Every once in awhile, it's a good idea to count your blessings. Not only count them, but focus on one or two and really think about how they have impacted your life. And its good idea to thank the Lord for providing those blessings. A lot of the time, my blessings come in the form of people. Yes, brown sugar shipped from America is wonderful and I really love eating pie, but I must admit that relationships are a bit more lasting and meaningful. I wanted to share one of those relationships with you, and yes, this blog is long overdue.
Almost two years ago, a lovely young lady by the name of Lexi was selected for a fellowship scholarship from Dartmouth College, and committed to a year of living in Ukraine to work with orphans. During that short year (from August 2011 through August 2012), she became a valuable member of our team, and an even more valuable friend. To put it simply, that first year in Ukraine was worlds better because of Lexi. There's something about having a friend working with you side by side, one that understands what you're going through because she's going through it, too. Culture shock was hard, but it was made bearable by shared experiences.
I will always remember the first time Lexi and I actually spent quality time together. It was summer, it was hot, and we had a huge task in front of us: scrubbing every tile on the 3rd floor of Smile House. As we inched our way through each room on hands and knees, we had lots of time to talk. We knew next to nothing about each other, and I think we were a bit nervous...the kind of nervous where you want to be polite and not make an unknowingly offensive joke or something. We shared some small talk, had some awkward pauses, and then she totally broke the ice by asking me what my favorite kids books were. I knew right then and there that here was a kindred spirit. I have a passion for kids book (how did she know that?), and I could talk about them for hours. After that, we had no problem finding common ground.
Some time later, we were helping the Stoddard's unwrap their new refrigerator. There were several long, skinny pieces of styrofoam, and in a moment of sporatic whim, I decided to test her sense of humor. I still didn't know her that well, but I decided to risk it and therefore challenged her to a joust. I threw her a "lance," emitted a terrible battle cry, and raced toward her. We clashed together, whacking, hacking, yelling, and huffing and puffing. Bits of styrofoam flew in every direction. Our first round reduced our lances to swords, and as we continued battling to the death, those swords became daggers. I'm not sure who emerged as winner, but after the glorious fight we headed over to my apartment, probably for some water. A few minutes later, Alfred came over and uttered words of doom: "The refrigerator has some dents in it, and so we're sending it back to the store. The shippers need all the plastic and styrofoam to wrap it back up!" Lexi and I exchanged looks of panic. While there were many pieces of styrofoam strewn about the battle scene, we had foolishly chucked the bigger pieces out the window. We raced down the stairs and tried to recover all the pieces, but we ended up having to tell Alfred that "we just couldn't find all of the styrofoam." Needless to say, that was the last time we jousted together. However, it remains a good memory, one that we can laugh over. I'm laughing now.
On a more serious note, Lexi is highly intellectual, and proved to be a great person to talk to. We had many stimulating conversations, ranging from social issues, France, and Sherlock Holmes. She comes from a different background than me (those East Coasters!) and so it was interesting to get to know her and her views on things. Apart from being interesting to talk to, she brought the IQ of our whole team up several points, and even met with the US ambassador while she was here. She wrote several important documents about what we do and became the "professional" face of our team. She is fluent in Russian, and proved to be a great asset for our ministry, especially when it came down to trying to get things done here (for example, coordinating the surgery for Anya--you would not believe what a trial that was).
One of the hardest cultural differences I had to deal with in coming here was food. I guess everyone has their "thing" when it comes to culture shock. Some people struggle with local customs, language, social issues like corruption, or not being able to find certain items like dishrags. For me, it was eating. I have to be totally honest here and admit that I don't care for Ukrainian food. There are certain dishes that I like, and I'm getting better, but overall, I can't say that I love it. Apart from that fact, it was often the things I couldn't get here that I craved. To quote Richard III (probably), I had many moments of "A hamburger! My kingdom for a hamburger!" I mean, you can get hamburgers here. They have McDonald's. But that does not count. And anyways, its never the same. There's this restaurant back in Durango that has hamburgers that are so amazing, and I would want one so bad. It took a long time, too, to figure out the grocery stores and what ingredients I could find to make American food. I should note here that after seventeen months of living here, I am much better at this; you don't have to worry about me. I don't struggle with food nearly as often. However, this is about Lexi and how she saved me from my food crisis. Lexi is somewhat a foodie herself, and so she was the person I could take all my food problems to. We spent hours complaining about it, talking about it, cooking it, and best of all, eating it. When I finally discovered I could get all the ingredients for Greek salad, she became my salad buddy and we would mmm and ahhh over every bite. Lexi lived in a city two hours away, but every time she came to visit I would feed her all my favorites: spaghetti, taco salad, and terriyaki chicken. Then we would chat gaily about how much we love American food and how much we miss it. "Remember steak?" She would ask me, both our mouths drooling. I'd reminisce back "Yeah, sort of....but I was thinking about keylime pie!" Lexi makes some incredible scalloped potatoes, and one time even made us a pineapple upside-down cake. As you can see from the work clothes, it was after a long day of cleaning windows and other odd jobs at Smile House. It was always such a treat when she cooked or baked (except when it came to brownies...we're still working on those), and we were always thankful when she was around!
I could write so much more about this special girl, but honestly it just makes me sad. I miss her so much. However, I am thankful for the time we had together and I hope I get to see her again. Everyone start praying for Lexi to move to Ukraine! That would solve it!
There's a few more pictures if you care to see:
Almost two years ago, a lovely young lady by the name of Lexi was selected for a fellowship scholarship from Dartmouth College, and committed to a year of living in Ukraine to work with orphans. During that short year (from August 2011 through August 2012), she became a valuable member of our team, and an even more valuable friend. To put it simply, that first year in Ukraine was worlds better because of Lexi. There's something about having a friend working with you side by side, one that understands what you're going through because she's going through it, too. Culture shock was hard, but it was made bearable by shared experiences.
Lexi: Part American, part Ukrainian. In other words, Amerikranian.
I will always remember the first time Lexi and I actually spent quality time together. It was summer, it was hot, and we had a huge task in front of us: scrubbing every tile on the 3rd floor of Smile House. As we inched our way through each room on hands and knees, we had lots of time to talk. We knew next to nothing about each other, and I think we were a bit nervous...the kind of nervous where you want to be polite and not make an unknowingly offensive joke or something. We shared some small talk, had some awkward pauses, and then she totally broke the ice by asking me what my favorite kids books were. I knew right then and there that here was a kindred spirit. I have a passion for kids book (how did she know that?), and I could talk about them for hours. After that, we had no problem finding common ground.
Some time later, we were helping the Stoddard's unwrap their new refrigerator. There were several long, skinny pieces of styrofoam, and in a moment of sporatic whim, I decided to test her sense of humor. I still didn't know her that well, but I decided to risk it and therefore challenged her to a joust. I threw her a "lance," emitted a terrible battle cry, and raced toward her. We clashed together, whacking, hacking, yelling, and huffing and puffing. Bits of styrofoam flew in every direction. Our first round reduced our lances to swords, and as we continued battling to the death, those swords became daggers. I'm not sure who emerged as winner, but after the glorious fight we headed over to my apartment, probably for some water. A few minutes later, Alfred came over and uttered words of doom: "The refrigerator has some dents in it, and so we're sending it back to the store. The shippers need all the plastic and styrofoam to wrap it back up!" Lexi and I exchanged looks of panic. While there were many pieces of styrofoam strewn about the battle scene, we had foolishly chucked the bigger pieces out the window. We raced down the stairs and tried to recover all the pieces, but we ended up having to tell Alfred that "we just couldn't find all of the styrofoam." Needless to say, that was the last time we jousted together. However, it remains a good memory, one that we can laugh over. I'm laughing now.
On a more serious note, Lexi is highly intellectual, and proved to be a great person to talk to. We had many stimulating conversations, ranging from social issues, France, and Sherlock Holmes. She comes from a different background than me (those East Coasters!) and so it was interesting to get to know her and her views on things. Apart from being interesting to talk to, she brought the IQ of our whole team up several points, and even met with the US ambassador while she was here. She wrote several important documents about what we do and became the "professional" face of our team. She is fluent in Russian, and proved to be a great asset for our ministry, especially when it came down to trying to get things done here (for example, coordinating the surgery for Anya--you would not believe what a trial that was).
One of the hardest cultural differences I had to deal with in coming here was food. I guess everyone has their "thing" when it comes to culture shock. Some people struggle with local customs, language, social issues like corruption, or not being able to find certain items like dishrags. For me, it was eating. I have to be totally honest here and admit that I don't care for Ukrainian food. There are certain dishes that I like, and I'm getting better, but overall, I can't say that I love it. Apart from that fact, it was often the things I couldn't get here that I craved. To quote Richard III (probably), I had many moments of "A hamburger! My kingdom for a hamburger!" I mean, you can get hamburgers here. They have McDonald's. But that does not count. And anyways, its never the same. There's this restaurant back in Durango that has hamburgers that are so amazing, and I would want one so bad. It took a long time, too, to figure out the grocery stores and what ingredients I could find to make American food. I should note here that after seventeen months of living here, I am much better at this; you don't have to worry about me. I don't struggle with food nearly as often. However, this is about Lexi and how she saved me from my food crisis. Lexi is somewhat a foodie herself, and so she was the person I could take all my food problems to. We spent hours complaining about it, talking about it, cooking it, and best of all, eating it. When I finally discovered I could get all the ingredients for Greek salad, she became my salad buddy and we would mmm and ahhh over every bite. Lexi lived in a city two hours away, but every time she came to visit I would feed her all my favorites: spaghetti, taco salad, and terriyaki chicken. Then we would chat gaily about how much we love American food and how much we miss it. "Remember steak?" She would ask me, both our mouths drooling. I'd reminisce back "Yeah, sort of....but I was thinking about keylime pie!" Lexi makes some incredible scalloped potatoes, and one time even made us a pineapple upside-down cake. As you can see from the work clothes, it was after a long day of cleaning windows and other odd jobs at Smile House. It was always such a treat when she cooked or baked (except when it came to brownies...we're still working on those), and we were always thankful when she was around!
That t-shirt says "old guys rule."
I have lots of food memories with Lexi, like eating bagels in Poland together or the time she went to France and brought back a whole lot of delicious cheese. Mmmm, I can still taste that cheese! Then there was the time we went to the orphanage with Daniel and on the way back we hit a monstrous pothole and blew out the tire. We had to stop every 7 minutes to blow it back up with the electric tire pump thing. Longest trip home EVER. However, it wasn't so bad because we stopped at a store for one of our magical tire pump moments and decided to buy some black olives. I'm not sure how long it took us to eat the whole can, but I do know that olives never tasted so good!
In general Lexi is one of those people that you like being around. She's interesting, fun, and a bit spontaneous sometimes. Like the time she adopted a kitty from the village and brought it to Kiev. That in itself wasn't that spontaneous (though we did go to a villager's house to visit and came out with a kitten), it wasn't that crazy. What made me laugh is that she returned it a few weeks later. That's not all that bad, except that the reason she returned it was because its tail was too short and she couldn't handle it! Poor kitty.
I admire Lexi for many reasons, but the one that stands out to me the most is her willingness to love and serve some kids here. She has a good heart, and I got to witness that over and over. When she builds a relationship, she is serious about it, and will do her part. She left over 5 months ago, but she still writes to some of the kids that she got to know. There is one little girl at the orphanage named Lera. Everyone will tell you that Lera is crazy. It's true; she's a difficult child to deal with. However, Lexi saw past the behavior and became Lera's special friend. It required vast amounts of patience, but Lexi was always willing to do what it she needed to do to show Lera love and affection when no one else did. It made a huge difference in Lera's life. Like so many kids there, Lera has a terribly sad story and she needed one person to invest in her. That person was Lexi. To this day, every time we visit the orphanage, Lera asks me when Lexi is coming back. After answering "I don't know," I'll ask Lera if she misses her. "YEEEEESSSSSSSSS!" she always answers. Then she'll say "she's my sister!" She is a lucky little girl to have such a friend.
Friends Forever: Lexi and Lera.
I could write so much more about this special girl, but honestly it just makes me sad. I miss her so much. However, I am thankful for the time we had together and I hope I get to see her again. Everyone start praying for Lexi to move to Ukraine! That would solve it!
There's a few more pictures if you care to see:
Us with Sasha, who we have nicknamed "all boy Sasha" (there are 8 Sashas at the orphanage).
This is the day we showed up wearing the exact same thing for the Christmas program.
Our last time together (but hopefully not the last time together).
Don't mess with us. Unless its Friday.
Skinny Bones! That's one of our many inside jokes. What are we doing? Don't ask!
Things Lexi and I love:
baking
Sherlock Holmes
WWII
kids books
ships
nautical decor
sailing
pirates
sailors
Greek salad
traveling
cheese
navy blue
anchors
I love you Lexi! If you are reading this,
HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!
Comments
Post a Comment