You have 3 seconds to guess what I'm doing right now! Ah, yes, you are correct; I'm sipping away on my steaming hot herbal tea with all of it's pleasantness drifting up into my nostrils and making its way up into my head thus inspiring me to write!
I'm such a beyond blessed child. God has gifted into my life a second adorable brother! His name is Egor, He's 11. He fits into our family so well. I think he's of a Jewish background.. He's very shrewd (like Esther!) and at the same time gentle and sentimental.
Alas. some document trouble so he was sent to a christian orphan house/center in another city in Ukraine so he could attend school properly for now. But on Christmas we're taking him back for good.

Im so not making any sense right now am I? There's just so much to it. I dont know where to begin or how to end. So I just start somewhere, and confuse those around me

Never would I have imagined a few years ago, that these people here, would talk about me stating that I'm the 'powerful, influential gal'.
Our 1 year old church has started to grow all of a sudden. just a month ago. Sometimes we wont even fit into the room we gather in. Lately I've been tired of these sweet people looking up to me, eating me away with their eyes.  Everywhere I go there seems a little crowd walking around me like flower petals.
 I got a hunger for loneliness  right now. And hunger for lowliness. But ironically the lower you go, the higher God lifts you up. When you try to hide, people try to find you.
Unlike those other times in my salad-like life when I wanted to be seen but no one was looking.

Im embarrassing myself now. So I'll write something else.
 Last night my friends dragged me out at night  (gotta brag, it was a very nice theater:) to see Jane Eyre. What are your thoughts about it?
I thought there was so many aspects to it.. Everything turned around unexcpectedly. I liked all those little references towards the Bible and God and religion playing out along the whole movie.
It reminded me a lot  of the whole pride and prejudice feeling, except in a whole new, exciting, and deeper way. I wouldn't watch that movie alone though (somewhat of a depressive feeling lingering around?). Thats when I bubble over with thankfulness to God for giving me friends who are, unlike me, so chipper, cheerful, immature, pathetic, stable and amazing:)

Ok enough with the movie review. I want to testify that God answers prayers. Starting from silly little things like last night, when, after service we went sushi-ing and prayed together for God to lead us somewhere where we have to be. Which surprisingly and totally un-religiously ended up being in that movie theater. It wasn't just the movie, all though many good things were brought out from it for everyone. It was also the fellowshipping that went on through most of the time.
Which leads me to point #2
I once prayed that God would give me good friends. and He did:)
But as always problems come ( and go too :)
And my problem is that I have 40 more days left here in Ukraine, with my special friends and all those other beloved people. Then it's America. and life starts over again.
 Everything here that's been built for the past 9 months, is staying. And I come to the blessed Usa where I have nothing but Esther and our sweet family Florida home.. and church, and the beach.
What is God up to now?

Yelena

It's amazing how every Saturday is so different... We have our main church service on Saturday afternoons.

Afterwards we bunch into groups and go do something fun.

 Today, totally unplanned, I ended up with my two good friends Marina and Alex.

 After some repeating rounds of coffee, tea and ice-cream and heated discussions, we finally got up to go home. Whilst walking towards the metro, Marina receives a call from a lady we had met during one of our street evangelization events.

It was a mother begging for someone to visit her daughter who's husband had died.

 "She needs prayer" said the mother.

 The mother and daughter were both unsaved, didn't attend any church, and acted rather skeptical during the evangelization. Still they got our church invite and thus, knew what number to dial when the storms of life came upon them.

"We should go together!" suggested Marina. So after making Alex buy a pretty box of chocolates we were on our way.

Coming up to the building, we started praying, and singing. Up in the elevator we went to the 8th floor. Finding the right door, the bell was rung, the door knocked on. No answer. Once again.

Calling the mother, we heard her all in tears still pleading us to not give up and get to the daughter. "She's having such a hard time, my Lenochka!" the mom said in between sobs. Thats when we found out the daughter's name; Lena, besides her name, Lena was a stranger to us.

So we didn't give up, persistently knocking until we heard a voice behind the door.

It was Lena. And her voice was beyond drunk, wavering, almost whining. After a confusing conversation behind the doors, we begged her to open the door so we could make sure she's alive (we tried being funny). 

Lena cracked the door open, my friend Alex turned around, Marina and I glanced at each other with an "oh uh" glance. Lena was half naked. The only thing on her were her under garments. Her hair was chopped off into a man hair cut.

Even worse was the strong smell that hit us, and almost sent us running home. Over-powering smell of alcohol, cigarettes, meds, and various toilet smells. 

The cracked door was shut once again. We begged her to pull on a cover up. and let us in.

A battle. thats what is was.

"Come in already!" jeered the drunk voice of what was once a lovely lady. 

Heart thumping, glancing at each other, the sweet Marina made the first move (she is 30 years old! not sixteen like me haha!) Alex still stood to the wall, only glancing to see if I moved after Marina. 

Hesitantly, I tried to quit the battle going on in my head. 

"What if we will get hurt? What if she does something violent? I left my phone home, its evening and no one knows where I am... But isn't this what a life of a christian is supposed to be? 

For me to die is only a good gain, I can't wait for heaven. 

What's with all the 'spiritual' people praying and never rolling up their sleeves and going into the real, frightening, thrilling, dirty work? 

I want to be more than just a say-er, pray-er, worshipper. I want to jump. I want to risk it all. I want God to show His glory."

Marina was already in the kitchen by the time I decided to leap into the miniature hell on earth. I took a few steps and hovered by the kitchen entrance. 

Watching Marina talking about paintings with the, at that moment, seemingly happy, drunk Lena. I couldn't see her, she was behind a kitchen wall. I was still so scared to even glance. Alex still hovered by the entrance of the apartment, undergoing his own thought battle I bet. Alex is the oldest (31). More maturity = less simplicity, less naiveness. 

Minuts ticked by like seconds. Coming in to pat her on the shoulder, I saw Marina trying to help her pull a shirt on. It was hard to not notice the vast amount of bruises and cuts all over her body. Especially an extra shuddering bruise/cut right under her eye. 

Lena's green eyes looked so deeply into mine. Silent plea. My inside world shaking.

In the living room, some kind of soap opera was blaring loudly from her plasma tv. Turning to Alex still at the door, I motioned him to turn CNL or something christian on instead of the soap opera. I have no idea what to do with a remote control anyway. I offered to make Lena a cup of tea instead. She refused. Marina guided Lena into the living room and they sat on the couch. The coffee table in front of them was over-spilling with all types of meds, empty and full bottles of vodka, cigarets, tomatoes, lemons, some more remote controls. In the kitchen I noticed broken glass. I couldnt find any food. But tea I did find. Of course. I'm in Ukraine after all:)

Worship music started streaming into the apt. The smell was so bad, I wanted to puke, it was filling my lungs. I tucked my nose into my scarf that smelled like my nice burbery perfume. 

With tea I came in and sat on the other side of Lena, Marina was praying in tongues and rubbing her back. 

Tears streamed down her weary face. 

"Very hard!!!" she sobbed.

We prayed none stop, at some point one of us would stop to encourage her, speak love to her, stories about Jesus, testimonies. We suggested she pray with us, helping her say the words out properly. 

Slowly we begun. "I ask you Lord Jesus to forgive me of my sins, to cleanse me with your blood, to fill me with your love, Peace come. Forgive me Jesus. Come into my life I invite you.  Be the Lord of my life." And so on she repeated, proclaiming such power over her life.

Worship started escaping my mouth, I couldn't contain the songs,

"Jesus, Jesus, Holy God, Anointed One, Jesus, - " And so on in russian we went to worship, until we ran out of songs we could remember. 

This is how our evening proceeded. I can't even put into words everything that happened, the way that Jesus moved. Marina got up and started praying over the apartment. Telling the unclean spirits to go away and inviting the Holy Spirit to fill the place. 

Holding Lena's barely hairless head on my shoulder, I was shaken. Her boney body leaned heavily on me. Everything imaginable was strewn all over the room, it was a mess. Poor Alex felt uncomfortable at first. Until He started sharing his testimonies about what Jesus had done in his life. That was powerful.

Marina powered on in prayer. I powered on in worship. Alex powered on in testimony. 

While Lena was staring at Alex, I replaced all the full bottles of vodka with the empty ones from the floor, hid the full new bottles of vodka under my dress and ran for the bathroom. Emptying out all the vodka, I noticed her Chanel make-up. Her Dior jeans. The expensive hair products. This lady wasn't poor. 

After filling up the, now empty, vodka bottles with water I closed them tight and silently replaced them once again on the coffee table. 

Alex was doing a good job with the testimonies. Marina and I broke into her cigarets and broke all of them in half and placed them back in the box. Turning up the volume on CNL, we also hid the remote control and went on to clean up a bit.

Lena was recovering after a few hours. She started telling us about her vacation to Egypt, and other things about herself. 

"We will be your friends, call us anytime of the day, share with us anything you're feeling" We continued to comfort her and embrace her (despite of the horrendous smell)

"Get yourself together, we're picking you up at 4 tomorrow and taking you out for a walk" to this proposition she agreed. 

"No one ever visits me" she continued on and off.  It was hard to part. But the atmosphere was defiantly changing, and the sky outside growing darker. 

"I have to eat something" she continued. We assured her that she does, even offering to cook for her, but I think she was slowly sobering up, and realizing that we're complete strangers. She said that we had done enough and she didn't want us to cook for her too.

"Who are you? Why are you young people doing this? What sect are you from?" she kept asking puzzled. Than rummaged around the table and showed us our church invite. "My mom knows you!" We chatted on and off.. praying inside our hearts. 

As we said good-bye, she hung on to Marina and me, burying her tear stained face in our necks. In such an embrace we all stood, silently.. As the tradition goes here on ukraine she kissed us and thanked us..starting to cry all over again.

Coming home tonight I was shaken. 

Satan, of course, furious, always comes up with some physical earthly disaster once you're on the right track. Entering the house, my dad informs me that my computer died. Or the screen doesn't work. As I said before, my computer had been so public, over-used, eventually out-used by many people. 

Now i'm uncomfortably sitting on a chair typing this on a huge screen..

But nothing can ever take away the happiness in me. Nothing. Nothing else is better than being in tune with God.

Genesis 3:5-7

All Eve and Adam wanted was to be more wise. It's not like they intentionally disobeyed God.
 Eve thought how wonderful it would be to be wise.
So on a quest after such a seemingly good and right thing - wisdom - , sin came into the world.
A lot of people now are in such a quest to get education, to get a degree, to get a diploma.
 And all of that is good. Just like wisdom is a God thing.
 But when anything, even Godly things, go higher than our relationship with God, than death will come. Not even physical death, more like spiritual death.
 They didn't physically die, They were actually given understanding. 
It seems like the more 'knowledge' someone has; the harder it is to come before God, to be in His presence.

From the very moment that I woke up today, I wanted to bake sugar cookies and muffins for the tea time we have after our Tuesday night prayer services.
Rushing through the day, the baking was at the back of my mind haunting me (in a pleasant way of course)
So, silly me, thought I could bake it all up right before the service. Which of course was a fail.
The prayer started and I'm still whisking away (with my good friend Nazar trying to help me)
In a hurry I popped everything in the oven and ran to our prayer room with a cup of coffee.
Slowly going deeper into the spirit, I was feeling lots of good things, including the amazing aroma of sugar and vanilla filling the house along with the traditionally late people oozing in.
Now, Tuesday prayer nights, I consider them "my" nights.  Which is probably incorrect. It's God's night. But I lead the music under the leading of the Holy Spirit. It's the most fun thing that I ever enjoy doing. The  Holy Spirit gives such amazing spontaneous beautiful melodic songs, rhymes, words. It's so beyond traditional church singings where everything is planned out and recited the night before with the band.  This is something so new. Totally unplanned and natural.
And I do have to admit that I throughly enjoy that  I have no other people butting in with their versions of russian hillsong songs that they want to out sing with me. bleh. This happens a lot on the other church services we have. Where I'm not in charge. Where I give people and their 'worship music desires' freedom.
So back to my amazing aroma. Eyes closed, happy heart, Jesus on my mind, beautiful new melody coming out of my vocal chords and the guitar strings. Bakery forgotten. Trouble brewing in the kitchen.
Feeling like everyone should sing an old russian hymn together; I open my eyes to mimic to my friend Nazar (who sings with me) that we should do the song we had talked about earlier.
Eyes opened; I see my dad and Nazar making hand motions to me. I thought it was about the song, but alas it was about the burning bakery. Nazar and a few ladies ran off to turn the oven off and somehow save the muffins and cookies.
I couldn't help laughing. I was such a Martha tonight. Unlike Mary. Missing the beginning of my beloved time of the week, Tuesday Prayer, just for the sake of kitchen and food.
Things that we put before our time with God.... Don't we know that our God is a jealous God? He will burn those things in the way of our relationship with Him.
Just like this burned oven-full of, now, inedible rocks. 

We will never know God's character all the way. Damn I dont think we'll even get close. 
Everyone talks so much about the characters of God. Especially the character love. 
What they say is true. But why do we get so lost in His amazing love and never really pay attention to His wrath (which sometimes might seem unreasonable just because we never see the whole picture). 
Merciful, Loving, forgiving, generous. We can't just study, name, and teach everyone who God is. Because we don't know nothing even close to his greatness. 
I'm not saying that we shouldn't try. 
The Lord examines the righteous, but the wicked and those who love violence His soul hates. On the wicked He will rain fiery coals and burning sulfur, a scorching wind. 
Psalm 11:5-6

My computer (as always) is over-full and overworked, because it seems like everyone who comes into our house thinks this is a public computer with free internet for everyone. But that's not the problem. The problem is THAT I JUST DELETED PERMANENTLY SOOO MANY PICTURES (including all my newish pictures on facebook, because it was linked to iphoto trash) I HAAAATTTTEEEE IPHOOOOTOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! I NEEEEDDD TO VEEEEENNNNNTTTTTT!!!! GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH KDJSFGGGHHHBBBMNSGFYUREFGI;OEWIO;DJKSGHFJYWTAR3ILQW3UEWJ,DGSHJS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As somewhat of an amateur photographer, I feel like a part of my heart has been chipped away. I hate iphoto. I hate losing my pictures forever. I hate using the word hate so much. 

Don't get me wrong,  I've actually have been having some really good 2 weeks so far... Yesterday I just wanted to sing to the world a top a bridge about what a good day it had been. But tonight.... ugh my pictures were so dear to me.

Where I want to be? In a forest, on the border of a big river... a fire at night... A cold swim in the early dewy morning..boating, canoeing, picking berries. Maybe having a nice small crowd of enjoyable people.
 I remember not so long ago I was wishing of living in a metropolitan area, the subways, hundreds of people every minute passing by, the rush, the quick life full of so many events that you can't even remember what you did yesterday. Because yesterday suddenly feels like forever ago. The never ending pumping noise, people's random conversations, beeping cars, kids, music, birds at times, puddles splashing, cement, feet walking. A city's rhyme.
Now I'm in the midst of it. No shut window can keep the sound silent for a while.
Just thinking how the human nature is never satisfied.
Where do you want to be?

Going through that 'wanting to be at two places at one time' phase. It's JULY!!!!!! And it will be an exciting month. I want to figure out which path to choose this week, which will set off the end of my summer in a definite direction..
Yesterday I want boating with my two brother cousins. I love the water.. Boating is so relaxing... and I couldn't stop myself from saying "this is soo cool" over and over again, I might have driven my brothers crazy. I got to row the boat too! Also we wandered and dinner-ed around the carnival and later hit off towards a movie-party at my friend's work place's club. Pizza, Pirates of the Caribbean, kvas, latte, and billiard. My new heels kind of killed my feet last night/early morning. I'm soaking them in bread, boiled water, and oil. Good way to end June? haha..
Now I have to start setting up for church tonight.
Our house is bursting with over-nighter-summer guests. Help. Me.

The anxiety of the week before the camp is over. The whole camp is over. It's amazing how the days just run, and keep moving on... and all those feelings do too. And than a set of something new comes up. You think it's so big, and never will be over. But it does have the tendency to end. Everything leads to an end. God doesn't. God is the only good and constant and stable being, idea, thought, feeling, to cling on to.
I like the team of Sweds whom I had such a fun time teaming up to make this camp happen. The camp was interesting. It rained most of the time... But if you know me, you know how much I adore rain. Everything happened, in such a God-planned way. I wasn't the only one who wished it could've lasted longer than 3 days.. :)
Blogging always was to me some kind of a place where I could come to write everything that people would never read.. But that changed and now I have 1,000 things locked up inside. I don't even know how to make sense of everything.. and maybe I shouldn't. Making sense of everything is a hardship I'm not willing to take up on myself anymore. 

ha ha

I totally realize that I'm supposed to be posting more often here. But when theres so much going on in life, poor blogger seems to be forgotten.
 "So much going on in life" is a ridiculous phrase. Inside of me I do a silent gag whenever someone says that about their life. Actually I've given up silent gagging, there's just been too much of it from everything people blab about with this unnecessary haughtiness.
 I have a wish somewhere deep down in my soul to meet someone like-minded. And a fear deep down that it will never happen. And a calmness about it all. About everything. Peaceful soul, mind... everything is going as it should. Even the hell-on-earth type of moments this week. Fiascos. Maybe you get this peaceful when you're left washed out and weary from all your previous reactions and emotions. And now you're just.. I don't know.. Thinking about heaven and bitter-sweetly wishing to master the violin each time I listen to morning star.