The Latest Happenings at Smile House

So what's new at Smile House? Lots of stuff! Work's been a bit chilly lately since there's no heater, but we're making progress. Janna painted the walls of the studio apartment (not pink, but she wanted to)!

Oleg hung some radiators. They truly look radiant!

Daniel built shelves for all the closets in the Stoddard's apartment (5 total)! He's the man!

The kitchen cabinets were delivered, and Daniel is piecing them together when he has time! Beautiful!

Vova has been doing lots of baseboard!

Also, the helicopter pad is nearing completion, but I don't have a picture of it yet.

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Christmas in Ukraine Part VI: Nat and Tiffy come to Ukraine

A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of hosting two sisters here in Kiev, Tiffany and Natalie. When they came to Ukraine from America, they brought 280 blankets to give out to children in need! The blankets were awesome! Natalie and Tiffany go to Liberty College, and they had decided to do something for kids in Ukraine. They chose to make blankets. With the help of many prayer groups at Liberty, they came up with 280 beautiful, colorful, warm and fuzzy blankets, and each one had cards inside with Bible verses and notes from the people who made them. What a wonderful idea! We spent three days going around to different places to hand out the blankets, and it was precious! First we went to our orphanage, Komarivka. The majority of the kids had gone home for the holidays, but about 30 kids remained. You should have seen their faces! Such big smiles all around! One of my favorite pictures ever of two giggling girls, Luda and Vita! Some of the older girls, Larissa, Natasha, J...

The power of a hug

Three weeks ago at church, Masha sat next to me. Masha is ten, has Downs Syndrome and is a fantastic hugger. She just loves hugging. So I try to always stop and hug her back. During the service, she came in and sat between me and her dad, for a while she loved on her dad and then she leaned her head on my shoulder, so I leaned my head over onto hers, and she looked up at me with this big smile. She reached around and gave me a shoulder hug, and then patted my head, and then rubbed my back for a few minutes. I didn’t move the entire time because it just felt so good. It was just simple, innocent affection, and it sent tingles up my spine. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you need more hugs and back scratches. Human contact is so important. That’s why I try and hug the kids when we go up to the orphanage. These are just a few stories of some of the hugs I’ve given and gotten this past month, and why hugs are so imp...

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain: Why shopping is a pain in Ukraine.

I used to like shopping. I thought it was fun. I love closure, and so nothing was more satisfying than crossing items off a list. I enjoyed the experience of checking out new stuff, looking for bargains, and of course everyone knows that buying stuff feels good. That was then. This is now. Shopping here is a pain. Let me explain (hey, I’m a poet and I don’t even realize it)! First, we don’t have a car. That means we are at the mercy of public transportation, and so we have to keep that in mind when choosing what store to go to. Is it close to a bus or metro stop? Do we have to transfer metro lines? When we lived in the city center, we were really close to two metro lines. We like this store called MegaMarket, and it was only a few stops away on the metro. So, we would grab our backpacks, walk a block to the metro, go down a ridiculously long escalator, then hop on a metro and ride a couple stops down. Then we would walk a few blocks and there it was..…Megamarket! Second re...

The Voices of Ukrainians

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