So sorry it's been so long. I simply can't believe tomorrow will be a month since I left for Ukraine. So crazy.
The trip was amazing. Incredible. Painful. Hopeful. Crazy events I was astounded by and a Peace that surpassed any of my understanding. I could never put into words how much this trip meant to me, and as I mentioned in my last post, I often feel like I use too many words, so I will attempt to practice brevity....
- First of all, I lost my passport. A very foolish move on my part, but I have wondered now if maybe God picked it up and threw it out of my bag Himself. The events that followed the discovery of the lost passport included an overnight train ride complete with a new friend, (a Nigerian Christian), an insane two hours with Oleg Vasilevsky fighting with his iPad to print my flight itinerary (we lost), a surprising moment at the Embassy when the man behind the counter asked, "Is your name Heather Harris?", a rendezvous with yet another new friend (Viktor), and a journey to Viktor's apartment so he could return this US passport he found in the snow while walking down the street. I was back on a train to Kharkov in 4 hours and safely returned to the beautiful village that my kids call home. The overwhelming peace the Lord covered me with was an amazing picture of His Love for me. His gentle reminder that everything would be just fine and that even though I was alone on that journey, He would protect me and go out of His way to put people in my path as a reminder.
- Second of all, I missed our flight home. When Russell gave me a Ukrainian cell phone, said, "I have to go", and took off running towards customs, I only experienced a split-second of panic. Again, all alone in a foreign country the Lord washed me with His peace. A dying cell phone stayed live just long enough for crazy taxi driver Maxim to round the corner. A hot lunch and open arms at the Vasilevsky's was the community I needed. An afternoon and evening of sushi and Johnny Depp in Ukrainian with the Afonins was a perfect end to my trip. Drifting to sleep that night, I forgot I wasn't home.
- Now about those kids..........
Tears fill my eyes as I allow memories to flood into my mind. There would be no way to describe the joy in their eyes. The laughs...so!many!laughs! The extreme pain always present.
We spent two days at Nova Vodolaga orphanage and spent that time playing games, decorating cookies, singing songs, doing skits, and having serious discussion. There are so many specific stories tied to all these things that I would love to share, but really can't put into words. So let's have coffee sometime. Seriously.
Instead here, I want to share something that's been rolling around in my head and was reminded of this morning at Midtown. I am beginning to realize I have a very small idea of how God works. His work is so much larger than I could ever imagine and I so often shrink that. I have ideas of why we're working with these orphans. I have expectations of the things that should happen during these trips. But what if I really have no clue as to what's really going on? What if there is such a larger, grander, greater story being told that is so much bigger than me, bigger than Ukraine, bigger than these kids? When telling my passport story, I've been reminded that maybe that whole crazy adventure wasn't for me at all. What if I was just being used? What if the train ride wasn't about me being comforted by having a fellow Christian in the train car but instead that the train ride was about the large Ukrainian man in the car with us hearing that Christian's prayers and praise? What if my passport falling out of my bag into the snow wasn't a random act, but instead an opportunity for Viktor (a man divorced, down on his luck, missing his child), to do the right thing and feel good about himself? And oh boy, how about we apply this to the kids? What if....all sorts of things!
After the summer trip, I reminded myself of the following statement over and over again: If all of this...all the trips, all the fundraising, all the time off, all the travel, all the everything is just so one kid changes a tiny bit, it's worth it. It has to be. I realized I can't change the world. I can't convert 300 orphans in 1 year. God can. I can't. So I have to stop making plans, stop writing stories, stop predicting my own future and just let Him do it. His adventure for me is so much more exciting than I could make it. I never would have thought to ask the Lord two years ago to let me sightsee with Igor and Sasha, to visit their orphanage, to let me ride a train in Ukraine by myself, to lose my passport, to celebrate Slavik's birthday with him, to even go to Ukraine in JANUARY. The Lord has blessed me beyond anything I ever could have expected. I am excited and hopeful to see how the next chapter unfolds.
