Dec. 12 | Dec. 16 | Dec. 30 |
Jan. 13 | Jan. 21 | Feb. 2 |
Mar. 2
Dec. 12, 1999
Hello! As most of you know I've been completing my DTS with YWAM in Oregon. It's been awesome! Now we're about to leave for
the outreach portion. I'm excited to see what big things God is going to do through our little team. It'd be awesome if you could pray for my team, especially while we're traveling. Thank
you and God bless you. I hope to see you all when we return in March! This is the last time I'll check email at this address until March.My team members: Leaders Jason and Erika; and
team Erin, Mary Bess, Summer, Katrina, and Ingrid Leaving Oregon Dec 13 for Budapest, Hungary by plane
Leaving Budapest Jan 4 for Kiev, Ukraine by train
Leaving Ukraine ? for St. Petersburg, Russia by train
Leaving Russia for Oregon Feb 28 & 29 by plane Prayer Requests:
- for protection and safety while traveling
- for protection from theft (supposedly common in Hungary)
- for team unity
- for servant hearts and attitudes
- for God to anoint my Russian (and Ukrainian?) language skills
- for our team to be sensitive to the leading of the Spirit and to move in God's power
Thank you so much for praying! There have been prophecies over our team that though we're all girls (except our one leader) and we're small in number, we're like Gideon's army, and that God loves to
show His power by using small things like us to do great things for Him. Feel free to share this email with others! In Him,
Erin Wingate Dec. 16, 1999 Hi everyone! I'm safely in Budapest, and [...] can email abroad. [...] I am in an Internet Cafe where you can pay by the 10 minutes to use their computers, so I won't be emailing very often, though
it is very inexpensive. But don't email me at [the Juno address] because I won't be able to check that email until March.Well Budapest is very beautiful, and so far everything is going well.
My flights were all delayed several hours, but it actually worked to our advantage. All our luggage arrived with us, and we had no hassles. We're staying in a one-star hotel, but it is actually
quite nice for Eastern Europe/hostel accommodations. We have community bathrooms and no phone or tv, but it is clean and pretty quiet, and it's only $5 a person a day. Today we got transportation
month passes, so now we can ride the buses, trams, trolleys, and metro. We've met the directors of YWAM's King's Kids Eastern Europe. Today he's showing us around the city, and that really
helps. The language is so difficult, and none of us have a clue, so we really appreciate him. We have lots of ministry opportunities and we're not completely sure yet what we're going to
do. We also have the opportunity to go to Romania for 3 days with a King's Kids team. Most of the work that they do here in Budapest is in orphanages. I'm really excited about that and
can't wait to get started. We were going to work in a coffee shop that they have too, but I guess just last week it was shut down. I think I have jet lag. I feel pretty good until about
4 pm and then I want to go to sleep for the night. Then at night it's difficult for me to sleep right away. Please pray for me, and pray that I start sleeping well at night. I love you and miss
you all. I'll email as much as I can, but I don't know if that will be again in Budapest or not. [...] God bless you!
Erin Dec. 30, 1999 Thanks... to [everyone] who has been praying for me.This might be the last time I'll be able to check my email at this address for a while, but hopefully not. We are getting ready
now for New Years. Hungary is supposed to have received a "B" rating on Y2K preparedness, as compared to Ukraine/Russia "D" I think. Our whole team feels complete peace about
the turn of the millenium, believing that it is God's will for us to be here now, and He will provide and protect, no matter what happens. For the actual day itself we will be at a King's Kids party at
a house in a suburb village of Budapest. Budapest itself is getting ready for the holiday by selling all sorts of noise makers and stuff like that in the streets. We moved from our hotel to
the YWAM office of Budapest. We now have a kitchen and bathtub, so that helps with food preparation and laundry. We're very thankful for the small things! Before New Years we have plans to pray
in the high places of the city, and intercede for the country. Please pray for us as we meet Y2K 6 hours before Michigan, and when we leave for Ukraine on the 4th of January. Thank you and God bless,
Erin Jan. 13, 2000
Hello from Ukraine! I'm again emailing from an internet cafe. Kiev is interesting, and all is going pretty well. We live in
two apartments here and we've already had some big adventures with neighbors and landladies. My apartment is on the 8th floor. We had a water flooding broken pipe problem (I'll fill you in on the
details later) so for our first week we had no hot water. That was especially a bummer here since the cold water here must be about 32.5 degrees. It's practically ice. Well I don't have
much time as they charge by the half hour but I'm well, and no Y2K problems whatsoever. Praise God I can speak Russian, because in Kiev everyone speaks Russian, though everything official is in
Ukrainian and all written advertisements etc. are in Ukrainian. I'm the only one on my team that can speak here, and though we sometimes have a translator, I am very thankful for my speaking
skills. Our first day apparently we had a broken water pipe in our apartment, and it flooded the apartment below us. Well anyway, we didn't know until we came home at 10 that evening. We
arrived to three Ukrainians yelling at us in Russian at our door. Since I was the only one who could speak, they directed all their anger at me. Anyway, I was able to explain that it was our
first day in the country. It was interesting. Here we've been working with a YWAM Mercy Ministries team. It's fun--I love what they do. Every other day we visit a children's cancer
hospital and spend time with the kids there. We also pass out coffee to people hanging out in the underground mall areas, and we seek out street kids and give them clothing and fruit. It's been
interseting. Oh, and I also got to help out with a preschool, and tomorrow we're teaching a Sunday-school type thing (only it's on Friday). They also have just bought/rented a building to start a
coffee shop so we'll probably be helping them get it ready for business. I love Ukraine and Kiev is cool, but of course I can't wait to go to Russia. I miss everybody tons. Oh, and it's not
very cold here, maybe in the 20s sometimes. [...] We still plan on being here until around Feb. 4, but there is still no word on our Russian visas. Please pray about this and pray for our protection,
as most of our ministry is at night on the streets. Thank you! God bless you and take care,
Love,
Erin Jan. 21, 2000
Hello! How are you all? All is still good in Ukraine! I have an awesome praise report! We found out dire circumstances
about our Russian visas these last couple days, such as they are costing a lot of money, and that we might not even be able to go to Russia, etc. Well we prayed as a team, and shared our troubles with
some Ukrainian YWAMers here. They collected an offering for us! We were so blessed. Then, after much conversation with the Russian embassy here, we are going to get our visas! It is all
going to work out, and our visas are still expensive, but our train tickets to St. Petersburg are cheaper than expected! So praise Jesus cause He provides and we are going to Russia! We may not
leave Ukraine until around Feb. 7 though, and we are only registered through the 4th. So please pray that if we outstay our registration, we will not get stopped by the local police and get
fined. I miss you all! Take care, call me if you can, and I'm praying for you too! God bless you and give you fire from His Holy Spirit! Love,
Erin
Feb. 2, 2000
Hello everybody! I hope you all are well and having a great winter in the States! Things in Ukraine are still going well. We just returned from a six day trip to a city in western Ukraine,
called Uzhgorod, where we ministered in an orphanage. Two of those six days were spent on the train. It took about 20 hours to get there. Western Ukraine is a really neat place. It
sort of has a Hungarian feel to it. It's very different than Kiev. We went with 3 of the YWAM Kiev team here. The orphanage is in a village located outside of Uzhgorod. It was warmer
and wetter there than in Kiev, because it had been about -15 degrees C when we left Kiev. In that village, that used to be part of Translyvania, and then later Hungary, the people speak a weird mixture
of Ukrainian, Hungarian, and Slovakian. Our translator could barely understand them. We recognized a lot of Hungarian words that we had picked up in Hungary. The village is only about 20 km
from the border of Hungary, and 20 km from the border of Slovakia. Six of us (including me) stayed in the orphanage itself, and the others stayed in a hotel. There are about 120 kids in the
orphanage, from ages 6 to 16. Most of them are at least part gypsy, but our translator told us not to talk to them about it, because they associate gypsy not with an ethnicity, but with being a bad
person. The five days in the orphanage were so hard. Most of the kids are constantly sick and have runny and bloody noses. There is hot water just one day a week, and every weekday from
about 7 to 9 pm the electricity in the village is turned off (it got dark around about 4:30 pm). The toilets were the "squat" kind and the bathrooms (2 inside, 2 outside) were covered in
human waste on the toilets themselves and the walls and floors. So two of our days there we cleaned the bathrooms. The kids all have army style crewcuts, to hinder the spread of lice, so it was
hard to tell who is a boy or a girl. There is a school in the orphanage, but our translator said the kids' skills and writing and reading ability were so poor that they could never get a good job.
After they are 16 they can leave the orphanage, but with no money or connections their options are to either beg, go to an insane asylum, or the boys can go to a work farm and glue shoes. The teachers
never hug or comfort the kids, and they are beat for bad behavior, so there is a hopelessness there. It was incredibly emotionally draining, but I loved the kids. They were very loving
to us, and most just wanted to touch us and hold our hands. I could barely understand a word they spoke but they all wanted to constantly talk and touch us. When they cry no one does anything
about it, so when I had the chance to comfort the kids when they cried for various reaasons, they liked it, but didn't know how to respond. All of us Americans got sick at the orphanage. I only
have a minor cold but two of our team members were bed-ridden with the flu. Visiting the orphanage made a huge impact on me, but it was very difficult. The YWAM Kiev team bought the orphanage
some medicines and dishes, and brought them tons of shoes. We didn't get to bathe the whole time we were there, because the only day they have hot water during the week, we were busy cleaning the
toilets. The food was not so good, but the kids told us that the workers feed them well while we're visiting, but after we leave they don't get much food at all. There are other Christian
organizations that donate time and aid to this orphanage, and many groups have done evangelism there. The kids know probably more praise songs about Jesus than I do. As a team we felt we were to
concentrate on praying for the orphanage, and loving on the children. The kids cried when we left. So it's good to be back in Kiev, especially so that we can all take showers! We are having trouble
with some documents from Russia, so our Russian visas are again on hold. Therefore we will be in Ukraine at least another 12 days. We really want to go to Russia, but especially we have to get to St.
Petersburg by Feb. 28, because our plane tickets are for that day. Please pray for our visa situation. Since we thought we'd leave Ukraine by Feb. 4 we are only registered with the local police
through Feb. 4, so after that if we are stopped and asked to show our papers, we could be fined. Other than that things are good! I'm just a little congested and still tired from our
trip. Oh! I forgot to mention that in Uzhgorod we visited a castle from the 1400s. It was pretty neat and even had a moat (no water in it--just snow). I miss you all! Take care
and please pray for me. In Him,
Erin Mar. 2, 2000 Well, here's a short synopsis of what happened with our group in February. After getting back
from the orphanage, we all became quite sick. I was one of the last to get sick, so I was only sick about a week/week and a half before we called a doctor. But my leader Erika was sick maybe
three weeks. Well the doctor told us that we all had had strep throat, but that it wasn't treated in time so we all had bactirial infections. We took some antibiotics and recovered quickly, but
for about a week at the beginning of February, we were all sick in bed most days! After we all recovered we found out that there was yet another delay with our Russian visas, and by that time if and
when we received them it would leave us only about a week in Russia. We decided it was not worth it to go for such a short amount of time. So we stayed in Kiev the remainder of our outreach and
supported the ministries we had been working on there. I was a little disappointed not to go then to Russia, but I believe God has plans for me to go there some other time soon... We were involved in
the remodeling, cleaning and painting of a coffee house/youth club building that the Kiev Mercy Ministries rented. So our last few weeks in Ukraine we painted and swept and painted some more. It
was fun. We then took a train back to Budapest, and flew from there home. We had great travels, including an eventful overnight layover in the Copenhagen airport! Our outreach was
challenging, but definitely memorable. I blessed to have gone, and I pray that God will use our time there to bless others and give Him glory! Take care,
Erin |
