No one will second-guess Alabama being in Tornado Alley ever again...

I wrote my last post while sitting in the windowless, interior hallway during a tornado warning. Thankfully, we had no tornado damage- just a lot of flooding. You should have seen my street. And by "street," I mean, lake.

Yesterday, tornadoes pummeled Alabama. My home, Alabama. The last time I checked the death toll, it was around 170, just in Alabama. Tuscaloosa was all but obliterated from the map. My hometown of Huntsville, along with the rest of the Tennessee Valley (in North Alabama) is without power for the foreseeable future. They're looking, realistically, at a week. One of the main power plants for the area was hit. When I talked to my parents yesterday, they told me that the water processing plants have been imploring residents to conserve water, as well, because they are unable to purify water at a fast enough rate.

When the tornado hit Union three years ago, we discovered a strange emotional phenomenon which we called "tornado guilt." This was experienced primarily by those who were not injured during the storm and who did not lose much (or anything). They felt horribly guilty that they didn't suffer with the rest of us. There was no reason for that; none of us who went through the actual tornado or lost things would have wanted it to happen to anyone else.

Weirdly enough, even though I already went through my own tornado, I felt tornado guilt yesterday. I felt like I should have been there to go through it with my parents. Why? Who knows...it's not a rational feeling at all. My parents were really glad that Sister and I were in Jackson. Mom and Dad have an AWESOME storm shelter, so they were completely safe throughout the whole ordeal. Nonetheless, I still felt like I should have been there.

Union students are taking donations for students in Alabama, particularly at the University of Alabama. I felt like I'd come full-circle as I went through my clothes and rounded up things to send to my home state; this is exactly what people did for us just a few short years ago. I guess it's a tangible way to a) help and b) deal with Tornado Guilt.

I'm so thankful to the Lord for His protection for not only my parents but also my friends and all of my extended family (that's right, we're ALL Alabamians). He's so good.

Tornado warnings are kind of like WWII air raids

I've lived in Tornado Alley for about 2/3 of my life. I think because Alabama is not Kansas, many people don't realize that North Alabama is right smack in Tornado Alley and gets those suckers right and left. Spring is peak tornado season, and you start recognizing warning signs: greenish-gray sky, unnatural clamminess in the air (although, Alabama- and Tennessee- are naturally quite humid places, so clamminess is sort of par for the course), squirrely-ness in all the critters, in my Tennessee town there's also an increased inability of the local inhabitants to normally and safely maneuver their vehicles...

Anyway, I take tornadoes very seriously. A super massive F-4 tornado all but destroyed my college campus in 2008, and I was most definitely present when it did so. I don't mess around when those sirens go off. Much like WWII air raids, those of us who have a healthy level of respect for funnel clouds realize the following:

1. You really should seek shelter immediately. Not even kidding. You should also know that the sirens will keep going on and on and on- no matter how much stress it causes you.

2. You must put on shoes. I have a story about that...

3. Pack a bag of essentials that you would need if something happened to your house (i.d., money, valuables, cell phone AND charger...have stories about those things, too)

4. It is quite terrifying to be sitting around and wondering if your house is about to be smashed to bits at any moment.

5. Have chapstick on your person. Otherwise, you might be reaching for it for the rest of the night- only to be constantly reminded that you lost it. Along with everything else.

We've had 4 tornado warnings in the past week. One of them had roommate and me sleeping in our hallway for half of the night...it's messing with my blood pressure, y'all.

Sightseeing in Kiev! (For, like, the 27th time)

It's a good thing I like visiting Kiev (note: I said "visiting"- I decided early on during my time in Ukraine that I wouldn't actually like to live there. I prefer living in my "big village" of Poltava.) BECAUSE I've done it a lot now. However, it's really fun to go with folks who've never been before.

Our last full day in Ukraine was spent hanging out in Kiev...seeing the sites...buying the souvenirs...It was extremely cold (never fear: I had layers and my hat.), but we were champs and used up our entire hour and 45 minutes in the souvenir market.

Here's Amiee posing in the exact same spot where she face-planted in the mud 3.5 years ago. Ah, good times. She managed to stay upright this time around.

Tower at St. Sofia's (Orthodox church)

More St. Sofia's. The bottom part of the building (that you can't see) is actually the original structure from the 1100's. It's oooooooold.

Amiee and me...and St. Sofia's. I got a lot of pictures of St. Sofia's, apparently.

St. Michael's.

...and this is a picture of me back in the States, sporting one of my finds from Kiev. The little guy on the t-shirt is a Soviet cartoon character. Nastia used to get me to practice my Russian by watching episodes of Cheburachka and Crocodil Gena. This is Cheburachka. Yea, me, for snagging this awesome shirt!

Sorry I don't have truly awesome Kievian pictures. It was RATHER cold, which made me forget to pull out my camera.

Thanks for sticking with me through the super drawn-out chronicle of the Ukrainian Adventure 2011. It's finally wrapping up, and I will do my darnedest to update more frequently.

I will. For real this time.

I'm just trying to draw this out...and out...and out...

I really will wrap up all of the Ukraine pictures. Probably within the next two or three days. I'm about tired of having it on my to-do list everyday and never getting it checked off. Here are some of the 10 or 11 pictures that I snapped on our last day in Poltava. I wasn't thinking very photographically at the time, unfortunately.

Vova taught Alex, Juliana, and Julie to write their names in Ukrainian and Russian in between classes. The Ukrainian students found no end of entertainment from this.

Our evening program on the fourth night centered around discussion groups, using the game 'Soularium' (produced by Campus Crusade). Lots of great conversation was had, Vova shared, the girls on our team (minus Alex and me) sang, and we hung out for a looooong time afterward.

Amiee, Victoria, and I were missing Nataly. :(

Our sweet friend, Anya, who we got to see so infrequently but always loved spending time with. She came out to visit with us our last night.

Some of my favorites! Nastia, Yulia, and Olya.

Dasha. She's such a nut.

Our week in Poltava was truly blessed; we had tons of work to do, not too much sleep, and fantastic new friends.

I realize that last sentence sounds VERY lame. It's ok. I'm a professional wordsmith, guys.

Photojournalism...sort of...

...but not really. My bff, Kat, is actually trained in photojournalism, so she's going to laugh and potentially roll her eyes when she reads that title. Despite that, here are pictures of Day 3/Night 2:

Juliana (blonde hair, far left) and Matt (dark hair, far right) chatting with their groups. If you squint, you can see Vova's head bobbing over the top of everyone else's heads.

Switch to the other side of the room: Julie (dark clothes, back to the camera) and Alex (back table, blonde hair) doing the chatting on the other side of the room. This class was super great to talk to and spend time with.

Evening Program #2 was Game Night. Big hit! Ukrainians love a good game! We set the room up into stations. There were originally four...almost 90 people showed up that night, so we had to last-minute add another station! We had almost NO room, but everyone had a great time. This particular game requires the team to stand on the table cloth and then flip it over, using only their feet- and they're not allowed to step off of it.

Stas likes to "pose"

This game requires the entire team to travel from the start line to the finish line, but they have to have their feet touching at all times. If anyone loses foot contact, the whole team has to start over. Yikes!

I didn't get an action shot of this game, but the goal of the game was to keep a balloon in the air for a certain amount of time. However, after you've hit it with one hand, that hand goes behind your back and you can't use it again. After going through that round of the game, everyone has to hold hands and keep the balloon in the air. Sounds simple and basic, but this was always the rowdiest game to calm down when it was time to rotate stations...

In this game, the team has to get the dowel rod from standing to the ground without anyone losing contact with the dowel at any given time. It's actually quite tricky.

Friends: Alina and Dasha

Alex and her new little friend.

This was actually not staged. Completely candid.

Sweet (married!) friends: Maya and Vova. Check out Vova's shirt from last year's Union group!

Dasha and Celia: same spirit, different nationalities.

Night 2 went exceptionally well. Lots of great conversation was had, connections were made, and we hit a much larger number of attendees than we could ever have expected. SO good!

I WILL update soon.

Promise. I haven't had a chance to be with my computer (where the pictures are) and sit down and commit time to documenting. I WILL finish documenting Ukraine.

Just not tonight...sleepy...

And she updates...many days later...

Sorry for the delay...I've been beyond tired this week and couldn't even muster up the energy to blog the past few days. Isn't that pitiful? I thought so, too...

Anyway, our second day in Ukraine was also quite full of classes (I think Team A had 5 classes on Tuesday). We started our day at a different school than our primary focus school. Because we were working with a lower-level group of speakers, we had to tweak our lessons ever so slightly, but it worked out just fine. Matt was a huge hit with the female set, which was pretty funny to watch. The group really perfected their presentations of their pictures and life stories. I know they got SUPER tired of it before the end of the week, but the Ukrainian students absolutely LOVED getting to learn about their lives and see pictures of everything.

At the end of our day, we had a class to teach at the private school (it was the same school where we had worked with the little guys the day before). They divided us into two groups because there were two small classes of about 5.

*Semi-funny story: one of our teammates (she really will remain identity-less, so I'll call her Z) had a super upset stomach when we got to the private school. I helped her locate the bathroom... Let me paint a picture for you of our location; you know, to set the stage for this story. This private school is located in the bowels of a building that houses lots of offices for various and sundry businesses. However, like most Ukrainian work places, the hallways are pitch black (theory: flashback to the Soviet Union. Ukrainians really just don't turn on lights except in the room of immediate use, so hallways are almost always completely dark.). We were stumbling and tripping in the dark on the uneven floors. The bathroom was a floor up from where we were teaching, and I promise you that the walkway into the stairwell had prison bars. I kid you not.

Anyway, we got upstairs and were both coughing and gagging from the overwhelming haze of cigarette smoke. The bathroom, surprisingly, did not contain squatty potties. However, once we started investigating, we realized it would have been better if it had...None of the toilets had seats and every single one was full of...stuff...ew. It smelled bad but not the worst ever. Z was feeling really bad, so I went back downstairs to give her some privacy.

Come to find out, she had an adventure. Ukrainian bathrooms notoriously are toilet paper deficient, so we always carry tissues in our bags. Unfortunately for Z, she'd forgotten to slip hers into her bag that morning, and guess what- no t.p. According to her retelling of the story, she went through a few options:

a) Don't wipe. NO.

b) Use hand. NOOOOOOO.

c) Ask lady in next stall. Um, no Russian...

d) Dig in bag and find notebook paper. Hmmm...

She went with option d, thank goodness. She actually ended up using a sheet of paper from her sketch pad. Oi...discomfort...At the end of the process, though, she won an "I've had a real missionary experience" award.

For our evening program, we made a virtual tour of Union. We set up the room to look kind of like an airplane, passed out Union bookmarks to be used as "tickets," had our flight attendants (Juliana and Kayleigh) give the pertinent instructions, and then we each narrated pictures of ourselves in our "natural habitats." The Ukrainian students really enjoyed seeing pictures of us at school, so all in all, I think it was a hit. Vova gave a short message, and then we spent a lot of time visiting and getting to know students. Julie, Matt, and Daniel got into some particularly great and meaningful discussions that carried over into the following days. Yea! I didn't actually get pictures of that night...I know...fail...but I hope you enjoyed the bathroom story!

Matt talking about the U.S.

Alex sharing about her family and friends.

Julie leading a game/making friends.

Me and the Mary Ellen look-alike, Masha!

So, someone had the idea a while back to create a bobble head that looks like our University president. Then, someone else had the idea to start taking pictures with him in different places, Flat Stanley-style. All of the teams that went out over Spring Break took one. Here's one of our pictures. I'm holding him, even though you can't see him very well. It's weird...we know.