We have numerous short term mission trip opportunities available for friends and supporters of Music Mission Kiev.

• Vision Trips - These are trips organized by our Orlando office and set up to allow friends of the mission to visit Kiev and see first hand what God is doing in and through the ministries of Music Mission Kiev. Usually in the late spring the trips last approximately 10 days. We make all of the arrangements, including air travel, lodging, meals, visits to museums and cultural events, and participation in the many varied ministries of MMK. 

 

• “Helping Hands” Mission Trip - This year our mission trip will include “hands-on” ministry to our widows and orphans at Orphanage #22. We are forming a team of around 10 volunteers  to serve our widows/widowers by helping with minor repairs, painting, washing windows, and cleaning their apartments. You might even get to "pamper" our widows with a manicure/pedicure. You will also spend time at Orphanage #22 located in Kiev loving on the orphans through several service projects we have planned.  

          Our next Mission Trip is scheduled for May 13-24th, 2010.  The total estimated  
          cost of this trip is $2,600. (Airfare from your home town to meeting location is "add-          on" cost) A deposit of $500.00 is due March 13, 2010, with the remaining balance of 
          $2,100 due no later then April 13, 2010.  

          Since this will be a ”working” ministry trip, we encourage you to raise support from your  
          family, friends & church. 

           If you are interested in any of these opportunities, please Contact Us by phone at
           1- 800-467-5051 or e-mail info@musicmissionkiev.org.

Below are testimonials from those that have participated in our prior trips. 

Jackie Sneed
Rev. Ralph & Linda Nelson
Mike & Gayla Darrah

Jackie Sneed (Vision Trip to Kiev May 9-20, 2008)

This was my third Vision Trip to observe Music Mission Kiev in the past six years.  Each time there have been many changes and improvements. 
 

It took about 20 hours and two plane changes each way to get there from here. Arriving at Borispol airport loaded down with the maximum weight in luggage, much of it carrying gifts and supplies to leave behind, we had the long drive into the city of Kiev to notice how much better the roads were, how much new construction, how many more cars than last trip. The economy has improved and inflation has risen about 30 percent, making everything more expensive for the people, but improving the lifestyles of the middle and upper classes.

 

Once we arrived at Music Mission Kiev headquarters right behind the Opera House in central Kiev, members of the Grace Gang (the teenage orphans who are being nurtured by MMK ) took us to apartments within an easy walk.  After a couple of hours to unpack, but not to take a nap, we met back at the mission apartment to get our revised itinerary and eat a leisurely early dinner.  Roger and Diane spent a lot of time with us, helped by staff. The kitchen crew headed by Chef Val prepared most of our meals.

 

Sunday: -- St Michaels’ Cathedral.  After a 20-minute walk past the Golden Gate and then St Sofia’s green-domed complex, this lavender and white monastery with many gold domes was ahead. Built in the 11^th Century, all of it has been added to and reconstructed. This is the highest of Holy squares, and the best place to begin our historic journey.  We covered our heads and with the most solemn of faces, entered to observe the people standing at worship and the multiple levels of priests and choirs taking part in central rooms and inner places we could only glimpse. As the days go on, we had guided tours of the Lavra, which is a very large monastery with museums and ancient caves, and of many of the public squares, parks and wide avenues, as well as Pirogova----a folk village outside of the city.

 

Late morning found us back at our base for the New Generation program. This is a choir of 10-12 year olds who meet every Sunday. Sometimes they also practice with bells or chimes. Today we had beanie-babies to give each one after their lessons. Another group met after lunch. At the parent’s request, Roger teaches a Sunday school class while they wait. He is trying to encourage more family-shared activities and reach these young parents with the message of Christianity. 
 

Monday began a closely packed schedule of activities at the mission apartment, interspersed with visits (twice) to small one-room widow apartments, choir or orchestra rehearsals and some free time for shopping the beautiful hand-made souvenirs on Andrevsky Sputz.  Every morning 9AM devotions with the complete staff is led by Roger, Diane or Sergei. Ukrainian Bibles are kept in a bookcase beside enough English bibles for anyone who is visiting. This is a required beginning to each day.

Every morning there is a large gathering in the main room of the mission apartment. Once the staff has gone to their own areas for work, the widows began to arrive for Bible study with Natasha or Diane or Evangelism Explosion lessons, or Stephens Ministry. There are some men, but the majority are women between 65 and 90 years old. Many return multiple times each week. Natasha has taught them to give “Christian hugs”, which they do with relish and large gold-toothed smiles saying, “I love you”.  

We sat in on many of the meetings, but sometimes had outside activities. One highlight was helping to assemble the plastic bags of food that are given out once a week to these widows. Some of them deliver to shut-ins as well. All are checked off against a list to be sure nobody is forgotten. One week the foods put in the bags were: a bottle of oil, a tin of meat, a lemon, an orange, and 2-pound bag of a grain that looks like brown rice, and serves as a staple food for them. Small street markets sell fresh vegetables cheaply, so those are not included. Sometimes a quarter of chicken is also added. Many of the widows have sponsors in the US who donate monthly to a fund that covers the cost of these food packets and also medicines, eyeglasses or operations that might be deemed important. 

 

One afternoon we all took a large van out to Public School # 160. One of the church members, Larissa, is the teacher of a 3^rd grade class that meets after school hours for “Christian Ethics,” as part of MMK's Christian Children's Club. Attendance is voluntary. The classroom was full of eager girls and boys wearing the required dark jackets and hanging on every word of the Bible lesson, then the game afterwards at which time Larissa gave the winners of the quiz a box of colored pencils that we had brought for her. Hands waved in the air for attention, but the children were very mannerly and stayed in their seats.

The first girl stood up and quoted the 10 Commandments without hesitation. A few times the questions were harder, and not all won. One desperate girl forgot part of her answer and sat back down in tears. The boy who was called on after her did it correctly and he collected his box of pencils and gently put it on her desk. How kind they are to each other. As we left the schoolyard, Larissa stood to say goodbye at the gate. She introduced us to Helen, a smiling 10 year old who had recently been taken from her home to an orphanage by the government because her mother was an alcoholic and unable to care for her. We were asked to pray for Helen, that a foster home would be found for her.

 

Our evening entertainment consisted of two ballets and one opera at the elegant Opera House, and a rowdy evening at the Kiev Circus. After some of the busy days, we would gather for dinner at the Mission and reflect on all we had taken in that day. Other nights we wanted just to relax quietly in our own rooms.

The wines and champagne of Ukraine are very good, and cheap. I know many things have been left out, but surely by now you get the idea. This trip was reverent, educational, culturally diverse and beautiful in all ways.  I wish every supporter of Music Mission Kiev could be there.

As I said at the beginning, progress is being made very quickly in building new apartment high-rises (nobody has single-family homes here), in preserving the most beautiful of the historic structures, and in education.

The widows from WW2 who flock to the Bible classes receive only $90 per month as a pension, and were given a free one-room apartment. Nowadays, nany of the orphans receive an apartment (totally unfinished) free when they reach 18 years. Some of them lease these out and share space together for income. Their educational levels are not as high, and many do not have the support groups needed to encourage them as successful young adults after they leave the orphanages at 15 with only the choice of simple trade schools. 

Don't MISS OUT on taking the next Vision Trip to Kiev!!
                  

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Rev. Ralph & Linda Nelson (Casper, WY)

For us it began one evening five years ago when a leader of a local arts organization called and asked if we would host two Ukrainian orchestra members in our home.  Tickets to the concert, of which we had heard nothing, would be supplied for us.  Loving to host people from other countries, we said yes, and found the two clarinetists to be delightful.  The concert blew us away.  By the end of the second number we both had tears in our eyes.  And somewhere along the way Linda pointed out to me from the program notes that this had all been started by a Presbyterian choir director from Florida, and that there was a many sided mission which had grown out of his mission of music.

 

As a Presbyterian minister and wife who have long been active in music and whose life has been spent in the mission of the church, we were fascinated, and continued to stay in touch.  When the invitation came to visit the Ukraine on a Vision Trip, our other deep interest, travel, kicked in.  We looked at each other, as we had done so many times before, and said, “Why not?!”

 

It is difficult, this side of our trip, to add up and express all of the feelings of gratitude for the many things we learned, the many dear people we met, the inspiration we received, and the amazement at the size and power of the mission which has grown out of one couple’s call to bring Christian music to a part of the world deprived of it for so long.

 

Watching the boundless energy and talent of Natasha, perfectly bilingual, who could keep a joyful fellowship of elderly widows going in Ukrainian while she spoke to us in English and taught them to say things to us in English, all at the same time, engaged us fully, left me hoping that the next time she would take some time up front to teach us some Ukrainian.  We were deeply touched by our home visits, one to one of the widows, and the other to the home of a chorus member who had gathered three generations of his family into one small apartment for a rollicking evening of food, joke telling, singing, laughing, with a man whose job had once been fine tuning the aim on missiles aimed at the United States, and who said to us that he much preferred this kind of relationship with Americans than the one he had had.  It was a very touching moment for us.

 

Then there were the performances: a highly inspiring performance of Verdi’s, Requiem by the Kiev Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, two operas at the National Opera Theater, a stunning performance by a Ukrainian dance team that left us worn out just watching them, a ballet based on Don Quixote, and a circus which left us breathless for both beauty and daring.  It was the only time in our lives that we had ever seen a trained alligator and crocodile act!

 

For a bit of Ukrainian history we spent part of a day at Pirogova, an outdoor museum beyond the edge of the city which was a collection of historic houses, barns, schools, and churches from various parts of the Ukraine and various period in history, and part of another day at the Lavra, one of the largest monasteries in all of the Orthodox communion.  These were exceedingly colorful land interesting ventures. 

Worship at the Church of the Holy Trinity (Presbyterian) and a morning service at St. Michael’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as well as fellowship and worship experiences at the mission, spoke to use spiritually and sent us home with a sense of deeply spiritual purpose and meaning of what Music Mission Kiev is all about.

 

Before going I was prepared for a city which would be a grim, colorless reminder of the meaninglessness of a former Soviet stronghold.  And there are some grim sides to it, the woefully inadequate housing in which 90 percent of the people live, vast social and economic problems which still plague the Ukraine.  But on the whole the city was much more beautiful than I had imagined and the Ukrainian people we met were most warm hearted and loving.

 

We are deeply grateful to Music Mission Kiev for the tremendous work they have done among the Ukrainian people bringing the joy of Christian Faith to them and for the lengths to which they went to introduce us not only to their work but to the city and the country.  We look forward to future involvement with them and their mission.

Mike & Gayla Darrah (Boulder, CO)

In some ways it is very easy to share the experience that we had on our Vision trip to Music Mission Kiev and in other ways it is most difficult to find the words to adequately portray what we saw, felt, and how it has changed our lives.

 

The McMurrins and their staff were superb hosts….the basics were taken care of – shelter, most meals (Val is a fabulous cook!), and most importantly, translators!  We experienced first-hand all aspects of their mission.   The KSOC had a concert while we were there of Verdi’s Requiem in the House of Organ – there’s no better place to have a concert!   We met the widows that MMK serves, even a personalized trip to a widow in her home.  We met orphans from Orphanage #21 – it warmed our hearts to see their shy, shining faces receive some clothes and toys that we had brought for them along with hearing a mini-concert from the boys.  They’re ready to go on tour!  We witnessed God’s work in the teachers in a public school that MMK hires for after school hours to share with the students Bible stories and God’s love for them.   They also gave a concert of Christian songs, folk songs, and some folk dancing.  The Holy Trinity Church that has been established is the result of God working through the McMurrins and is growing in a way that you can imagine the churches did of Christ’s time.  We also spent time at a children’s hospital visiting cancer patients and their families where MMK serves.

 

We also visited some tourist attractions such as the Lavre, St. Michael’s, the War Museum….Kiev is a city that is 1,500 years old and has a culture and architecture that reflect many of these centuries.  And somehow MMK was able to provide beautiful weather our whole trip!  We saw the opera La Boheme and the Don Quixote ballet at the Opera Theatre and spent one night enjoying the bright colors and physically demanding Ukrainian folk dancing at the National Theatre.

 

But the most profound experience that we had was with our connection to the Grace Gang.  These are kids over 16 years of age that have been orphans the majority of their lives and have never been adopted.  The statistics on this group are mind-boggling – you can get the specifics in the May 2005 Gazetta.   Each of their stories is unique, but the common thread is one of tragedy, of sadness, loss, and darkness.   These kids come once a week for a Bible study, have come to know that God loves them and yearn to learn so much more.  They are bright, intelligent young adults with dreams of opening their own business, of becoming a stewardess, of helping Ukrainian orphans become adopted, the list is endless.  The love that they have experienced they want to give right back.

 

We live in a society here in the United States of prosperity, of greed, selfishness and barriers that prevent us from experiencing God’s love fully.   The Ukrainian people exhibit just the opposite – they have been in darkness for so long that now that they know God, they want to show it…very enthusiastically!  As a matter of fact, once they get going, you can’t shut them up!  The sincerity of their gratitude, of their love for us simply because we are Christian brothers and sisters, was overwhelming.  To be a recipient of this truest form of giving is an experience that is unmatched.

 

It is people of our society that can learn more from the Ukrainians…sure, we can give money, which is desperately needed (and rest assured goes towards the actual mission!), but the gift that we brought back with us the soul cannot put a price tag on.

 

In conclusion, we strongly encourage supporters of MMK to take advantage of any upcoming Vision trips and to faithfully continue and increase support in this God-centered mission.