Prayer Request

I'm not sure if I had mentioned it previously but John and Evelyn Wiens had gone home mid-August for a visit and to do some fund-raising for New Hope Center. They were planning to be back in January but we recently received the news that John has been diagnosed with cancer and is currently in the hospital in Surrey, BC. We would not be here if it wasn't for John and there is still so much here for him to do if, of course it's God's will. We ask and welcome prayer for them in their circumstance.

December!!

A year ago today we arrived in Ukraine! It was terrifying - dreary, cold, with miles upon miles of massive, gloomy apartment buildings stretching out as far as we could see. In my head I had mentally prepared until this year when we could go home again - I kept telling myself that I only had to get through ONE year before going home! But now we're heading home soon and I as much as I am looking forward to being home I am also looking forward to being back here again to see what unfolds in year two.

Dreary welcome: 

 Steve and the boys: 

 Kiev had a big snowstorm our first few days here: 

Stuff that's going on here: 

Steve and Justin went to a Young Life conference in Chernigiv last week. They both agreed that it was the most boring 5 days of their lives due to barely any language translation. They did enjoy spending time with the YL leaders though and Steve really enjoyed KFC and Cinnabon in Kiev!!

Justin left this past Tuesday on his way back home to Alberta. He was planning to visit Bobi along the way but was a little concerned about getting into the EU with his passport about to expire. We heard that he got into Poland just fine but haven't heard from Bobi whether or not they made it to Czech Republic. He was with us for three quarters of our time here and will be missed at worship nights, Monday night supper club and in every day life.

Has anyone heard about all the crazy stuff happening in Kiev lately with Ukraine declining to join the EU? It's a hot topic around here with lots of opinions, some we've never thought of before with our "western" mindsets. THIS is a link to live updates of what's happening today at least.

We are moving!! We will be moving into a smaller apartment not too far away. We love the location of our apartment but it is quite expensive from a Ukrainian stand point and we would like something a little more typical for Ukrainian living. Also we've had a ton of issues with our current apartment in this past year - everything from the ceiling leaking in several rooms, some of the radiators not working all last winter, the electricity being ridiculous for two whole months in summer and other things! We are actually really fortunate to be able to store our belongings in the new apartment while we're gone without having to pay rent for those months and they are going to be doing some renovations while we're away and will have everything ready for us by the time we get back February 1st.

Current apartment - it doesn't look like the type of building that would have any problems....right? 

We leave here in 15 days! I can't believe how quickly and yet how s.l.o.w.l.y. this year has gone. We're excited to get home to see friends and family but we're also excited for what God has been doing here - we feel like we're really just getting going here and there's so much more that He's going to do!

So....God is Good, Even When I'm a Big Baby...

Another Visa post....

We found out on Tuesday that we had to have the boy's passports and birth certificates translated to Ukrainian, and notarized so that they could be added to our residency documents. Jessica and I tackled that task yesterday only to find out that our government-issued, Canadian birth certificates aren't actually viewed as legal documents in Ukraine! What?!?! I was so mad!! They wouldn't translate or notarize them for us without a certain stamp on them that we could only get by going to the Canadian Embassy in Kiev. I about lost it. Jessica called the Canadian Embassy who knew exactly what we would need and how to go about getting it and then she started calling some of her connections to see if there was some way around it. In the end we decided to just hand in what we had this morning with confidence and pray that it was overlooked.

Nope.

Jessica said that as soon as she walked into the office this morning, the agent who was working with someone else at the time looked up and exclaimed to her "So you have the birth certificates and passports translated and notarized?" Ummmm....not exactly. So much for being overlooked. So she was told our options...um, option...go to Kiev.

I was upset - after all of these days of running from place to place, getting this and that I was just DONE and I will admit that I was being a massive, ginormous, ugly baby. I didn't sleep last night because I was so worried about this morning - I KNOW God was telling me to trust Him and every time I would think about it I would remind myself over and over again that Yes God, I DO trust You!!

Around lunch today Steve suggested that I try some other avenues. We thought if we could just get someone to translate the documents, we should have no problem getting them notarized and once they're notarized, they're official as far as all of this paperwork goes. Steve called a friend and I called a few people as well. I called the girl who helped with our documents last year and she said that she couldn't help us but she has a translator friend who she would call, and that friend had a friend who was a notary. I could hardly breathe thinking that this just might work. She called and then texted me her name and number and she said there would be no problem. I dropped it off with this woman, she looked at it and didn't say anything about any kind of stamp! She translated it and then took it over to get notarized so all I had to do was pick it up!

Okay God, I'm a big baby for no reason, AGAIN. But you know what? The awesome thing about God is that He isn't thinking about how big of a suck I was today and how I was worried and mad and scared; He's just thinking about how much He loves me and about how much I love Him. And He's thinking that it was so awesome that He got to show me how much He loves me today and I know that He'll continue to do that even when other hard situations come up that make me freak out. I would love to say that I've learned by now that God ALWAYS shows up, but unfortunately I'm still a human and am still emotional and crazy so chances are that I'll need a reminder again in another crazy situation....hopefully not any time soon though, OK God?

Visa Update

I spent another five hours with Jessica walking from office to office yesterday, collecting the right documents, applying for ID numbers, getting passport pictures and so on. It wasn't nearly as much fun as last Friday but we got everything done with no major problems and encountered mainly friendly people along the way.

Jessica was super nice to drop off everything we have so far at the proper office this morning (we have to wait three to five days for that ID number...praying that it's three!) so that they can get started on our new temporary residence documents. She said there was a man there in front of her yelling at the agent working there about missing certain documents and when it was finally our turn the agent was so happy that we had everything altogether! Yessssss!!

So that's where we are now...just waiting. We would have been in deep trouble without Jessica's help and we're so thankful for her!

Another Visa Miracle

Our Ukrainian visas expire January 18th and you must renew at least 15 days before the expiry date, and at that time we will be in Canada. The process is long and it changes each and every time you have to renew so we really wanted to get a head start on it but we weren't sure if they'd let us renew this early. However, if you don't renew at least 15 days early, you have to leave the country and go to the Ukrainian consulate in another country to reapply for a visa.

This afternoon I had our friend Jessica go with me (and the kids because Steve is in Kiev) to see if we could start the process now already - more than two months ahead of time...or so I thought....until Jessica asked if we could renew this early and the woman looked at my visa and said: "Oh, it expires December 1st." Um....WHAT?!?! That means that T.O.D.A.Y is 15 days before it expires which meant that we had to start immediately, on the spot!

We went to another government building and got "the list" which is a list of the documents we have to have which includes things like copies of our passports, 3-5 passport-sized photographs, a letter of invitation, a letter from the Department of Religious Affairs, and other things. The lady was a different one than previously (who was apparently expressionless) and she was super nice - she had seen Jessica's passport which says that she's from New Hampshire and was all excited because her daughter is living there - it was a nice surprise to have someone friendly to deal with....read: that is not normal!

By the time we got out of there it was already closing in on 3 pm (on a Friday afternoon) but we headed to the bank anyways to try and get the stamp saying the date that we started the process and to pay for insurance, which is another requirement. As we're standing there at the bank, already getting the paperwork done, the realization set in - if we wouldn't have paid for this TODAY and gotten this stamp with TODAY'S date on it (exactly 15 days before Dec.1), we would have had to leave the country by December 1st to go apply for a new visa in another country! I almost started crying just thinking about how God orchestrated everything so perfectly so that we got everything done in the nick of time!

So we just finished at the bank and I'm getting the kids ready - getting their hats and mittens on and we turn around and the bank window is closed with a sign on it that said "Closed from 3-4 pm"!! I had looked at my phone when we got there and it had been 3:09 and the lady still took our stuff and processed it!! I almost died on the spot! I was absolutely overwhelmed by our Father's incredible love for us! We were just laughing like crazy people because in the very first office we were in, when we still thought that we had until January 18th, Jessica had smiled and said: "I've got a good feeling about this."

We are reminded again and again of God's amazing love for us, and reminded again and again that we are 100% where we're supposed to be. I love sharing stories like this, of God's amazing provision despite my short-comings (seriously, how did we not know that it expires December 1st!!!) and it's stories like this that remind me in the tough times that He's always got our backs and He's always going to show up!

Steve's Birthday!

Steve's birthday is today so we had a party for him and invited a bunch of friends - between 25 and 30 people came! I of course, prepared some food: 

 Steve requested no gifts but a Ukrainian birthday just isn't complete without gifts!! He was presented with a mace - apparently in Zaporozhye Cossack history only the king would have a mace as a scepter and it was a sign of respect to be presented with one (we had no idea why he got a mace and someone explained it to us after the party was over).

 We played games (mafia as usual):

 Ticket to Ride:

 I was totally unprepared in the candle area - I had one huge candle or these 3 and 1 candles from the boys' birthdays and Steve chose to be 31 to confuse everyone (he's 29):

 We sang happy birthday, he blew the candles out and then our crazy friend Olya jammed Steve's face into the cake!

 August brushed it off but then was really unhappy that there was goo on his hand and he refused to lick it off:

 We sang a few worship songs altogether and then these three girls (Katya, Olya and Helen) wanted to pray for Steve - they are amazing ladies and good friends of ours.

 Marina and I in the forest:

We had a great time and are thankful for the friends we have here (but we still miss friends and family from home especially for occasions like this)!

One Year In (a few days late)

It has been one year since we left Canada.

I wouldn't say that I'm an emotional person and I don't usually focus a whole lot on specific moments in my life but this year has been full of major changes and there is a lot to reflect on.

It's funny - since being here we've watched a few movies, have read and heard about several people who have uprooted their families and moved across the world. Even thinking about any Mennonite heritage you realize that they left everything to move across the world (okay so they didn't have much here anymore and were super oppressed here) but the thought that always goes through my head is "HOW could anyone do that?! How are they brave enough to do that? That's so scary!!" But then I kind of laugh at myself as I am reminded that oh yeah...I'm in Ukraine - we did that! But it just doesn't feel the same! I don't feel brave or like an exceptional family. I feel the complete opposite - overly normal and average and with nothing special about us....except that God called us up and said Go.

The first few months were rough. We had very few friends, it was winter so there was nowhere to go, we spoke little Russian so even going to the grocery store was painful, draining and a chore. There was a lot of frustration with the culture - things that bothered us that for everyone else were completely normal. There was one day where I was in the middle of making supper and I was mad and was praying out loud in frustration and anger, just wanting to be HOME and then all of a sudden the words came out of my mouth: "I don't even what on earth I'd be doing in Canada because I'm not supposed to be there." I screeched to a halt in the middle of the kitchen, stunned that those words were even in my brain because I just sooooo wanted to be home.

Once spring started, we had Bobi and Justin join us and things started to get easier. We made more friends, more connections, Bobi's help with the language was incredible and we started to settle into a routine.

Before we left home we felt that the first few months here would be rough and that if we could go in winter which was also a tough time, we'd get all of the hard part out of the way all at once and by the time summer came around we'd be good to go, and that's really how it worked out. Summer was awesome - we always had things to do, activities to be involved in, people to hang out with, it was great. I really started to feel like this is home - the roller coaster ups and downs were definitely fewer and farther in between. I adopted a motto of sorts that is "if I don't laugh about it, I'll cry" and it really changed my outlook on frustrating situations that I couldn't change. It's much easier now to let cultural, frustrating things go and choose to be joyful in spite of them. God has truly been changing my heart and teaching me to chill out with things like that.

God has shown up in huge ways again and again for us this year. It's so cool knowing that He is the reason we're here and anything we do is because He has made it possible. We rely on Him for everything in a different way that we did in Canada - there we relied on Him for sure but here now, we're following through -  doing the thing He asked us to do - it's just totally different relationship-wise. He told us to come here, we're here and now it's HIM who does everything. He brings us people, He makes connections for us, He heals where we need healing, He speaks to those who need speaking to, He gives us ideas and vision of what's next. Every day I am reminded that He loves us so very, very much.

This has definitely been one of the most memorable years in my life so far and I know that God has so much more for us here that we have no idea about and I can't wait to see how this next year goes!

We again thank you so much for your continued support in prayer and financially. We would love for as many visitors as possible to come and see for yourselves, and be involved in all the amazing stuff we've got going on!!! God is amazing and uses each one of you to bless us and continue His work!

Thanksgiving

I finally got some pictures from our Thanksgiving on Monday so here they are! 

For our regular Monday night supper club we (okay, I) decided that because it fell on Canadian Thanksgiving we'd do the full Thanksgiving dinner and talk about being thankful during our discussion time! We planned for 30 people - chicken with cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes with gravy, salad, stuffing, warm apple cider and pie (chocolate and pumpkin) for dessert. There were 20 of us altogether and we had a great time! 

Steve with Tolik (one of the graduated orphan guys): 

Preparing the chicken:

Vera (one of the graduated orphan girl living in New Hope's girls' home) chopping stuff for salad:

Twenty plates lined up and ready to go!

Justin talking about thankfulness:

Dez waiting patiently for food:

Steve and Justin with the three "neighbourhood" guys as we like to call them (they live in the neighbourhood of New Hope Center and started coming randomly) and Tolik (front left):

Leadership Team: L-R Steve, Jo, Alexandra (whose pictures these all are), Masha, Justin and Jessica
( ...and August photo-bombing...)

The Harders!!

Girls - L-R: Marcie (Jessica's friend who is visiting), Masha, Me, Tania, Alexandra, Jessica

We have enough leftovers for next Monday's supper as well - tossed them all in the freezer!

Young Life Club (2013-10-11)

Here's a more in depth look at Young Life's Friday night club. We are now in a larger room (larger = wonderfully less smelly and hot) and yesterday's theme was Indians (very politically correct). 

When Steve and I arrived we were crowned: 

 

No one else had big headdresses like us (other than Oleg who is the head of YL), I'm not sure why we were so special!

This was a group game where everyone starts off as individuals and you face off in paper, rock, scissors and whoever the loser is has to crawl under the winner's legs and form a train behind them. Eventually there are two teams that are in two long trains and have to face off - Steve and I were fortunate enough to be on the winning team the entire game.

Attempting to listen and catch on to what's happening: 

Steve involved in one of the games:

After the official club ends there is tea and cookies and it turns into a riot of people talking, yelling, dancing, playing games, a major photo shoot and being ridiculous - hence this dance line with Steve and I on the end:

Steve with our friends Katya, Max and then the far left is some kid I don't know:

Group shot: 

Soccer Game (Sept. 28th)

Here are a few pictures from one of Steve's soccer games. They play every weekend, usually Saturday but they had one Sunday game as well. 

 Their team name is Arsenal Zaporozhye, and the protocol seems very official for a dinky little soccer league!

 An action shot - that's Steve with the ball.

New Hope Church

Every once in a while they do some filming in church and a video pops up later. This one is from this past Sunday and is a little taste of what going to church is like (at least the people we go with). Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcsEfCT94_Y

First Visitors!!

We had our first Canadian visitors last week!! My aunt Elaine and her friend Frieda were doing a tour in some other countries and decided to come for a week afterwards. We've been planning this for eight or so months and it's unbelievable that they've come and gone already!!

The weather was absolutely atrocious - it SNOWED the day they got here!!!! and the temperature hovered around +1 the whole time as well which was very disappointing and very unusual for here!

They were lucky enough to experience Ukrainian trains and I was very fortunate to find the oldest taxi driver in the oldest car in the city to take them home from the train station!

We took them to the largest market in the city which I joke is kind of like Walmart because you can buy anything and everything there - shoes, clothes, garden produce, groceries, gardening supplies, curtains, furniture, bikes, motorcycles, plumbing supplies, paint, you name it, it's there!

Hats to the right, windows for sale to the left:

On Saturday they had planned a Mennonite tour here around the city with a Victor Penner. He had room to take me along as well which was great. We mostly stayed in the city where the Mennonite settlement of Chortitza is, as well we toured the cemetery - these are some original Mennonite headstones:

And this sign overlooked this valley filled with very old oak trees on Khortitza Island and basically it says that in this valley are some very very old oak trees and German Mennonites played a large part in their preservation. Victor had told us that Mennonites were quick to chase people off the island who came over for the express purpose of chopping these trees down.

We were in the Mennonite village of Rosenthal where Mennonite buildings still exist - the school is still a school (a rather beautiful, ornate one for Mennonite standards), the hospital is still a hospital etc., it was really cool to see. We actually saw a Mennonite house made out of wood, which is what they did before they started making bricks. That house in particular Victor said was over 150 years old. There was laundry hanging outside - proof that someone is still living there which goes to show just how well-built Mennonite homes were!! We ended up driving out of the city to a village of which the name has left me....but there was a massacre of 76 Mennonites in this village at the hands of Nestor Makhno's army and then just across the highway a short drive away is the village of Nikolaipole (where we worked the first time we came here).  Nikolaipole is a great example of a Mennonite village because it was largely untouched by any wars or civil conflicts and a lot of the current villagers are still living in Mennonite-built houses. The school is still a school and the church still exists although it is in great disrepair (the guys on our Trek team played soccer in the church over four years ago). Victor was great - a ton of stories and great knowledge of history. His personal family story was pretty incredible as well - he showed us where some of his family members had lived in these Mennonite villages and we learned that the only Mennonites that didn't leave after WWII were the ones that were married to Ukrainians - as was true for his family. There are also a few other Mennonites that stayed but assumed other identities so that they wouldn't be killed. I found a bit more info on the Khortitza settlement at this link:
http://www.plettfoundation.org/wp/wp-content/magazines/Preservings20June2002.pdf
It's an entire magazine I think but some of the stuff closer to the beginning explains a bit about how the Chortitza colony came to be etc. but even just looking through the first few pictures is pretty neat.

Oma and Opa were sitting in front of their yard in a village we drove through:

It was ridiculously cold outside and we were looking at all these buildings, just freezing ourselves, it was awful. But !!! we made it through, knowing that we were going to the BANYA afterwards! The banya is a Russian bath - you sit in the sauna and then jump into a pool of cold water, and hit each other with branches to "enhance your circulation". It was amazing! We had so much fun! I usually don't like saunas but this was just perfect after being so cold all day and it was a great Ukrainian experience for all of us - we took my friend Marina (who is from here), our friend Jessica (who is from the states but has lived here for almost five years), she had a friend visiting that came along, and then Elaine, Frieda and I. It was definitely a cultural experience for all of us!

Here are the beds where you lie to get hit with branches:

The branches:

There was a table and chairs so we brought snacks, spent a lot of time in the sauna and not so much time in the very very cold pool!! I would definitely take anyone visiting back to the banya!

It was so great having our first visitors - we felt bad that we couldn't do more because the weather was so awful but it was wonderful to spend lots of time visiting and having coffee!! We welcome anyone else who wants to come hang out for you know, a month or two ;)!

*Thanks to my Tante Elaine for a few of these pictures!*

September

After a short trip down south we are back into the swing of things. 

Monday night supper club has started up again with a ton of kids coming. I guess they really missed us with that month long break we took! It impressed us that some of the graduated orphan guys that wouldn't eat with us last year (because then they had to listen to the God message) were eating and listening! 

On Wednesdays we've started an English club at New Hope Center. We weren't really given a choice to start it (ha ha) but it gives us a great opportunity to meet some new people and to share something with others. Today was the very first one and Steve, Justin and Jessica ran it starting off with basics (colours, numbers, the five W's) and then playing a game that kids love here, Mafia, with them to finish up. 

Wednesday night worship has been continuing. It's a great time to get together with some of the closer friends we've made here to just share about how our weeks have been, any prayer requests we have, things to be thankful about and we sing and pray together. 

We are still having Russian lessons, so far just one a week (since the beginning of August) but we're hoping to add at least one more to that. We want to start up our conversational Russian lesson again with the same English-speaking friends as before as well we're hoping to find another Russian teacher to have a lesson once a week with for a different perspective on the language. I'd say Steve is doing pretty well. I feel I am getting slightly more confident in speaking but I definitely don't have as much opportunity as him to talk to people but I'm working on it! 

Young Life Club is moving to a bigger room THANKFULLY! The teeny, tiny, hot, smelly, crowded, messy room they had was just awful and we're so thankful for a new space! They won't move until next week and this last week in the old room Steve is doing the message portion of the evening. Side story: This last week I went and they made me touch a mouse! EW! They always play these silly games and usually someone has to touch something gross or gets messy/wet. Well I was horrified that they picked me to play in this one, because obviously I'm a big Debbie Downer when it comes to games (ha ha). I was blind-folded and told that there were 4 jars, and they all had different kinds of chocolate in them. I knew that the first three would actually be chocolate so when it got to the last one I was really sure I was NOT putting my hand in the jar! I briefly did, barely touched something that was not chocolate and then whipped my blind-fold off to look down and see two little white mice! ICK! But, it's all fun and games. I'm just happy that there were no eggs in my hair or water down my pants! 

Steve's soccer team is....well....it's sucking. Poor guys can't get a win. Great news though - there are around 20 guys who are interested in playing and while they all can't play on the team, they can be invited to other events. One guy has been to Young Life and Steve is hoping to be able to find more opportunities to talk to them about God and even just life in general. Pray for these opportunities!

We are still waiting to see if we will be back in schools teaching English. That is our hope but so far we haven't heard back from any of our contacts. Please keep this in prayer!

We have lived here for 9 months and finally found the best Ukrainian food we've had so far....and it is literally 50 feet from our apartment building!! Chicken Kiev, perogies, cabbage rolls, other fried meats, it was all so good! 

 And the best part was - that it's at a corner store so we bought it, brought it home to heat up and then ate it in the comfort of our own home!

Blonde Moment: For Steve's soccer team we have been buying jerseys at this amazing second hand store near our house. I check every time I go in and can usually pick up a couple at a time. I went in last Sunday and found one and was actually pretty surprised that it was still there. It was pretty big but I checked the front and it looked like it was in good shape, checked the back and noticed that there was writing on it but I didn't read it, just figured it was a name of some kind. I got it home and showed Steve. He was similarly concerned about the large size but I assure him that I could take it in, no problem. Then he flipped it around and gasped with a chuckle. Then he asked if I had read the back. I said no, I noticed writing but assumed it was a name. He slowly turned it around and much to my horror THIS is what it says!!!

Talk about being mortified! Okay so we won't use this one and now I'm super paranoid when I pick up jerseys!! *Note: I am going to try and cover that writing! This is just another challenge for my seamstress skills and you know what Jersey? Challenge: Accepted. 

In other news, we booked our flights home for Christmas! We will be home December 16th to January 30th! I am really looking forward to it but I keep having to remind myself that technically it is still a quarter of a year away! 

Thanks for reading!!