for, we never experience what it's like to

Sunset in Lviv

need the Lord to show up for the little things... This was a precious time of growth for Byron and I because only He could work all of this out. And like Byron wrote in his journal back in the Moscow airport:

"You know, this trip has had a lot of issues come up, and I really believe we would not have made it this far already if it wasn't the Lord's will for us to move to Ukraine."

So, that's what's going on with us right now... Hope you guys had a great 4th of July and have been protected from the fires, for those of you in Colorado.

God bless,
Emily

Ice cream by the opera house