Hello Lviv

This morning the JV board members and those of us traveling with them, gathered on Platform One in Krakow to begin our trek to Lviv, Ukraine today.

Our dear Denny, who serves with us in the JV home office in Frydlant, made all the arrangements for this trip, which was no small feat!

Hello dear sister in law Kristi, photo bombing us!

I found out she'd had to make a special trip to Krakow a few weeks ago to buy the train tickets for all of us, along with arranging dozens of other things to make this happen. We love her and are so thankful for her gifts of helps that serves us!

Once on the train, we settled into our compartments for hours of train travel to the border between Poland and Ukraine.

I happily landed in the compartment with the JV UK board!

As the train whizzed through the Polish countryside, I heard many wonderful stories from these godly people.

JV UK is our newest sending country, which means that missionaries can be sent from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales as we now have a team that leads and does administration, like our offices do in the US and Canada.

As we rode together for hours, they told me that trains in England used to be like this (with compartments) and that for them it was very nostalgic to travel this way. Their trains are set up more like buses and don't feel as community oriented.

Later in the afternoon we arrived into Przemyśl, Poland where we got off the train and had a few hours to wait for our next one. Some of us took off exploring to see this pretty Polish city near the Ukrainian border.

It could hardly have been a prettier fall afternoon here!

We made our way back to the train station and got into line to board our next train into Ukraine.

All went smoothly as we crossed the border, and made our way to Lviv.

Maybe others knew there would be a crowd waiting for us, but I didn't know! I was so pleasantly surprised by the JV Ukraine team, probably around 15 of them, who were there at the train station to greet us!

They put us in vans and on public transportation, taking us to our hotel for the night. From there, we walked to a restaurant for dinner, and had a delightful time with their various team members who sat at tables with us.

Tomorrow we'll have a full day, touring various parts of the city and seeing their ministries here. I'm so looking forward to that!

Good Night Lviv!