The Voices of Ukrainians

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...

We were invited to go on a retreat with Safe Haven to celebrate New Year's, and of course we said YES! It would be for two nights and we had to bring costumes to wear. It is rather interesting thinking about dressing up at the end of the year and not Halloween! I had a brilliant idea, so we weren't too worried about what we would wear. That's usually how it is. I supply the idea, and Daniel the engineer creates it! The retreat was great fun and I think pictures would be better than me trying to explain everything. Making appetizers for the big night! After we finished that, everyone left to dress up. And in some cases, get "dolled up." See below. Dima, Vova, and I think her name's Kolya. She's cute. Commodore Norrington and Captain Jack Sparrow. Daniel did good, huh? Two Arabians that I love! A cowgirl and a Scotsman. In other words, a perfect match! Some traditional Ukranians...I think. A soldier and his lovely wife and child...

We were originally going to have our Christmas party at the orphanage before Christmas, but it didn't work out for several reasons. We postponed the date to December 27th, and it worked out perfectly! Our whole team went, except for Lexi who was in the States. Not many kids were around when we showed up, but there's always some who run up to the van and greet us. One of those kids on this particular day was Zhenya, and he loves me! And I love him! Best Buds! We headed to the cafeteria where we would be setting up the party, and kids helped us carry the food, drinks, and bags of decorations. Normally there are just over a hundred kids at the orphanage, but because it was a holiday, many of the kids went home. The director told us that there were 60 kids there, and when it was all said and done, I think there were about 37. It was a great number, and it was definitely not as crazy. Here's where Janna learned a little lesson. We had a "winter wonderland" theme,...

Christmas was fairly quiet. In fact, it was weird celebrating Christmas when no one else was (except the Americans living here)! For those of you who don't know, Ukrainians celebrate Christmas on January 7th, and even then its not that big of a holiday. The real holiday is New Year's. More on that later (The holiday season part MCIVIII). Some friends in America asked me if we had a tree, and the answer is yes no. We didn't have time for one and we also didn't really feel like spending the money to buy a tree, lights, and decorations, so I improvised! Our first Christmas tree in Ukraine! This was the most convenient Christmas tree ever. It took 30 seconds to put up; I think I will sell it on Ebay because it's so little fuss! Christmas morning started with Daniel making me breakfast in bed! I love him. For some reason, I love him. Next on the agenda was presents! I got Daniel a bunch of stuff imported from Poland, including cherry coke, Polish whoppers, a book calle...

Our team celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve by throwing a mad bash with food, presents, and 4 kinds of dessert. I know each team member has graduated kindergarten because we all shared our American candy with each other, including Twizzlers, JR mints, and Reese's! My sister Allyson inspired the menu; we had a great feast of loaded baked potatoes! Doesn't that look wonderful?  We then proceeded to open presents and that was a lot of fun. It always is! Here's some stuff we got: Daniel: a giant mug that says I LOVE TEA, 3 boxes of tea, money, a big chocolate "R" (for Rad....or Revolution...or maybe Rabies?), and some other goodies. Janna: a mug with Russian nesting dolls on it (ultra cute), a Christmas apron, a cookbook for Ukraine, some books, an olive serving tray complete with olive fork, a can of olives (I think I like olives), and some cookie cutters! Doug says our team is twisted. What do you think? I think we're pretty normal. Regardless if we'r...

This is a statement of fact: I have the best in-laws ever! For Christmas they surprised us with the 25 days of Christmas. Let me explain.  For the first 11 days, my in-laws took turns writing happy encouraging emails, including several that had pictures of our 2 year old niece. That's like instant happiness! On the 12th of December, we received a big box. Inside we found tons of gifts all wrapped up and each one had note with a day on it! So I lined up all the gifts in numerical order along the windowsill. December was a difficult month. We were so busy, I was really sick for 2 weeks, and we had just moved and so everything was a mess, and then we were so far away from family. But having a little gift to open each morning was so exciting and beautiful! There was something to look forward to on a daily basis (and a reason to get up in the morning), and every day we had a reminder that we were loved! Some of the gifts included: Plastic snowflake ...

I mentioned potato chips in a previous blog, but because they are one of the main food groups I did not think I did them justice. I need to explain them in a little more detail, and add some pictures so you get the whole scoop. To sum it up, Ukrainians love flavored potato chips. Flavors like: crab! pork (sorry picture is blurry)! mushroom! bacon! squid! I'll admit it: I am not brave enough to try this flavor.  and my personal favorite: chicken! I bought these once over the summer thinking that the flavor was "loaded baked potato" because that's what the picture looked like at first glance. Wrong! These taste exactly like a chicken bouillon cube. Yum! They also have good flavors like cheese and sour cream and onion. The only flavor missing? Plain! You have to go to Poland to get those (and believe me, I did)! This is all I have to say about potato chips.