Wow, time flies! Sorry about this folks, I meant to d o this earlier, but it never got finished! Well, hope you have fun reading my little book 
Monday, July 27th, 2009, found me sitting in the L’viv airport terminal waiting to board my flight back to the USA through Warsaw and Chicago. While there, I met up with 3 other Americans who were returning to their various home towns in the States after attending different classes held in L’viv over the summer by a Greek Catholic School. It was a pleasure talking with them and speaking in my own native language! I ended up having the same flight schedule as 2 of them all the way to Chicago! We talked about our impressions of Ukraine, some of the cultural differences we’d experienced, what we had been doing in L’viv, etc. Traveling alone is a real bummer, so it was great having company! Got to Chicago and was pleased to be back in America! I had been out of the country for over 6 months! Breezed through customs and the great staff guy at the American Airlines ticket counter was extremely pleasant and let me use his phone to call Mom to confirm with her I was going catch my flight to DFW and it was running on time (last time I missed it). I was pleasantly surprised with O’Hare! It was much easier to find my way around then the last time (2006) I went through there. Ended up being a little late getting into DFW, but because of the heavy rain, Mom was late, too. Mom and Kyle ended up arriving just before my luggage came (Side note: my brother actually walked by me at the airport, because he didn’t recognize me Though in his defense, he hadn’t seen me wearing glasses and I had a lot of hair ). I was extremely glad to be home and to get some sleep! 32 hours day are long! 
Tuesday – Thursday was filled with celebrating Mom’s birthday, catching up with some friends, and attending an Impressions Choir rehearsal. That was awesome! I sat in the back row with Byron Lane and his brother, Nathan. Bro. Craig was lenient with us and allowed some cutting up Reliving Reflections’ memories
Early Friday morning, Mom and I packed up the minivan and headed to CO. It was ridiculously early in the morning, thankfully Mom was good with driving for a while, so I crawled into the back seat and slept for a few hours We arrived in Windsor, CO with enough time to check Mom into her hotel and get me on the campus to register for Eric Ludy’s Set Apart Life discipleship conference. It was an incredible weekend!
At Loodle's coffee shop...
The theme of the weekend was: ‘The Cave of Adullam – Joining the Ranks of the Hunted and Despised.’ I was reminded of so many principles of the Christian life and I learned so much! To sum it all up, I recognized that what I have accepted as ‘Christianity’ is a mediocre, boring, un-useful waste of time. There is so much more to Christianity then all the religious stuff we do! There is a relationship with God that make the indwelled Christian a world-changer. The first century church had something that we do not have today! I want to go back to a relationship with Christ that is so on fire, that it could be honestly said of me that I helped ‘turn the world upside down’ I have rejected mediocrity and am pushing toward the mark! I want to be a true Christian! I left that weekend conference with a lot to think about and a lot to change. I am on a new path
The conference ended Sunday morning. Mom and I headed back to FW. There was enough time for me to get home, switch suitcases, catch an hour or so of sleep, and head out to Austin with Dad. He dropped me off on his way to South Texas for the week. I arrived at the hotel a few hours early, was able to connect to the net and catch up on email, facebook, and the like A couple hours later, Patriot Academy started. To sum it up in one word – WOW!
If you don’t know what Patriot Academy is, check out http://www.patriotacademy.com/ It’s an amazing 5 day political training program with a Biblical worldview. Needless to say, it was awesome!!!!
Me on the actual Texas State Senate floor! This was my desk for 2 days
Me on the actual Texas State House Floor. This was my desk for 5 days
Patriot Academy 2009!
I spent the week with 80 other incredible young people, learning the system of legislation; working our bills through our committees, working calendars to try to get our bills on the Floor, laying them out on the Floor, debating, working the Floor for votes, and finally voting yea or nay! Plus sprinkle in there tons of teaching, forums, debates, etc, and you have one jam packed spectacular week! It was awesome getting to know young people from all over the country and seeing the hope we have in our great nation, as this next generation steps forward to restore our Godly heritage. I can’t say it enough, it was an awesome, spectacular, incredible, stupendous, (well, you get the idea ) week! I was the committee chair of one of the committees (I thought it was interesting that ours was named the John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg Committee. This was the Minister during the Revolutionary War that preached the sermon on a time for everything including war then after ward stepped out of his minister’s robe in a colonel’s outfit. The next day he was leading 300 men out of town to join the war effort.), and I was awarded the Rookie of the Year award . It was a great week!
I attended my home church that following Sunday. It was great to see several friends there! Spent the remaining few days in the States catching up with more friends, attending Reflections Concert Choir’s first practice, and spending the Wed. evening service sharing what has been going on in Ukraine at Fairpark. Thursday morning came far to quickly and I was back at DFW, waiting to board my plane to JFK, Warsaw, then L’viv.
There was a problem with the plane, so it ended up sitting on the tarmac for an hour and a half before leaving for JFK… I only had a 2 hour lay-over there :-S We arrived in JFK, and I had a hard time finding the LOT airlines, so I could get me ticket for the next leg of my flight (Side note: JFK is not a well organized airport. Nothing is clearly marked. I plan on avoiding it if I can in the future…). Long story short, I missed my flight. I was given the option of catching the next one the following day (making me arrive in L’viv on Sat), or taking a bus over to Newark and leaving later that night (arriving in L’viv on Friday though 4 hours later then originally planned). I elected to go to Newark. I rode a public bus from JFK to NYC (Grand Central), then transferred over to a bus that continued on to Newark. It was a very long day up to that point with little food and less then a liter of water (airline restrictions). When I finally got to Newark, I was able to buy some water inside the airport terminal. Let’s just say, it wasn’t the best day of my life . Thankfully nothing else went wrong for the rest of my flights and I arrived in L’viv Friday evening.
Upon arriving, I discovered that despite what I was told in Newark, my checked luggage was not waiting for me. Thankfully, I was able to arrange for Josh to come help me at the baggage claim. It was kinda funny, because the lady could not find my luggage anywhere in the computer! They had no idea where it was! She was very apologetic, and it didn’t bother me because I had everything I needed at my apartment. They were delivered the next day, with only slight amounts of additional damage to the suitcases (I don’t think they will be making several more trips internationally ). I did have a surprising amount of trouble with Jet Lag upon arrival in L’viv, but it eventually wore off
Now on to what’s been going on here . There were 34 requests for Good & Evils waiting for me to fill (this was only from 3 weks worth of accumulation! PTL!). Those were sent out last week. We have 380 students in our CBC course, and we are woring on printing the next several lessons (14 & 15 are in translation). I was looking the other day and Lesson 13 (the last one we have printed) is our 3 highest ranked lesson people are on! That is great news! :-)
The Steeles left L’viv for America last week. They arrived safely with all but 1 piece of luggage . It came a day later. Nathan Day left on Sunday night and he is now safely back in CO with all of his luggage. He gets married in 2 months, then he and Katelin will be returning to L’viv in January. I’ve moved into the Steeles apartment for the time being, so I’m enjoying the space! Denise’s parents are in town (they were given tickets to visit for their 50 anniversary). Jessie’s cough is still hanging on, but he’s definitely looking better (if that is possible ). The Beal’s recently finished the trim in their house (Nathan & I helped). This was a huge blessing to them!
Ok, I think I talked about everything. If you’ve read this far congratulations! :-) There are a few things I would ask for prayer on:
1. God’s direction for my life. I am needing to now which field(s) to pursue and there are several paths that have opened up to me, but they don’t all go in the same direction…
2. Language lessons. Progress is a good thing, esp. since I have found I stink at languages
3. The ministry going on here (and in the States) would continue to be fruitful.
4. Health. Being sick is bad, very, very bad
God bless, and have a great month! I should be updating a little more frequently now that I’m working up a routine
