Lviv/Lvov

Hey guys, Byron again.

I'm writing this as we relax in our room at the Old City Hostel in the center of Lviv (or Lvov if your speaking Russian).

Western Ukraine countryside

We left Ternopil this morning. It was a 2 hour train ride, roughly north west of Ternopil. Lviv is such a beautiful city. It has a very rich culture and history. Emily and I have heard so much about it and we're really excited to finally be here!

By the way, the train ride went much better than the previous train ride (now that we know what we are

Emily waiting at the tram stop

doing). However, traveling mid day makes for stinkin' hot train cars! Much sweating took place. Once we arrived at the Lviv train station we were bombarded by taxi drivers. After we communicated to them that we were going to take the tram (1.50 Grivna, about $0.18) to our hostel, they lowered their taxi fares from 250 Grivna ($31.00) to 20 ($2.50). Quite a large drop once they realized we weren't the average American tourist willing to pay big for a taxi ride. However, we couldn't pass up the extremely inexpensive tram. So we figured out that we needed to take tram #1, and that would lead us right to our hostel. (Praise the Lord for the EuroCup being here this summer, making the city set up for the ease of tourists). After about 30 minutes we saw about 10 tram #9's, but not a single tram #1. I begun to doubt my understanding of the tram system and/or ability to read a map. However, there was a very nice Ukrainian lady waiting next to us who needed the #1 as well. We began

The center park in Lviv near our Hostel

speaking to her in our poor Russian (Emily did pretty much all the talking to be honest). The lady didn't know a word of English, but she spoke Italian. So between our English, Russian, and Italian conversation, she helped us figure out why the tram was taking forever and then she helped us pay, as well as get off on our stop once the tram finally picked us up. What a blessing this lady was and again, Emily and I were impressed with the kindness of Ukrainians.

By the way, we never really figured out why the tram took so long to come. But now we understand that you can't always depend on getting around quickly haha.

Anyways, Our last few days in Ternopil were awesome. We had a chance to join the church on a youth sports outreach. It was awesome to be a part of, loving youth ministry and sports, this type of outreach is totally my thing. We got to play basketball and soccer with a number of the local Jr. High and high schoolers. George did some translating for us as well so we could have more of a dialogue with the students and connect with them.

George and Sharon were such a blessing this past week. Feeding us, buying train tickets for us, looking into apartment possibilities, calling doctors to find out if it's possible to easily get insulin for Emily if we lived in Ternopil, praying with us. We miss them and the kiddos already.

So now Emily and I are taking the weekend here in Lviv to just relax and seek the Lord. We're using this

Byron Lovin' a Big Mac

time to get the confrontation from the Lord as to where He wants us moving, either Kaharlyk or Ternopil.

Two weeks ago we celebrated our 3 year anniversary, but we were so busy with wrapping up work and getting ready to travel, we didn't get much time to really celebrate. So we are going to officially celebrate our anniversary here in Lviv, Ukraine! I think that's pretty awesome!


So now that I just finished enjoying a Big Mac and coke, I'm going take an afternoon nap!

Thanks for reading our blog and keeping us in your prayers.

Blessings,
Byron