We Love Folkestone (we really do)

Over the past week I found the words "significant" and "enthusiastic" come up a lot in my day-to-day vocabulary (my friends Jim and Katy can vouch for this). I've just had one of those weeks when every day feels so important and positive - even if it doesn't seem very exciting. 

This weekend Churches Together Folkestone held a youth event at our church called "We Love Folkestone". It's basically a movement that encourages the young people of our town to show genuine kindness to the people in our community and put "love thy neighbour as thyself" into practice. 

I felt very excited all this last week leading up to the event and really built up enthusiasm for it because I knew that this Saturday night was going to be the beginning of something that Folkestone may not have ever seen before. 

So last night it happened. I was so psyched and even managed to get Jim, our youth leader, to use the word "enthusiastic", too. We decked our church hall bar with cookies and Diet Coke expecting it all to vanish down the throats of loads of passionate, on-fire-for-God teenagers in the blink of an eye. 

Seven o'clock came and like, barely anyone had arrived. Our speaker was present, the band was ready, but no kids had arrived yet. Quarter past seven... maybe two or three young people. At this point it was so hard not to have this kind of attitude towards the people who had not come:

Any "A Cinderella Story" fans out there?

Now that gif is a bit exaggerated, but seriously, I was a bit confused as to why no one was showing up. It was going to be the youth event of the season! We were gonna change Folkestone together, hand-in-hand! How could we do that if barely anyone came?! Regardless of how few of us had come, we opened in prayer and the band got up and led us in worship for 30 minutes or so. 

MAN.

Like, everyone was getting into it. And not like, "Oh my word, this worship is totes making me feel psyched for Jesus, man. I feel so good about myself right now, dude. Look at me being filled by the Spirit!" 

But as we sang songs of praise, the room filled with love - a love that remains even if we don't, a love that causes us to overcome our fears in order to reach a loveless community, a love that moves us to touch the untouchables... a love that applies to us as individuals and the community as a whole. That room filled with God's love. 

"When two or three meet together..."

After worship a guy called Dave Pickett came up to speak. If I'm honest with you, I was expecting some older fellow with 20 years experience in youth work to come up and talk to us, but actually this guy Dave was not much older than than the rest of us and I found his challenge to missions very inspiring. He encouraged us to look for opportunities in our communities among the people we know to be Jesus to, but he also challenged us to let any ministry we partake in to start in our hearts.

Missions is not missions without Jesus because without Jesus, there is no missions. And our community can only encounter Jesus if we encounter Him first on a personal level. 

Only about 10 youth came in all (not including youth leaders/workers). After Dave's talk we split up into groups and starting discussing what issues the young and old of our town are facing and what we could do to help them. 

I loved our group of seven. All together we represented three different churches and for me, this is what last night was all about: the churches coming together with our town's need for Jesus as our focus. When the time came to turn our attention back to the stage, our group had come up with a very cool idea of how to reach our town. During our discussion on what the needs of the young and old in our town are we came across to one issue that pertained to both parties: the need to be listened to and supported. 

We came up with an idea to put a sofa in the middle of town centre and serve free teas and coffees and invite people to sit down and have a chat with us. It would be a place where people could come and share their thoughts, problems and stories. 

We want the way Folkestone views teenagers to change and this sofa idea may be one of the first steps towards that. All these ideas are yet to be put into practice, so I'll keep you up to date with what comes as a result of last night. 

I don't mind that only 10 kids showed up. I think it's important for relationships to be built between us as youth groups and small numbers allow that to happen. Eventually this movement will grow and, I hope, infect the rest of the youth in our town. Even if it's slow to begin with we can be sure that God is at work in the hearts of our young people, moulding them into people who will touch their communities with Christ's love. 

We love Folkestone and we want to see it change. 

How? Only by love, only with God.


"We Love Folkestone" facebook page here.

First birthday away from the nest

So this Tuesday was my 19^th birthday. I have to say that I was very much excited to be turning 19; it's my last year as a teenager and yet I am not really 'just a kid' anymore (well, I'd like so think so anyway) because I have a year's worth of independence under my belt. Reflecting on how far I've come since my 18^th makes me smile – so much has changed but it's been for the greater good and I have come out much stronger. I have made some incredible friends since my 18^th too and have had some many unexpected opportunities to do so many amazing things.

How did my birthday go then? Well, as you can guess from the title this was my first birthday without my family. Initially I didn't really know how I felt about that until I read my mum's very heart-felt message to me on Facebook and I had a little cry. I was sad but once I realised that that was the case I felt better. I skyped my sister and mum and had a good chat which made my day. I also received a very cute parcel in the post today with tiny little messages from each of them and a Ukrainian gift of mini matrioshki on a drawing pin. It's the little things....

Letters from home <3

But the people around me were very generous with their time and even gifts for my special day (because birthdays are always special). The couple I live with greeted me in the morning with a lovely card and presents and I went for tea at my friends, Jim and Katy's house which was so fun. They got me a cake with pink glittery flowers on and their youngest even voluntarily sat on my lap for a prolonged amount of time! That truly was a gift! Basically it was a perfect birthday dinner; Katy and I crocheted into the evening, counting stitches and discussing yarns! (This is my own personal bliss.)

Jesse is a leetle angel wafe!

Last night I went out with some friends from school to a local Asian restaurant to celebrate. Not only did I try my first Yaki Soba (oh boy, it tasted so gooood!) but the company was great also. Thanks, guys!

Lotti, James, me and Aaron

What can I say?! I had an amazing birthday and feel very undeserving of everyone's kindness. As my friend Lotti said to me, “It's all the little things that make your birthday great when your family is not present.” This was the first of many birthdays away from family... and it was a pretty great first!

The Alien: I am a foreigner everywhere I go

So I have been at school for 6 weeks now. It's going well. I've been working at my church as a intern youth leader for a month now and that's going very well, too. I am well and surrounded by people who love and look out for me. 

So why do I write: "I am a foreigner everywhere I go"? It's not like I'm not accepted by others around me or expected to be anything but myself. I am myself and no one leaves me out or rejects me because of it.  

And yet... the phrase "I'm not one of them" or "I'm not like them" keeps spinning in my mind as I observe and interact with the people around me. This doesn't happen so much in church as it is literally my family away from family and everyone is so diverse and knows how quirky my family is so don't expect anything less from me. But at school and anywhere else really that's not church, I cannot help but feel distant from the people I am surrounded by.

Being an 'active Christian', as one might say, makes me stand out automatically. My morals and values are mostly, if not entirely, affected by my faith, so I stand out anyway because of that. 

Also being a missionary kid, when some asks me why I don't live with my family and I answer, "They live in Ukraine", the unavoidable question, "What are they doing out there?" inevitably follows. "My dad is a pastor. We are missionaries," I respond revealing my identity. People raise their eyebrows and I imagine they are painting pictures in their minds of my mother dressed as a pioneer reading the Bible in her rocking chair praying for the natives. Basically, regardless of who I talk to and what we are talking about my confusing (and interesting, I dare say) background and faith always come up. Also because of my enormous surname (Trokhymenko) people often think that I am actually first and foremost Ukrainian and wonder why my English is so good. I then proceed to explain to them that I have lived longer in England than Ukraine and that I was actually born here. This information shocks everyone I meet. Bottom line, whatever angle I come from: homeschooler, missionary kid, Christian, human being... I always stand out. 

I go to school every week like English kids do, like kids of other nationalities do, like exchange students do and yet from what I can see they are having a pretty easy time getting along with people and making friends. I do have 2 great German friends who are exchange students that I hang out with even outside of school, but when it comes to trying to build a relationship with anyone else, English or otherwise, I am lost. I struggle to follow their conversations and involve myself because I don't know people and I don't party. 

Everyone listens to different music, have different tastes in food, different attitudes to education, different fashion-sense, different love lives and different family situations compared to me. Yeah, I know everyone in the world is different but these people can at least find someone to relate to within a 3 mile radius and I don't have that! I'm a missionary kid! The people I can relate to live hundreds, and some even thousands of miles away from me. I can't talk them every day or even every month. There are timezones and busy schedueles to keep in mind and it often feels impossible to sit down and simply Skype for one hour. 

The point is, I am not capable of blending in or conforming. At school we have a big Nepalese and Czech population and they find consolation within their cultural bubbles. They are TCKs (third-culture kids) but they have become so collectively and therefore have each other to relate to and feel accepted with. Many have also managed to find common ground with the English kids and so float between the two cultural bubbles with ease. One minute they are chatting to us in English about English things and the next they spin round on their chair and shout across the bistro in Nepalese or Czech to their cousin or whatever and momentarily enter their 'other' bubble. I don't really have that. I'm not a TCK like they are.  

It's so hard not to get bitter towards those who may seem a bit ignorant to me and treat them like this: 

because I probably appear pretty ignorant to them (like, what does 'shindigs' even mean?).

I don't want to sound whiny or try and make you feel sorry for me (although it probably sounds like I am :/), it's just that I struggle to understand how these kids from other cultures are getting on so well and I am just... well, still in the dark. I cannot adapt to their ways so that they will accept me and let me into their circles - as stated before I am not capable of that, and so I guess this is my rather lonely fate (unless in the company of other TCKs/MKs): to never fit in anywhere, even my 'own' country. 

This fate is both the expected and the unexpected. It's excity but scary. It is the norm and yet I still find myself finding my reality so strange. I wait for stability but hardly recognize or know how to deal with it when it comes. Part of me wants to settle down and become rooted in my community and the other, louder part of me wants to pack my bags and get the heck outta here. 

I manage to find some kind of common ground with many people and yet I struggle to relate to most people. Will it always be this way? Maybe. Probably. And though I still battle with the facts of my reality, I have learned to accept and embrace it. I am and will always be a foreigner wherever I am, be it England, Ukraine or anywhere else. 

I am a nomad and that will never change.