The Painted Streets of a Communist Camp

No really. It isn’t a fancy metaphor. They’re painted.

And that cross? It replaced a statue of Lenin. Is anything more powerful?

I’ve never really told my story of my trip to Ukraine. It was back in 2005, and other than posting a few photos on MySpace (*gasp*) and filling some journal pages, that’s as far as my story made it. So today I’d like to share a little of my story. Just… a little.

The boys in my activity group when we visited a nearby village.

We worked all morning decorating the camp for their arrival. Every sidewalk was chalked, every door entrance taped with balloons, and every Nazi ward transformed into child like camp cabins. The gates opened, and the children flooded in, children from the ages of five to seventeen. Oddly enough, they looked past the bright colors of the streets and balloons and instead, focused on us, the Americans. They were enthralled with us, grabbing at our nametags in an attempt to read and pronounce the scribbled Russian under our English names. One particular little girl, dressed in a holey t-shirt, pink skirt, and dirty yellow crocs, looked up at me with a large smile spread across her face and said to me, “Melody.” I knew then that this week was going to change my life more than it was going to change theirs. I replied with what little Russian I knew- “Da! Minya zavoot Melody. Kak vas zavoot?” and had wished I could carry on a full conversation with this adorable girl so full of joy, so full of life.

The entire week consisted of games, plays, crafts, and walks to the Black Sea. I got to know so many of the children well, but I really connected with the orphans who all arrived on a bus mid week. My favorite part of the entire time I was there was going into their ward at night and reading them bedtime stories. I had to take turns with each of the girls, sitting in a different bed every night. I knew they couldn’t understand a single thing I was reading, but they didn’t care much for the book that was in my hands. The majority of the time their gaze was fixated on my face rather than the pages anyway.

I developed such a love for these kids. I look back on my trip regretting not taking more pictures of each child and writing down their names. There is one name, though, that I’ll never forget. Yulya.

Yulya deserves her own blog post. I’ll get to that sometime later this week.

If you ever have an opportunity to go on a mission trip, do it. Granted, wherever you’re headed may take you on a 24 hour journey full of long flights, smelly communist trains, and crazy driven vans- and once you’re there, you’re most likely not going to have a single hot shower, your luggage may end up lost, and the types of bugs you find in your bed will redefine your previous fear of them- but you know? All that stuff that matters so much in the states has no relevance when your sole purpose for being there is to serve others, serve children, serve orphans who have no one in their lives to love them. And through that service, they get a small glimpse of the love that God has for them and the hope that is offered to them.

I want to go back. I will go back- someday. And while I know I won’t get an opportunity to see those same faces, I’ll get an opportunity to bring smiles to new ones.

Looking through these photos, these photos from seven years ago, brings back so many feelings and so many questions (like why did I do my hair like that and what was with the purple eyeliner?). I still pray for these kids, when I think of it, and wonder where they are now and if they would remember me like I remember them. I guess it doesn’t matter if they remember me though; it matters more that they remember the love and hope they experienced one summer at an ex-communist camp with brightly painted streets.

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