Building LifeBoat

I got to spend last week down in Southwest Ukraine helping our partners Slavic and Tanya make an addition to their house so that they can provide a Christ-centered home for more kids in the social services system in Ukraine. 
It was a great trip.   We spent two whole days doing nothing buy haul bricks up onto the second floor.  It rained every day, and leaked all over both the new and old parts of the house.  I found out that Slavic didn’t have a plan for the roof, he was going to try and make it work some how.  I was the only English speaker the entire week. 

The new and old parts of LifeBoat House

It really was a great trip, I didn’t move to Ukraine so I could lead a boring, easy life. 
Petro, a kid from Komarivka who Doug has been working with since he was just a kid, went with me, and we rode the train down Sunday night and started work as soon as we arrived.  We started moving bricks. 
Hauling the bricks wasn’t my favorite part of the week.  There were four of us.  Slavic and I would pick up a pile four bricks (about 10 pounds)  haul them over a pile of wood and set them on a table about 30 yards away.  Tanya’s brother, Miroslav, was standing on the table and he would throw the bricks up to Petro, who would stack them kinda haphazardly.  Every hour we would all go up and stack the brick nicely on a far corner of the floor.  It was exhausting.  But I kept picturing Slavic trying to do all of it by himself, and I was ready to go again. 

Forklifts are for weanies.  The bricks after we moved them onto the roof.

The rain was my least favorite part of the week.  I don’t know why exactly, but working in the rain is just miserable for me.  I’ll play in the rain, but working is the worst.  But when it rained in leaked all over the house.  Last time we visited Tanya and Slavic, we saw that they were sleeping in the living room because they only had two rooms.  Since then Slavic had added a little room onto the living room where he and Tanya and the baby, Ilya, were sleeping.  But the second day it rained really hard and turned their room into a waterfall.  Ilya loved playing in the water.  But their bed and everything else was soaked so they had to move back into the living room.  The whole week there was mud and water all over the house. 

That blur is Slavic.

But I never saw Tanya, Slavic, Yana or Vadeem get fed up with what was happening around them. Even when the roof dumped a bucket load of water right on Slavic's head, twice.  (picture above)  They kept the end picture in mind.  All of them, including the kids want to provide a home for more children.  And as I said, Ilya (almost 2) loved the water, and the mud, and the people all over his house all week.  (I think Ilya loved everything but the loud tools.  But when the loud tools went off he would hold on really tight to whatever neck was closest so we loved the loud tools.

Finding out that Slavic didn’t really have a plan for how to finish the roof was both scary and awesome.  He had ideas of what he would do, but what heights to put the walls he was just going to wing it.  So I took some measurements and that night pulled out my computer and drew up some basic plans.  The next day we talked and I could tell that honestly the roof scared Slavic, and I knew that I  really needed to come back and just do it for him.  I called Janna, and being the awesome wife she is she told me that I could come back.   Slavic explained his thoughts to me and I showed him which parts of his plan he needed and which he didn’t.  Its cool, I get to save him several hundred dollars in wood, and add a pop-out on the second floor to give them a little more light.  Man, I miss building. 

Petro pretending to lay bricks. 

Being the only English speaker was: cool, hard, exhausting, encouraging, necessary.  It was great practice.  But speaking in a foreign language all day is totally exhausting.  I was ready to collapse every night.  Petro and I had a good time bonding every night after we had said good night to everyone else.  We had to speak in Russian because Petro’s english is limited to four simple phrases: “Shut the door.” “Open the door.”   “Sweet Dreams.”  And one other phrase that I can’t remember because its pretty useless too. 
One night, at 11:30, I was just done.  I told Petro in English, “Alright, I can’t talk any more.”  “That’s it, we can talk in English, but I can’t do any more Russian tonight.”  So, finally he got the hint and shut up.
The next day, I was talking with Tanya.  Tanya has only one speed when she talks.  Rapid-fire.  I have to concentrate so hard.  But she’s patient with me, and will repeat herself as often as I need.  (If I could only teach her to repeat herself slowly).  As we were talking Yana (14 and studied English in school, but didn’t use any of it all week)  said that if she could learn English the way I had learned Russian she would be in great shape.  Call me shallow, I love little pats on the back. 

So, when Sasha (in the red) talked, I didn’t understand … anything.  But neither did Petro.

In a week and a half I’m going back.  Petro is ready to go with me.  He really liked the whole family, and just like everyone else thought Ilya was ridiculously cute.  I hope to take a couple of guys from Anya and Bogdon’s house (Anya is really excited to have fewer kids around the house with nothing to do).  Our goal will be to rip off the old roof and put up a new roof in a week. 

Petro and his new buddy, Ilya.

Our last day, Saturday, Slavic’s dad and two of his uncle’s who are professional brick layers came over and we laid brick for half of the walls.  Petro and I hauled bricks and mud to them all day.  At the end of the day, Slavic said that what we did on Saturday alone would have taken him a move to do by himself.  That made me so glad we went and so ready to go back.  
Can’t wait to let you know how it goes.