We're Back!

After eight wonderful weeks at home in Canada, we are now back home in Ukraine. 

Our travels went exceptionally well - we had a very easy travel schedule on the way back here - so easy that I wondered how we've never come across this flight pattern before! Usually we have a three hour flight, an eight-ish hour flight and then another three hour flight to get us home but for some reason this time our flights were 50 minutes, seven hours and 30 minutes, and then three hours. The time flew by nicely! 

While we were home in Canada we had tried to book train tickets from Kiev to Zaporozhye but it seemed that there was never any train available. We think maybe because it arrived in Zap on New Years Eve that it was instantly sold out and therefore never showed up on the booking website. For that reason we asked Max (from New Hope Center) if he would be willing to pick us up in Kiev and drive us home. He was more than happy to do so and so he and his family were at the airport to pick us up. He left Zaporozhye Monday morning right before a major snowstorm hit and as he drove towards Kiev, all of the highways closed behind him! The roads were open by the time we headed back south but as we've said before - the main difference between a blizzard in Manitoba and a blizzard in Ukraine is that in MB, the streets actually get cleared and in Ukraine...well....they don't. 

The first half of the trip went quite smoothly other than the terrible Ukrainian roads, but about halfway home we hit snow. It was fine and fairly normal driving, just snow-covered roads until about 100 km from Zap and then things got crazy! It was basically a stay in the tracks or be stuck forever situation - there were major line-ups of abandoned semi-trucks as far as the eye could see in many places - usually on over-passes. It was down to one lane in some places, and we had to drive down the wrong side of the road in places as well. Thankfully at this point it was already about two in the morning so traffic was light and everyone was being exceptionally cautious! We were all so happy to finally see the Zaporozhye sign!! It felt like one of those end-of-the-world movies at times because of the vehicles that had been abandoned in the middle of the road! But we made it safe and sound, and we made the comment to Max that his driving was capable of handling Manitoba weather any day! 

We had a rough time getting back on Ukraine time - mostly due to arriving home at 3:30 in the morning! I think by tonight we'll be okay again. I was outside today for a bit and took some snow pictures for all of you Manitobans who are missing the piles of snow :) I'm sure you'll get more shortly, ha ha.

It has been "SO COLD" (so says our friends) since we arrived back - about -10 degrees Celsius. We think it's just lovely outside! It is supposed to be warming up to be about 0 degrees by the weekend so I'm sure all of this snow will be gone shortly. Our apartment has been nice and warm - mostly due to our space heaters but we're noticing that our electricity is acting up again, probably due to the power shortages all across Ukraine. No big deal though, we'll adjust our power use and keep on going!

We had such a lovely time at home and we want to thank everyone who made the time to meet with us and we want to say thank-you to everyone who supports us with friendship, prayer and finances. We are so excited to see the things God will do here this year and can't wait to share them with you. Happy New Year!