KYIV half marathon 2015 - first experience

Automatic pic. that was taken by the sponsors about 2 min. after the start.

OK, finally this has happened!! After about 10 month of preparation I have ran my first even half marathon. It was not only my first official half marathon, but also first time ever in my life when I have run such a distance (21 km)... I have meant to try running at least 18-20 km in my training, but for various reasons it has never happened. The longest run I have had was - 15 km. So, needless to say that to run a 21+ km was quite hard.

Everything went pretty well for me up untill about 16th kilometer. That's when I REALLY started feeling my legs and even had to start walking time aftre time (especially on steep hills) in order to restore some of my strengh. Now, as I think of it I also probably needed to tie my running shoes less, because especially my right foot felt quite stiff on the second part of the run. Conclusion? Pay attention even to how you tie your shoes when running on long distances... :-)

Passion Ft.Worth: Day 2

Francis Chan at Passion 2011 Ft. Worth Yellow Community Group

This day at Passion Ft. Worth was the ONLY full day of the conference. I sort of expected the speakers to continue to talk on Philippians, but this second day of the conference continued exactly the same trend as the first day did and both Fracis Chan and John Piper continued to speak more directly from their hearts rather then researching the book of Philippians verse by verse together with us, and it was GREAT!

Francis spoke about the importance for everyone of us to EXPERIENCE God in a personal and real way. That no one can make us or force us to experience the Lord intimately and personally!! Therefore, we all should seek the Lord wholeheartedly – and He will reveal Himself to us. This was a great reminder of another sermon I’ve heard long time ago… my favorite phrase from that sermon was: “If each generation does not experience God first hand, all we’re going to be as Christians is just another social club, where we’re interested in Jesus instead of football, knitting or model cars!”

We’ve also started getting to know each other more in community groups. Funny, but this year, as another proof that this world is a small place, in our community group we’ve met a girl, Lauren, who happens to be in the same church with a Ukrainian girl, Anya, whom we know through Passion… It was great to talk with her and other group members about different things in our lives.

And then in the evening we had John Piper. His sermon topic was “What Is The Bottom of Your Joy?”. It was an AMAZING sermon, probably one of the most influential sermons I’ve heard in past 3-5 years. I will write about it in a separate post.

John Piper preaching on "What Is The Bottom Of Your Joy?"

Not only we had a chance to hear him preach, but Passion guys have invited us to pray with their whole team before the evening sessions started. It was quite an amazing experience to be there together with all those guys, who organize and lead Passion movement and to see how important prayer is for them. Here were those big man and women of faith leading such a large movement, yet completely aware of the fact that without His power NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN!! We were there with other guys, who were at Passion from other countries (Canada, Brazil, Ireland) and Louie introduced us to the whole crowd there, as people, who work with students in other countries of the world… It was really special!! Me and Katya have got a felling that being at Passion we are indeed a part of ONE BIG FAMILY – carrying the name of Jesus to the students around the world.

Anyway, that was Day 2 of Passion Ft. Worth 2011 – full of impressions, full of transformational truth, full of encouragement, new friends and fellowship with God’s family.