Hello from Ternopil!

Hi guys, 

This is Byron writing. I'm up late here in Ukraine on jet lag, watching some playoff baseball!

I thought I would take the time to make a post on our blog. I noticed we haven’t posted since we arrived in Ternopil on Wednesday night. So here's the rundown of what's happened in our first few days as missionaries!

10/3 - We flew into Paris from Minneapolis early Wednesday morning. Our layover was a little under 3 hours, however, since we flew stand by to Paris we had to switch airlines to get to Ukraine. Because of this we had to go through the Paris customs, grab our checked bags, and then get to the other side of the airport (by the way, that airport is huge!). It was a stressful few hours as we raced across the airport with all of our huge bags, trying to find the correct terminal. After lots of sweat and prayers, and by the grace of God, we found Ukrainian Airlines and checked in with minutes to spare. We didn't even have time to get on the wi-fi or even use the bathroom!

Needless to say, we were so thankful to land in Kiev, find that all our bags had made it and see some of the CC Ternopil team waiting for us! From Kiev, we had a 5 hour drive out to Ternopil. What a blessing it was to be able to just sit and relax in the van. We were so thankful that Pastor Jon could pick us up.

We arrived in Ternopil around 9pm on Wednesday (10/3). We were so excited to see our new apartment (even though we had to haul our extremely heavy bags up five stories!). We love our new apartment, the Lord has really blessed us.

10/4 - After getting some much needed rest, our goal for the first day in Ukraine was to get a cell phone, sim card, and put minutes on it, and buy a few groceries. This was the point when we realized life is going to be extremely different than what we were used to back home. It took us a while to find the store, purchase the new phone and find a kiosk that we could put minutes on the phone and buy some food. Then we had to find our way back home which took a while as well. We have learned to start thanking the Lord for the little things in life. We are also so thankful for internet as it was not working until about 6pm that night and we were able to finally email our family to let them know we made it safely.

10/5 - We had our first team meeting with the Calvary Ternopil team. We're getting excited to get plugged in and start doing ministry!

That evening Sharon and her boys had us over for dinner. It was a huge blessing to have a home cooked meal. We were able to somewhat figure out the marshrutka (small bus) system here. However, on our way back from Sharon's we missed our stop and ended up on the outskirts of town at night with the driver asking us to get off the marshrutka. We had to call Jon for help and he explained to the driver were we needed to go. That's a mistake we'll never make again :)

10/6 - We went to an African student concert tonight. It was a awesome time to meet a bunch of the students here in Ternopil and see some of their culture. Emily and I were talking about how we would love to start a Bible study with a bunch of these students as soon as possible (they speak English!)


Prayer requests:

-Pray that we get familiar with the city quickly

-Pray for us as we begin to study Ukrainian

-Pray for us as we struggle to communicate with the locals

-Pray for the Lord's leading in ministry opportunities


Thank you all so much for reading this and praying for us. Adjusting to a new home, culture, and life has been a little more difficult than we thought. We're just clinging to the Lord and His promises. Please keep praying for us and for the people of Ternopil!

God Bless,

Byron