David In Israel . דוד בישראל . داوود في اسرائيل 

I usually don't post blog-entries from America, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I will be heading to Europe in September for a week, and I will gladly share my experiences with you!  Keep your eyes on the blog starting in September... right now, I'm finishing up my time with the family!

I used my mom's frequent flyer miles to buy my flight to America for this july, because she was worried the airlines will get ride those programs... but there were only enough miles to buy a one-way ticket from Tel Aviv to New York, on one day, and on one itinerary... it just happened to be the exact one I needed, and the best perk of all was that I got to visit a new country: Ukraine... 
Kiev was definitely an adventure.. thankfully, I taught myself the Cyrillic (Russian) Alphabet before arriving, which ended up being very very useful, but even so, I ended up walking around Kiev for 3 hours (with my bags) looking for my hostel.  It was a nightmare... My back was killing me, but all that changed when I arrived at the hostel.  A very sweet girl named Ira was so kind and offered to show me the city by night and we had a blast.  She brought me to the river, and we went on a night-cruise, and then we walked to some of the most famous sites.  Overall, I was very happy to meet a new friend and to get a fabulous tour of Kiev.  It is beautiful, but next time... I'll take taxis!

I suppose I have quite a few updates since I've posted last... July was a sort of transition month for me... I knew I would be heading to the states, and I had just returned from an amazing time in Romania, so I wasn't terribly active... I did, however, visit a Sudanese Refugee Center at the end of month and it gave me a renewed sense of blessing.  These people have so much joy and thanksgiving in their hearts, even though they have nothing.  Most of them are living in Israel illegally or on temporary visas, and cannot even work, and because they've been to Israel, the hostile Islamic Combatants in Sudan will execute them upon their return, so they are truly homeless.  It really impacted me.  

That evening, we invited the director over to our home for a mixer with some of the donors of the project, and we had so much fun... I'll post some photos below of the mixer, but I won't post pictures of the refugees for security reasons.