Our First 3 Weeks in Ukraine...

March 19, 2007

Well, tomorrow marks the end of our third week here. In some ways, I can't believe how quickly it's gone by, and in others, I can't believe how much has happened. You may wonder, what have we been doing the last few weeks...well, here goes...

-We moved. Very quickly we realized that if we continued to live in the apartment we were first at we would be spending a lot of time and money on marshutka's (local transit, basically). All of the main leaders at the Shelter have recently moved to be in the same neighborhood as the Shelter, and live within a 10 minute walk from there. One of the couples, Sasha and Lesya, invited us to live with them until we find an apartment of our own. We've been living with them for the past week, and are having a great time getting to know them. Lesya has been studying English in University and Sasha has a pretty good vocabulary too, so communication isn't a major problem! Many of our conversations are helped with a Russian-English dictionary and charades, which leads to a lot of laughter. I honestly don't think I've ever laughed so much, trying to communicate. Dave and Sasha are having a lot of fun together, as they are both bass players and share a love of music. For the last week, they've been doing "show-and-tell" with each other, playing their favourite bands and music, and discussing plans for the Shelter studio. We are so thankful for their gracious hospitality and light hearted spirits. They've also been informally teaching us Russian at meals...we've learned important words like fork, spoon, knife, plate, cup, mug, kettle, pillow, etc...We know how to say that we want lemon in our tea, or milk in our coffee and that we're tired. Very handy words!

-We spoke at a University and a church: Last week Lesya invited us to come speak to her English class about Canada, and we happily did. Her professors were very happy to have an opportunity to speak with people whose first language is English. Yesterday was our first Ukrainian church experience. About half-way through the singing, someone from the church came and asked us if we would share with the church about how we came to be in Ukraine. We had about 10 minutes to prepare. I hope that in the future we will remember this experience, and be more prepared even before we get to church, just in case!
-We've been participating in Shelter activities and meetings (well, attending meetings, not really participating! Language is a very important part of communication!). We've met many of the youth who come to Shelter throughout the week and are having fun playing "Uno" and "Mennonite Madness" with them. They are very patient with our lack of language, and cheer us on any time we try to say something. Many of the girls give me hugs and kisses when they leave to go home, and have been very friendly to me. We've also been helping a bit with the English classes, and taught the kids at Children's Shelter (Saturdays) the song, "Head and shoulders, knees and toes...".
-Dave has had many musical opportunities already...he's joined a band "Smak soli" (Taste of Salt) with the guys at Shelter, and is playing electric guitar. They are excited to have his input and different sound. Last Thursday we drove to a city about 400km. away so the band could participate in a band competition. It was really good for us to see more of the country side. It's becoming more and more clear that most of the country, except for a few "pockets" of wealth is in poverty...from the potholes, to abandoned homes and construction sites, garbage everywhere, and people stumbling around and falling over from drunkenness, and picking through the garbage. It feels like everywhere we look we can see things falling apart, and that things that once were beautiful are now littered with garbage and broken glass, and crumbling cement. I often still feel like I'm experiencing our surroundings the same way I experience a movie--at arms length, watching from a distance but not really entering in. I hope and pray that I will not be hardened to these things but that my heart would be soft and that I would really be able to have empathy and compassion, and gain understanding for the people who have only known the hopelessness they feel here.
-Tomorrow Dave will begin helping a new band develop songs and grow as musicians. They are called "Dead Spirit". Dave is hoping that by the time he is done working with them they won't be called "Dead Spirit" anymore! This Saturday, if everything works out, Dave is going to begin helping develop an all-girls band and an all-boys band from one of the local orphanages that our friends the Halonen's are very involved at. The idea is to give these kids an opportunity to try something they wouldn't have had the chance to do otherwise, and to inspire their creativity. This is one of the many unique ministry ideas the Halonens have and we are very excited to help them out whenever we can.
-Together, Dave and I are planning to spend time every day on our Russian and praying together for the Shelter ministry, and then participating at the Shelter any way we can. We see these things as the most important things we can spend our time on right now.
Well, thanks for your time and friendship! Sorry no pictures yet! We hope to get some up soon!

Love,Bethany

We're here!

At the Toronto Airport. Feb 25th
It's been an interesting ride so far. Poor Bethany has a migraine today so she is lying down on the bench beside me. We had a little problem with our luggage getting ripped open between Winnipeg and Toronto. I made a bit of a stink and got the airline to buy us new luggage. So I spent a good couple hours sorting that out and packing the new luggage. Good thing we gave ourselves 6 hours in Toronto. The next 2 hours will be us waiting to board the Aerosvit plane and head towards Kiev. It looks like we'll have to go through customs in Kiev and then board a different plane to go to Dnipropetrovsk. I hope everything will work out well... Through all of this, I'm having a lot of fun! I really want to be strong for Bethany as she is really suffering right now. Hmmm... I just saw a girl with a jacket that is half pink fur and half pink leather with a matching belt. She also has sequins on her jeans... I'm pretty sure she is from Ukraine. :-)
dave
At our apartment, Krivoy Rog, Feb. 28th
Wow! Where do I begin? First I must thank everyone for all their prayers. Dave and I have really sensed that people must be praying for us over the past few days. Generally speaking, I'd say that there were many different things that we faced that normally would make us frustrated or grumpy or discouraged or scared, but with God's help through your prayers, our cheeks are hurting from all the smiling we've been doing.Let me explain...As I rested, sleeping on a bench in the airport, while Dave ran around the airport taking care of the luggage situation and buying us food, I started to feel a little better and regained some energy. As time passed we realized our flight must be delayed despite very little communication from the airline. Eventually they announced that our flight was cancelled and that we should pick up our luggage and contact them the next day (Monday) to find out about our flight. While we stood around to find out what was going on, we met a couple of young guys from Ukraine. One of them called himself Andrew (probably because we couldn't pronounce his real name!) and he ended up being our "angel" in Kiev (more on this in a bit!).As we gathered our luggage, we realized that no more over-size luggage was being unloaded and we still hadn't gotten Dave's guitars back. Dave found some airport staff, who were very helpful, and they eventually found both of Dave's guitars in an empty "can" (what they transport luggage in between the airport and the planes). Amazingly, Dave stayed very calm throughout this experience. In the meantime, I called our friend Melissa, in Winnipeg, whose parents live in Mississauga. Well, she arranged for us to stay with them until our flight was arranged! God is so good! They came to the airport and drove us back the next day. Incredibly hospitable people! The extra rest before our flight let me completely regain my energy from my migraine.Our flight to Kiev was very uneventful. We experienced our first taste (not literally) of Ukrainian culture when the flight attendants started passing out alcoholic beverages on the plane for free. We had Orange Juice and Coke! When we arrived in Ukraine our "angel", Andrew, took us under his wing and helped us through customs (he told us later that the lady in customs wanted to make Dave pay fees for his guitars, but the other customs officer called her a bad name, so she gave up. We're pretty sure we wouldn't have had to pay anyway, as the guitars are personal belongings and we're bringing them back with us...). He also "protected" us from a very aggressive man who really wanted to help us get to the other terminal where we would have to catch our next flight. We walked there instead. It was a very short distance. Andrew also helped us find out about our connecting flight to Dnepropetrovsk and helped Dave to make a very important phone call to the people who were supposed to meet us at the airport in Dnepro. We are also very thankful that he made sure we went to the washroom before boarding our flight, as there were no washrooms on board. Dave and I both wonder if we would have gotten here without his help! We were greeted in Krivoy Rog by an amazing group of people--our Canadian friend, Rainer Halonen, and some of our new Ukrainian friends from the Shelter +. One of these friends is an English teacher at the University, so she translated for us all the way to Krivoy Rog (about a 2hour drive). Her name is Anna and she is wonderful! They treated us to McDonalds for supper...I don't think either of us had expected to eat at McDonalds so soon! I had my first authentic Ukrainian bathroom experience at a gas station along the highway. I won't go into much detail, but I'll just say that my choices were either a hole in the floor of an outhouse with nothing to hold onto, or a field. Dave and I laughed all the way back to the van. It is true that many washrooms are not well stocked with toilet paper, so Dave and I plan to come prepared in the future!When we got to our apartment, Dave and I both almost started to cry to see how it had been prepared for us. Not only were the cupboards stocked with dishes and food and drink to last a few days, but the Shelter + team had also prepared a giant poster, decorated with balloons, and put a map of the city on the wall for us. Today was our first whole day in Krivoy Rog, and it was very productive, and very good. Rainer, who did all the apartment renovations for us (with the help of his family!), very kindly drove us everywhere we needed to go, and spent the entire day with us. He took us to get cell phones...we've finally joined the rest of the world...as this is the best way to communicate here (normal phone lines are very unreliable!). We also met the rest of his family and had coffee with them. Then we got some lunch at a traditional Ukrainian food restaurant. It was very fun, as all three of us could really only communicate by pointing and nodding our heads. We did some shopping next for some basic start-up things (like a toaster, pens, a rack to dry our clothes on...) and some food. Vegetables are very inexpensive! The store we did our shopping at is a wonderful place, where we will be able to find many, many things and ingredients...from chicken breast to 2-ply toilet paper for very affordable prices!The next stop was the Shelter. Here we were greeted by more of the volunteers and staff. Together with them we headed to a children's hospital where they did a presentation for the kids and then handed out gifts from Operation Christmas Child (Samaritan's Purse). It's amazing to have been on both ends of this ministry--to have personally packed shoe boxes this past Christmas, and then to see kids actually receive them...Wow! I am so glad that we have already been able to be involved in some ministry, even though we were mostly spectators. After the program at the hospital was over we were driven back to the Shelter, where we were given another incredible, "official" greeting...somewhat of a surprise party. At the front door we were greeted by two volunteers dressed in traditional Ukrainian outfits, holding a big, round loaf of bread in their hands, on a pretty white, embroidered cloth that they presented to us. The bread had a pile of salt on it, and we were told that as part of their tradition we were to take a piece of bread, dip it in the salt and eat it. We are still not entirely sure if we understand culturally what this represents, but we felt very honored and celebrated and loved through this action. Again, we were both almost moved to tears. Following this, we were fed a delicious meal of coleslaw, bread, and potato stew. All very tasty! Tea seems to be the hot drink of choice, which is great! Next, we were given a tour of the Shelter. To end the night, we participated in a sort of staff meeting, where we officially were welcomed to the team and introduced to everyone. We told them our story of how we came to be there, then they presented us with some welcome gifts (Shelter t-shirts, a mug, and "gold cards"...kind of like membership/identification cards, which we understand are quite an honor to be presented with). The night closed with prayer (translated for us!) and then a song..."Open the Eyes of My Heart", sung in Russian and English simultaneously! I can't believe how much has already happened in such a short period of time! Sorry for the long-windedness...I hope you've enjoyed all the detail! We don't have email access yet, so I wanted to make the most of this opportunity! Pictures to come soon!
With love, Bethany (for Dave too!)