Ukrainian experience: The Great Day of Thanks and more

So I celebrated my first real Holiday in Ukraine on Thursday and it was great. We were invited to Thanksgiving dinner with 23 other Americans at the house of Blessings (that's one of the missionary families last names :P). It was wonderful. The day before I cooked my dads potato salad and then made cucumber salad. As I walked to Katie's on Thursday so that we could journey to the meeting spot together I reflected on what I was thankful for. Many things ran through my head, friends, family, and opportunities were among the first but I also felt they were very cliche things even though I am thankful for them. As I pondered about how cliche they seem I passed a dog that was dancing after using the bathroom and I started to laugh as I looked up still laughing I saw a complete stranger laughing too and we locked eyes and it was then that I knew what I was most thankful for...Sharing laughs with strangers. While this person is still a stranger to me and I may never see them again (and if I do I sure won't recognize them) I realized how it is through laughter that we turn strangers into friends. Everyone we know yes even our parent were at some point a stranger to us but through laughs we have become friends, acquaintances, and family with these people whom we love.

Another thought that has consumed much of my thoughts over the past days: The Body of Christ!
As some of you know and some of you are about to learn, I have a slightly negative attitude toward churches at times. I have seen much arguing over stupid things, lots of division among congregations, and I despise the idea of the separation of the church through denominations. I see these things often as the body of Christ being divided, and as we know a house divided cannot stand so what makes us think a body divided can function. It has been this idea that has had me nervous about ever working in a church. But as I walk around the city (I do it every day to get to work) I think. Today as I walked to the feeding ministry (every 2 weeks we gather with some of the other missionaries and some Ukrainians to deliver a small bag of groceries to some of the poor among the city) I noticed the body of Christ not divided. I am here as a missionary sent by the United Methodist Church, some of the other missionaries are Baptist, and some are Non-Denominational. We are different denominations, we have different theologies, but we work together as the body of Christ, we each have other parts of ministry out side of the feeding ministry that we do as well and I pondered on how wonderful that was. Even more so I begin to think about the Ukrainians that are there with us and the ones that come to our student center...Many of them are Catholic or Orthodox and I realized how the body of Christ is working not only over denominational boundaries but through confessional boundaries as well. I was shocked that I had never realized this before and I thought about just how wonderful God truly is and that no matter what his will be done!