The Voices of Ukrainians

Living in Ukraine is rad because we get to celebrate most holidays twice. For example, we celebrated American Easter on April 8th with a party at the Stoddards. We had a feast of ham, mashers, green beans, salad, rolls, and 4 desserts. It was a great way to celebrate the good news--Our Saviour lives! On the left side of the table are the Manna's (Mike, Katya, and Sammy), and on the right side are the Stoddard's (Megan, Benjamin, Suzie, Petro, and Doug). This is the cool table (mainly because its where I sat). On the left you see Lexi, then Judy Manna, then the Hughes (Sam, Jarrett, and Melissa), then the newlyweds (Brian and Victoria), then Anya's nurse Marina, and finally Daniel Raa. In his arms you will see the star of the party! This is Evie, Sam and Melissa Hugh's newest addition! She is the cutest thing on two wheels, and we all fought over her like crazy. Limbs were lost, hair was pulled out, but in the end, everyone got to hold her and so it turned out okay. ...

Daniel got me new tools for Christmas, then something happened to them. Who do they remind you of? If you said Jackson, then you're right.

The March building team rocked! They were an tremendous group of people that did an enormous amount of work. If you're a March building team member reading this, THANK YOU FOR THE WORK YOU DID! YOU MADE A DIFFERENCE! For the rest of you,  here's some pictures: Mike installed somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 lights, and he has an amazing testimony. To sum it up, it's never too late to give God everything! Our director Jerry is on the left and his son Jerry on the right. Although they fought like little girls the whole trip, they did get some work done, such as framing the basement bathrooms! This was Randy's 3rd time to Ukraine, and he tiled the bathroom on the 2nd floor and did some ballet moves I think. Daniel installed cabinets to prepare for Anya and her nurse! Also in picture: a dork. One of the lovely ladies, Brooke, did everything from painting to scrubbing to cleaning out an old fridge! Plus we have the same shoe size. ...

Although Daniel had a small blurb about this in his blog about Anya, I think I need to emphasize it more. He built a bed with wheels so she can move around and do puzzles! I am so proud of my husband and I love his heart for kids. I am truly blessed to know him and serve with him here in Ukraine. Rolly bed on the left, My Man on the right Us doing a puzzle together. In case you didn't know, Anya loves puzzles. We gave her a 220-piece one to begin with, then we moved up to 500 pieces, then 550 pieces, and then just yesterday we broke out the 3000-piece puzzle!

Brace yourselves:  This blog is 3309 words long.  Honestly, I cut a lot of information out and simplified it so much to keep it short.  But the story of Anya’s operation is a monster and I wanted to tell it start to finish so that you have one place to come learn about Anya and what she’s been through these past months, as well as what it has taught us about the lives of orphans here. The core problem:  Our helplessness to help Anya A few weeks ago a friend from the states wrote me a few emails asking about Anya’s situation.  At that point Anya had been in the hospital for almost four weeks … waiting.  Her operation was first scheduled for the day after she was checked in, but it kept getting pushed back again and again.  It was incredibly frustrating, mainly because no one in Kiev had the authority to check her out of the hospital, and so she had to stay there for four weeks..four very boring weeks.  I would have gone crazy. Normally, the par...