The Voices of Ukrainians

It's surprising to see what everything costs here. On one hand, I can get a bundle of broccoli for 25 cents. On the other hand, hangers are so expensive! Who would've thought? For example, this hanger is 10 dollars! Maybe that's normal, even for the states, but seriously! That's more than I've ever paid for a shirt! In the next picture you'll notice that there are 4 plastic hangers in the package. How much, you ask? Over 5 bucks! I used to work at a thrift store, and we sold these kind of hangers for 5 cents each! Crazzzzy! Well, that's all I can think of to write about hangers. If you have any good hanger stories, let me know. I guess it should be noted that I'm wearing a cool pink sweater in these pictures. Which brings me to another point: That is me, Janna, in these pictures. Daniel does not wear pink. However, If Brad Reimers asked him to, he probably would.

This little girl is constantly on my heart. Even now as I write this I'm biting back tears. Her name is Zenia and I met her several weeks ago when we went to the ophanage with the Sept. building team. She was shy at first, as many of the kids are, and so I played some games with her and some other kids to break the ice.  Us playing a game I came up with. It's kind of like "Follow the leader/Simon Says, only Janna Style." That game did the trick. After that we were inseparatable. I hugged her and hugged her until I realized that everyone was heading into the gym to watch a puppet show. So, I grabbed her hand, smiled and said let's go! We went into the gym, and sat down next to each other. I put my arm around her and we watched the puppet show. She wanted to look at my rings! Then something horrible happened. The boy sitting next to her on the other side looked at me (to make sure I was watching) and pointed to her and gave me the thumbs down. He emphasized it t

( I've been trying to come up with completely genius ways of giving to these kids, but sometimes you just have to follow God's lead ... cause he's a little more genius than us.) I remember one of the first times I was in the hospital.   I had a really high temperature, I think 104, and had pneumonia.   And I remember after the fact my parents saying that there was a chance that I could have died.   It was anything but a fun experience.   I remember the ice baths, and hating them.     I remember the IV, and the tornado that was bearing down on the town we were in (gotta love the panhandle of Texas).   But there is one thing that stands out to me right now, more than anything.   My family was there.   In fact, the more I think about it, I’m recalling a lot of time being spent in the hospital: getting stitches on my head, stitches on my feet and then my head again.   Pneumonia … again.   And I always remember Mom and Dad.   They were right there, telling me to squeeze their h

Attention all bloggie friends! We are starting something new. On the right hand side of the blog will be a picture of one of the kids at the orphanage, and we will change that picture once a week. Your job is to lift that child up in prayer! We will only include their nickname, in order to protect thier identity. Thank you so much!

The September building team knocked our socks off!   It was the largest team ever to come work on Smile House—18 people! Being new to Ukraine ourselves, we weren’t exactly sure about our roles and responsibilities in dealing with incoming teams. However, we fit right in; our skills and strengths were put to good use! Janna fed them cookies and encouraged them, and Daniel taught newbies how to do a job and how to do it right! The team accomplished a massive amount of work in just five days,   including concrete, electric work, tiling, knitting (just the men), floating and sanding, sealing (concrete walls), texturing, priming, painting, singing, digging, more painting, and tons of cleaning! As team leaders on the ground, we were able to keep everyone busy; no small feat with 18 people! It reminded us of our days at the good ol’ Soup Kitchen!   The team also did a wonderful job at the orphanage, bringing those kids a little light in a dark world. If you are interested in coming to Ukraine

(Most of what we’ve written thus far is about experiences that we’ve had, cultural observations, and of course Janna has written about 53 ½ articles about food.   We haven’t written too much about our ministry here, especially the kids.   That is not at all because we don’t have anything to write, it’s just that writing about those things is a little more difficult because we need to know them before we can adequately share with everyone else.   That takes time, and that takes language … which takes more time.   But this is the first article in a series I’ve been working on about trying to reach out to the kids we are working with in a personal way.) Think about when you were growing up.   How many presents did you usually get?   For me I usually got something on Valentine’s Day from my best Valentine ever, Mom.   Easter, I got candy, at least.   Some kind of present at the end of the school year, and at high school graduation I got enough presents to fill my car.   On my birthday, I

I started this post several weeks ago and promptly forgot about it. We moved out of our homestay recently, but thought you still might like to read what it was like to live there! A day in the life of two American nerds living in Ukraine. We get up at 6:30 a.m. That is, if Daniel's alarm on his phone goes off. Otherwise we get up when we get up. As we amble out of bed, one of us grabs all the pillows and throws them on the desk and then folds the mattress pad over and pushes the bed in so it remesembles a couch now. Cereal is eaten. Usually its a type of Muesli, which is really big here. No frosted mini-wheats for Janna :( Sometimes we cook breakfast, but only when we have a lot of time. Our hostess has one skillet, and it is the size of a small corn tortilla. Therefore, breakfast takes about an hour to make because first we have to  fry up the bacon, then the potatoes, and finally the eggs. After breakfast, we grab our stuff and head out the door, locking it behind us.

“Doug will be here in 20 minutes,” my husband informed me one chilly Sunday afternoon. Actually last Sunday afternoon, as in 4 days ago! We had just finished packing because we were moving out of our homestay that day. It was a very interesting place to be in life. All packed up and no place to go! When we signed up for language school in July, we decided to do a homestay to broaden our horizon and immerse ourselves in Russian. We agreed to do it for 6 weeks, and the idea was that the third floor studio apartment would be done by then and we could move there while we worked on the rest of the building. After 6 weeks, however, it was obvious that the apartment wouldn’t be done, and so we explored our options and decided to ask our hostess if we could stay longer. She said yes, and so we agreed on a price, and ended up living there for another couple of weeks.   The studio apartment was progressing, but then another issue came up: heating.   Getting the gas hooked up was going to cost a