We started the day with bad news; Ge Vang was in the hospital again with cellulitis symptoms, and our trailer was badly broken and needed to be hauled to Kiev for repair. So after a quick meeting the truck crew departed for the capital, while we headed east to the next city.
The last 24 hours have been intense, to say the least! Yesterday as we were driving to Dnepropetrovsk (the location of our next show) I received a message from our sound guy that the axle of stage trailer had snapped in half!
After hours of travailing treacherous Ukrainian roads, we arrived in the southern city of Kherson. The venue was a large parking lot next to a giant shopping center, where we met to pray while waiting for the truck and trailer to arrive.
The second night in Kryvyi Rih was located in front of a big shopping center, which drew both new people, as well as many who attended the night before.
During the sound check in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine hundreds of people started to gather and by the time we were ready to play there were around 3000 people according to our Ukrainian promoter.
Yesterday we played at UpFest, a city-wide Steiger festival in Sumy, run by the Steiger Ukraine team.
Just getting to Poltava was a big challenge. The rough Ukrainian roads took a toll on our stage and for the second consecutive night, the axel had to be welded just so that we could get to where we were going.
Our first show in Ukraine was amazing! After fighting for days to get through the Russian border and 10 days to repair our equipment after the Russian tour, we finally arrived in the first city.
Our final show of the 2016 Russian tour was in the city of Stavropol, and we had a very difficult time getting into the place where we would play.
Last night we played our 2nd to last show in Russia in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don. We worked closely with an amazing local church who had been inspired to do the show in part by reading David’s book “Rock Priest.”
We rolled into the historic city of Volgograd formerly called Stalingrad. It is called the "Heroic City" because of the battle of Stalingrad, which claimed the lives of nearly 2 million people.
Yesterday we left at 6am to beat the traffic out of Moscow and get to Voronezh as quickly as possible, as it was about 6 hours away.
Steiger is a worldwide mission organization that is called to reach and disciple the Global Youth Culture for Jesus.
Steiger raises up missionaries and equips the local church to proclaim the message of Jesus in the language of the Global Youth Culture and establishes long-term presence in cities through ongoing outreach, discipleship and local church partnership.
