The Voices of Ukrainians

Last night, we skyped in with our home church.  They had asked us to make a video sermon about faith and our ministry, and then we skyped with them and had a little question and answer time.  We had talked with a few people about doing this before, but this was the first time that we had actually done it.  It was really cool. But unless you are in the zone, its easy for questions to catch you off guard.  This is what happened last night when Kinzi (spelling?) asked us what our greatest fears were and how did we overcome them.  Now that I've had a chance to think about the question, I decided that I would answer it here, and if Kinzi happens to read this, that would be great. I've been blessed that my entire life, seems to have been preparing me for my life here in Ukraine, except for that fact that I didn't study Russian in high school (which is nuts because I was one of the very few kids who actually had the opportunity to study Russian, but noooo I had to st...

This post is late, but I wanted to share it anyway. Several weeks ago, just after I got back from the States, we invited the family at Second Chance over for a special Christmas dinner. We wanted to treat them to an American-style holiday complete with food, Christmas music, pretty decorations, and of course presents and stockings. For dinner we had chicken broccoli alfredo with a fresh garden salad and white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies for dessert, accompanied by hot chocolate and Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory toffee.  It was rather splendid. Here are the pictures: Katya, Marina, Ira, Janna Kolya, Katya, Ira, Janna Nose picker one and two Digging for gold Katya, Ira, Halya, and baby David Knee glasses old grandpas "back in my day, we walked fifteen miles to school barefoot...."     Thanks Ross family for sending the glasses. We didn't have very much fun with them, as you can see from the pictures, but maybe ne...

2014 highs Fall retreat             Fall retreat started with a really big disappointment and ended up being one of the best times that we’ve ever had with some of the kids who live in the orphanage.   The plan was that we would start out the week with the older kids, and this would let us get to know them better, and would let Kolya and Halya get to know them better so that they would have a better feel for who they should invite to live in Second Chance after the kids finish ninth grade.   The second part of the week we planned to spend in the orphanage doing a program for all the kids who don’t have anywhere to go.   Leading up to the retreat, the director of the orphanage had been telling us that the kids who are wards of the state would be able to go to the camp without any problem.   He would just give permission.   We checked with him about this for almost two months,   we told him that we...

At the beginning of the year, I wrote a story about gift-giving at the orphanage and why I was more and more opposed to it based on the negative impacts. A lady from the US wrote me asking my take on Operation Christmas Child in this situation, because the Operation Christmas child boxes are only supposed to be given out by national groups who have a relationship with the recipients of the boxes. I was mulling this issue even before she wrote. Spending two years away from the States and then being there for four months makes things stand out a bit more starkly, and I think the materialism of Americans stood out more than anything else to me. This past year, though, God has been teaching me quite a bit. My answer is over 2,500 words, but it’s a complicated issue. We Americans always want to give some thing . We did presentations at 24+churches during our furlough last year, and we shared our most pressing need: financial assistance. We need people to partner with Children’s Hope Ukraine...

During our Easter retreat with our church, some of the ladies in our church told me I was like the churches grandpa. Everyone loved, me especially the kids and it was clear that I love them.    I was a little disconcerted that someone would compare me to a grandpa already, but kinda flattered by what they meant.     But then one of the ladies said, “But you never discipline. You should.”   It’s true, I have done almost no disciplining in my time here in Ukraine, but from where I stand, that’s with good reason.   At the orphanage, I’m just one of the group of people who visits once a week.   The director doesn’t even allow us to visit during school hours, so obviously we aren’t people with any authority at the orphanage.   At church and a lot of other situations, I just try to help where I can and stay out of the way the rest of the time.   I believe that discipline should be very intentional, and if you can’t have a discussion with a k...

We just made videos about different aspects of Children's Hope Ukraine.  And in the last video,  the American part of our team answers three basic questions.   What do we do in Ukraine?   What is it like to live in Ukraine?   How has your life in Ukraine helped you learn to trust God more?              

While we were producing these videos, Tanya, the house mom at LifeBoat, was in the hospital with some minor complications leading up to the birth of her second biological son, and so I simply narrated a video with pictures about their home, telling the story of how they took guardianship of their first two kids and worked towards getting their home complete so that they could bring in more children.