We saw an actual real-life American style pick-up on August 11th. A Dodge Ram with a bed that could hold something over 8 feet long. It only took us 30 days in a city with 5 million people to see one. We arrived in Ukraine on July 11, so that means we have been here for one month, and we thought it would be a good time to reflect.
Daniel : It’s crazy to think that it was less than a year ago when we hopped on a plane to come to Ukraine for the first time. When we headed back to the States we knew that we wanted to come and be a part of the work going on here, but didn’t really know how long that would take to make that dream a reality. Here we are less than a year later. We found out this month that we raised our support in record breaking time (thank you again to all of you who are making this possible)! We are in immersion language school, and in a few weeks we start some very serious work on Smile House. In the meantime, we are building relationships at Safe Haven, and anxiously waiting for the chance to visit the orphanage at Komrivka.
The majority of this month has been spent on adjusting: adjusting to the time, adjusting to the food, adjusting to traveling via public transportation, and adjusting to a country that rarely uses the Latin alphabet (for those of you who don’t know, we use the Latin alphabet in English; it’s a beautiful thing). Getting settled in the apartments at the seminary, and then getting settled here in our home stay (where we’ll be for six weeks). Learning how to read a map that, again, isn’t in English. Learning to ride the subway without having to spend every ounce of my concentration trying to make sure that we don’t miss our stop. Trying to sound out the name of a dish I want to order in the restaurant, so that I can do something besides point and grunt. Trying to figure out which package is butter, and which is cream cheese, which is garlic and the list goes on. Wondering why the milk bottle with the white lid doesn’t really taste like milk.
Right now, and for the past four weeks our life has been language. We are presently attending an immersion school. Coming in, I knew that it would be difficult, but I never realized exactly how apt the adjective immersion would be. I counted a few days ago and our teacher gave us over 50 words in class that I had never seen before. Two days later, we had about 10 new verbs and at least 100 new nouns. And we need to be able to use those 100 new words the next day. I’ve never felt like I was drowning in anything this much in my life, I just look at the pages and think, “Where do I even start?”
We have had some really great times. Kiev is a big beautiful city build on the banks of the Dnipro River, which is quite beautiful in its own right. The city is over 1500 years old, and most of the museums, cathedrals, and other sites cost about $1 to go and see, so we’ve been taking advantage of that. Two weeks back we went to see St. Sophia’s Cathedral, a cathedral that was built in the 11th century and still has much of the original artwork. It was crazy to think that when that building was being constructed, only Jackson’s people knew anything about the US (Jackson is my Navajo friend).
We went through the WWII Museum under Rodina Mat (see picure in Photo Album). The other day we had a little test in class and one of the questions was, “When did WWII start?” All of the Americans, myself included, put 1941, which isn’t right at all. The US lost a lot of her soldiers in that war, but none of our cities were constantly under attack. We didn’t have to dig ridiculously deep bomb shelters to protect our citizens. But all of that happened in Ukraine. And they were at war for two more years than we were. It was crazy to see pictures of planes bombing buildings, and plane crashing into buildings and realize that that didn’t happen around the world, it happened just down the street.
This month has been laying the foundation for what’s coming. Next week, Doug and his family get back to Ukraine (they’ve been in the States); we’ll be working most of September at Smile House trying to get the third floor finished, getting ready for the next building team. Doug will take us to the orphanage, and hopefully I’ll get to spend more than 2 hours this time. Anya also invited us to go visit the orphanage they work with. It sounds like it will be crazy busy … and I can’t wait
Janna: One month ago, I hopped off a plane and landed in Ukraine. This time, it wasn’t for a few weeks. This time it was for good! It was an exciting first month—sightseeing, meeting new people, starting language school, grocery shopping, going to a new church, people watching (population 5 million—people watching heaven)! It was hard to take it all in!
I noticed the young people first. It seemed like the fountain of youth had erupted in Ukraine and the only people here were beautiful and under 30 years of age. I noticed the way Ukrainians dressed, how the girls always looked nice, the boys were clean cut; it just felt like I was in a fashion magazine.
After being here for 2 or so weeks, though, the young people started to fade away and I saw old people emerge. I noticed the beggars, especially the man who scooched off the metro because his legs ended at his knees, the lady who had no legs, and the disheveled grandma sitting in a wheelchair that had a flat tire. Burned in my memory forever is the image of a grandma, old and hunched over almost perpendicular to the ground, slowly navigating the subway system. Hardly anything in Ukraine is handicap accessible and just to ride the subway requires the rider to walk up and down several flights of stairs and down long corridors. As she disappeared into the crowd going the other direction, I cried into Daniel’s shoulder, screaming inside “where is her family? Why isn’t there someone to help her and take care of her?” Right then and there I wanted to start an assisted living program, so the elderly don’t have to go out and struggle against the unforgiving bus and metro system. Everywhere I look I see poverty and neglect. A friend was telling me about the prison system here and how terrible it is. He is involved in a ministry that visits young teens in prison, and it sounds amazing. I thought “I want to help! I want to visit!” The truth is, I wish I could help everyone I see. But I can’t. My Colorado pastor once gave a sermon about this very topic, warning the congregation not to get overwhelmed by the all the world’s problems, the unending statistics and suffering. Instead, he encouraged us to “do for one that which you wish you could do for everyone.” What encouraging words! To me, that means relationships, and there is no better place for me to start that than Safe Haven.
We have been made Safe Haven our new home church, and at first it was honestly very dull. The only reason being I couldn’t understand anything they were talking about because it was in Russian and Ukrainian. I still don’t know what’s going on much, but I have been observing. People don’t go to church there, they are the church. We have seen the kids there read Scripture for hours, pray for hours, and preach for hours. We have witnessed people sharing their lives, their struggles fears, and triumphs. We’ve seen two kids accept Christ and get baptized; we’ve taken communion with them and shared meals together. It’s an all-day affair! I believe this is how Church is supposed to be, and I am honored to be a part. Though my Russian is extremely limited, I have begun to form relationships with the kids there.
As Daniel said, there are many new things coming up that will keep our calendar full. I look forward to seeing what God has in store for us.
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