Yekaterinburg.

February 2-7, 2010

A bigger city with less restrictions on who we speak to and what we could say.  Yekaterinburg was epic.

6 games in 5 days.  All wins. 

What does that mean for His kingdom?  It meant that we automatically gained the respect of six different Russian hockey teams who would automatically sit attentively and listen to whatever words came out of these seven mouths.  It meant that when we gave them something they graciously accepted.

In Yekaterinburg we had a great contact in Zhenya; a pastor who two years previously had heard about YWAM hockey in a neighbouring town from his mother and came out to watch a game, since then he’s been in contact and had arranged quite the four days for us in his home city.

After every practice and every game in Yekaterinburg we had the attention of men and children where we shared what God means to us; how He has changed our lives.  We were provided with sport bibles and a booklet of hockey testimonies to give to each of the men and boys we met.  We coached kids from 7ish to 16; we played against a deaf team, an Afghanistan war veteran team, in addition to four other men's teams.  This city was epic.  Pastor Zhenya told us his mind was blown; we were given the opportunity to speak into the lives of people who would ordinarily never get to hear the kinds of things we had to say; and they asked questions.   I hope they will continue to now that we’ve left.

 

 

On our last day, we went to a worship meeting as Pastor Zhenya’s church where he told his young people a story.  All his life he loved hockey, he showed a hanger he doodled on when he was a kid; full of hockey pictures and words.  Then when he was a teenager he hung up his skates; but his passion never died.  Five years ago he went out and bought hockey gear and began to re live the joy of his childhood.  He spoke about dreams and how God wants each of us to fulfil each our dreams; growing up Zhenya dreamed of playing hockey with Canadians, five years ago he got back into hockey but still never thought that dream could come true.  Two years ago he got to meet a team of Christian Canadians who had a passion for hockey; that blew his mind, people who were using their passions to change the world.  Last week his dream came true.  He suited up for almost every game with us. He got to share with young people from his congregation how dreams come true.

That same evening our team got to share for a few minutes about who we are and how God is working in our lives:  every time I get the chance to share I seem to switch it up, this time the story I gave went something like this.

Growing up I always knew there was a God, my parents took me to church and I believed, but I didn’t really know why.  When I was a teenager I felt like no one really believed in me, no one really thought I would become anything special and I believed it myself.  Then five years ago, my life changed.  Things started to fall into place and for some reason I ended up in China, after that year my life hasn’t been the same. 

The past five years of my life have been crazy. Crazy.  On this journey in Russia I’ve really looked back on my life and have seen how God has changed me.  I could literally tell you stories for hours and hours about my life; I’ve been to China and back three times, I’ve played more hockey in these past five years than I ever dreamed I could have.  I have had opportunities that I never thought were possible; and everything has lined up so perfectly that I can’t help but believe it’s God.  There is just not enough room for that many coincidences to happen. 

I remember one time in China, while driving through the countryside where I just looked around and was overwhelmed with what I saw; miles and miles of green mountains and tea fields, I was in China.  Me, the small town girl from Saskatchewan who always felt like no one believed in her was making something of my life. 

It still blows my mind right now; God fulfilled dreams of mine I never even knew I had.  I have done more in these past five years than I ever dreamed I would.  I know now that I’m pretty okay; I know now that people believe in me, one day in Russia I got a few messages from back home, all of them telling me they were proud of me and that they never doubted I would make it here and do great things, that they were excited to see where life was going to take me.  Things have changed for me and I account it all to the fact that I’m not just leaning on me anymore.

After the questions and answers we had a few minutes to mingle with the crowd; I had four separate young women come up to me and tell me that I had encouraged them, that I had inspired them to do what they love.

Two of them were painters and one of them said that when we sat down she thought that there was something special about me, and that when I spoke she was glad that she decided to come tonight; before I had shared my story I mentioned that painting is a hobby of mine, and that together with whatever words came out of my mouth had impacted these two girls.  They told me that they were going to keep on doing what they love, they saw that God can use you while doing what you love.

Just before I had to leave one more young woman came up to me and just said thank you, what you said was what I needed to hear, it encouraged me, I’m glad you came tonight.  We hugged. 

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Anastasia was our translator; she grew up in the United States and was amazing.  We were so blessed to have her along with us, she probably doesn’t even realize how amazing she is.  Before we left we said good byes and gave her hugs, and at the airport the other Russians shared with us that she cried all the way home, half an hour, after she said goodbye.  She never knew how one could use their passions to change lives; our week with her opened her eyes to how God uses the talents He gave you to impact others, I hope she knows how her talents impacted us.

 

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Klim was a 19 year old hockey player who was released from his team in another city and arrived home just weeks before we arrived.  He is at a crossroads in his life and doesn’t know whether or not to continue to pursue hockey or if he should just drop his dream and go into business.  He played every game with us.  He listened to every story we shared.  H loved us, we loved him.  He became a believer last year, and I think really needed something to encourage him, I’m pretty sure we did that.  I hope we hear that he continued living his dream and that he does great things with his life.

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Yekaterinburg was an epic city.  We were so blessed to spend time there, we had so many hearts opened to us.  I look forward to hearing about lives that were impacted because of YWAM Hockey. 

and just a random note: we flew out of Yekaterinburg to Vladivostok instead of taking a 5 day train, but because our bags were heavy we ended up paying over $600 in excess baggage fees, I overheard Brian asked how that was going to affect the budget and Glen answered that Zhenya and his church had taken care of all our accommodation costs and so we had enough and not to worry.  :)