In a land far, far away...

Hello from Kiev, Ukraine!! I'm sitting in the office of the IFES Eurasia Institute for Staff Training and Development, where my dad works. I've been in the city for 2 weeks now, participating in the "institute," 3 weeks of training for staff members who do student ministry on university campuses in 15 or so countries around the former Soviet Union. The Institute is a huge meeting of about 160 staff members, who come and worship together, do Bible study, and attend seminars on everything from church history to sexuality. So far, I've taken my dad's class on church history, and a class called "life planning," which was a lesson in goal setting and finding God's will for your life. A very interesting 2 weeks thus far.
I've also had the privelege of meeting some amazing people from all over the place. There are 22 different countries represented here, from every continent but South America (and Antarctica, I suppose). Cool. I've seen dancing from the Republic of Georgia, Azerbijan, Armenia, and Kyrgestan. I've learned songs in Russian, Swahili, a language native of Nigeria, Kyrgyz, and Tajik. I'm very bad at languages, but it's still cool to be completely submerged in a situation where very few people speak your language. The majority of those that do are from Great Britian, and have funny Scottish or English accents. It's even more amusing to hear Russion with an English accent. I met a woman who actually uses the phrase "steady on there!" which is something I didn't think people said outside of the movies. I almost cried I was laughing so hard the first time I heard her say it.
The city of Kiev is beautiful. There are big monuments, huge squares, gorgeous old cathedrals and monestaries. The center of downtown looks very old-world European, with pink and pale yellow buildings that reminded me very much of downtown Prague. I have gotten to see all the places where people were protesting during the Orange Revolution last December, and met one of the students from a university in the city who signed a petition and didn't go to class for 2 weeks in order to protest the botched election. The city is really very modern, with big malls and a good metro system. The center of the city is clean and beautiful, though there are still vestiges of Soviet times in many of the housing districts and the outskirts of town.
We're staying at a "camp" outside of town, with a dormitory building and a meeting building. It's set back in the woods, out of sight of the city lights. It's gorgeous, though mainly still very Soviet in appearance. The bathrooms are terrible (Turkish toilets in the main building, anything but fun or dignifying), and the cleaning products bring back memories of Albania, but overall it's very nice. The owners of the place have been fixing it up little by little, so there are some very nice points. The classrooms are beautifully redone, with wood floor and paneled walls, though all the windows are stubbornly bolted shut. We have a consisent diet of chicken and cucumber with tomato salad at lunch, with soup of some sort every day, and fish with mashed potatoes for dinner. There is tea every 2 hours or so, and I've got a raging caffiene addiction going already (it's going to take me until I get home to wean myself of it, I really much find some decaf tea). The bread is delicious, and with enough ketchup everything else is edible. When there is variety, pork or some sort of un-identifyalbe ground meat loaf, it's good (if only for variety sake). I'm not starving, but I will appreciate a good American-grown beef steak when I get home. Some cookies would also be appreciated. Mom found me some Nutella (real, European Nutella) and smearing that on most everything in sight is keeping me healthy and as wide as always :)
The dial-up connection I'm using here is starting to waver, so I'd best be off. Love to you all, I miss you all a lot. Email me, I'm checking it periodically and would love to hear how everyone's summer is going.

Sidenote: Mary did well on her MCAT!!! :) Yay!! Congratulations!