Ladies and Gentlemen! I woke up this morning and saw this floridian vagabond lying on my bedroom floor! His name is Jeffry David Moore! He gotten tired of the bureaucratic life of florida hospital and is now enjoying true freedom in the land of Ukraine! This photo that i took five minutes ago while he was and is still sleeping is evidence of his journey! So give it up for Jeff!

If I was much farther west my experience here be completely different, and I would not be learning the things I am learning. I feel like I am receiving the most intensive educational experience of my lifetime thus far. I think this is because I am actually engaged in it, back at school I didn’t get as engaged with my education as I am here in Ukraine. The name ‘Ukraine’ is literally translated as “boarder lands,” and this is exactly what it is. Kiev has been occupied by a couple different cultures; western and eastern and they have all left their mark. You all should come live here! Ukraine has a heavy and painful history, but also some stunningly beautiful history too. It really feels like I am living on the brink of something, spiritually, personally and geographically. It’s just been so good!

The people here are so fascinating, they have all seen so much pain, and you can see it in their eyes in the lines on their face. But you can also see an honesty to what life is that a lot of Americans have never seen. Things are real to them, that is the only way I can say it. Life is real, if they have a cold they have a cold, while people from the sates drowned it with cough medicine and they sleep it away. Dose that make sense? What I mean is; they are in touch with every part of life, and they feel it all. ALL OF IT!!!! How often do Americans do that, I swear its like were all on drugs! But this is what I needed, I needed to be stripped of my over consuming life and learn to… “Consider the lily’s.” I think that’s part of what Jesus was talking about. Back at Union some of my favorite teachers told me how everything is connected and how wonderful it is to be connected with life and God in this great circle. But now I feel what they were talking about, before their words seemed like nice poetic words that felt good to hear and made me think that I was a true intellectual for buying into. But now being here, I see/feel/know that we are all the same, and were all in this together, and that everything is connected. A year is not long enough to learn all of the things I want to learn! I haven’t become a communist, like some people told me I would, but I think I understand what it was, and my understanding of it makes me more afraid of the United States. Because I am beginning to feel like our obsessive dedication to the ideology that capitalism has offered to the world is just as dangerous to the human spirit as Stalinist communism has been to people here. And I know some people here feel the same as I do. There are a lot of people who feel completely overwhelmed by the drastic shift that has taken place here in the past 17 years. Watching this change has thought me that there is a cost to my living, and then there is a cost of my living. And I needed to slow down to realize this, so that I could connect with this world we live in, and the creator of it. I feel like for the first time in my life I am beginning to see God for who he is, but I am sure it’s only part of his back. But it is beautiful, and so inviting! And most of all it is healing! And this is what humanity needs right now.

Every seven years Hebrew farmers would give their crops a Sabbath rest, so that they could support more crops later on. And today if this happened we would have an economic disaster! So we just pump our crops and animals with chemicals so that we can keep ourselves going at this incredible pace. There is a cost that we are going to pay if we don’t slow down. We need the Sabbath! Never have I believed it more.

Today pastor Rich visited Julie and I. I was not looking forward to it at first, because I was feeling old feelings about union. When I stepped off the metro and saw them I was a little twisted inside, but it was ok. As the morning went on it proved to be really nice. I haven’t had much time to spend with guys, so it was really cool just to chat it up with a guy for once. I kinda feel like I am around a lot of women here, and any chance I get to chat or joke with a guy it just fires me up! I’m in a wired place, I feel like one of those dads who has like 3 daughters and always wished for a son. Or maybe a little like one guy I know who was raised with 9 sisters, yeah his life is bad! So yeah I feel him or one of those dads, to many women! Some of this may seem vulgar, but I need to laugh and tell inappropriate jokes! Being a missionary doesn’t change you all at once you know! Anyway, I didn’t tell dirty jokes too pastor Rich, although one came to mind… Julie and I showed him around Kiev. We took him to some of the cooler things in the city. We showed him St. Andrews Decent, some of the cool buildings in the center, and then some of the cool places in the Podil region. It was cool to talk with someone from the US, to hear about what is happening out there. And then Rich left at around 1:00 pm and I went to the airport and talked with the cab driver for a while because it turned out that I knew him. Alex was the cab driver who took me to Kiev on my first day there. And so we talked for a while about music and life in Kiev and stuff like that. Then I went and hooked up with my friend Kiril, and he helped me pay for my buss ticket to Praha for this upcoming holiday. And so yeah I my ticket so that means I’ll be coming to see you Andrea! After I bought the ticket Kiril and I hung out and talked for a while, and that was really cool! Once again time with a fellow man, it was quite refreshing! Kiril is a great fellow and is has one of the best senses of humor of anyone I have met out here. I told one or two inappropriate jokes; I liked how that made me feel. All these thoughts about man time are reminding me of my freshmen year when Jeff, Jared, BJ, Brandon, Ehren, Wes, and I would cook steaks and drink O’douls in my dorm room at like 2 in the morning on Friday night. Good times! Then after Kiril and I split I went to Levoborghna for the Friday night meeting. And there I found my Union College Christmas box! And there were amazing things from everyone! I loved it so! Zach sent me season 3 and 4 of the office and a hug from him and Israel! Sharon and Malcolm sent me a really nice letter! New creation sent me a freaking huge load of food, along with more roman noodles than I could eat in a year! Also a ton of people from New Creation sent me a ton of Christmas letters! The Ortner Center, sent me soap, and bath supplies from the guestrooms! Tanya sent me guitar picks! And staff from union sent me other cools stuff, like peanut butter, fry chick, a cup, post-it notes, a wad of pens, paperclips! THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!! Also thanks everyone for all of the letters, they all meant so much to me! So this was a blog about today: a really good day. This was also the first installment of my weekly blogs! Did you hear that?!?!?! I said weekly!!! Seriously! Thanks to Tyler’s prodding I will start writing more blogs because they are cool and fun to read! And I want to hear from you, so I need to put out too! SO ENJOY!!!