HOME IS WHERE THE ENTIRE TEAM LIVES – in response to your question of “Where do you live in Ukraine?”

“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 lot more than anyone had anticipated, and so we had to wait for our directors to make a decision. They were just about to arrive in Ukraine with a building team, and when they did, a decision would be made in regards to the gas. Meanwhile, our hostess kept asking us “what’s your plan? I need to know your plan!” At this point we were ready to be done with our homestay, and so we said “this Sunday we’re moving out.” The building team came and left, and Sunday was just a few days away. Doug spent two days on the phone trying to find a place for us, and through that effort came up with an apartment that looked promising. However, it wasn’t ready just yet. Hence, the day of packing with no place to live! So, last Sunday, Doug picked us up, we loaded up his van, and he drove us to the apartment that he was staying at. It happened to belong to Meisha, our teammate from Lubbock. Lexi, our other teammate, was in Kiev for the week, and was staying there as well.  Because our apartment isn’t available until Friday, we have stayed in here, too, along with Meisha, all four Stoddards, Lexi, 2 cats plus a kitten, and tons and tons of boxes. And don’t forget Sam, Meisha’s giant bean bag that takes up half the living room! Though its difficult sharing an apartment, it has been a wonderful time for team building and developing relationships. We’ve eaten together, prayed together, yodeled together, and cried on each other’s shoulders.  Though none of us are truly settled (we are all still living out of suitcases and boxes), I think we’ve discovered that home is where you make it. In our case, eight people and three cats crammed into an apartment on the third floor! So yeah, that’s our living situation right now.

PART TWO – The backstory and the moral of the story, including the incident of the morose moray eel.  

I’ve been thinking about home a lot. Maybe it’s because I don’t actually have a home right now. Or it could be that God is teaching me something drastically important! Either way, as Daniel is going to say in our newsletter, culture shock, and subsequently, homesickness, hit us hard last week. I miss people, and food, and how comfy and convenient everything is in the states. We haven’t had our own place in over a year, and much of that time was spent on the road or moving. I think it went something like this (from last September to now): our house on Huckleberry Lane>Mark’s house>Ukraine mission trip>Mark’s house>two separate month-long support raising trips (probably stayed in 20 different places during those times, from people’s houses to hotels to bed and breakfasts)>back to Mark’s house>Janna’s parents’ house>Daniel’s parents’ house>Daniel’s aunt’s house>Ukraine, first stayed at a seminary>homestay>Meisha’s apartment>moving tomorrow!!! Ahhhhh! It’s hard to not be settled, to still be living out of suitcases and boxes. However, this is a good reminder. We are not home here on earth. This life is not our home. I knew that in my head, but it wasn’t until I moved here that I realized it was true. One might say “it didn’t strike home” until now (Pun totally intended, ha ha)!