So….Shannon is pregnant!  We are pumped, overwhelmed with joy, feeling fantastically blessed, and boundlessly thankful.

Things are moving along and currently Shannon is finishing up her 1st trimester.  All in all, the 1st trimesters wasn’t too bad.  Other than a little bit of nauseousness and the need for a bit more sleep, she has been pretty healthy.

The due date for this little one is the 1oth of May.  Shannon will be coming home to Texas to deliver and I will join her with about two weeks to go.  As for now, we anxiously await the newest goranimal!  If you would like to see the newest family picture, check out the dashboard at the top of the page .

We are back in Ukraine and busy at work but there has been an interesting development since our arrival.  The swine flu, also known around here as the Californian flu (which is a complete mystery to me) has put the nation into a bit of a scare.  Things are slightly nuts.  One of the cities east of us, Ternopyl (not Chernobyl), has completely been quarantined due to a number of deaths.  Trains are not stopping there and I’ve heard that choppers are flying around spraying some sort of chemicals.  Things in L’viv aren’t so bad but there is still plenty of worried folks.  Most people are wearing face masks or putting scarves or over their mouths.  Yulia Temenshenko, the Prime Minister, has decided put a three-week national restriction on public meetings, including schools, universities, churches, movie theaters, etc.  Makes for tough campus ministry considering all the universities and colleges are shut down and many students have gone home.  We will see how everything continues to transpire.  I suspect it this is a bit of an overreaction.  We are sure hoping the universities aren’t closed for three weeks, but we will see.  We will probably continue our activities anyways, so take that swine flue!

Here are some L’vivians sporting face masks!  I got some very straight faced, “what are you doing taking a picture of me looks” when I took these.  So enjoy them!

Shannon posing so it looked like I was taking a picture of her...the lady on her left was not happy and trying to leave!

Goranimals Newsletter Summer-Fall 2009

This is the newest version of our newsletter.  Hope you all enjoy it.  Shannon and I are still in the states at training and we will be heading back to Ukraine the end of October after a week of vacation.  Hope everyone is enjoying the fall, we sure are.  

Missionaries in Training

Well, Shannon and I are back in the states for about a month after being in Ukraine almost exactly a year.  It has been wonderful to be back and we are experiencing a slight bit of reverse culture-shock.  I think we are both most surprised by being able to understand everything that is going on around us.  We feel very overstimulated!

We spent the few days in Manassas, Virginia with Grace United Methodist Church.  This was our first time visiting a church and it was a wonderful experience.  Grace UMC gave us the opportunity to share from the pulpit and do the missions moment at all three of their Sunday services.  I was a little bit intimidated seeing as I had never formally preached at an American church before nor had I preached without a translator in a while, but it all seemed to go quite well.  One of the main goals of our visit, beyond sharing about Molod do Isusa and generating support, was to create some interest and enthusiasm for a short-term trip Grace is planning to do with us next summer.  Grace showed us amazing hospitality while we were there and we felt incredibly encouraged and blessed to have the church care so much about us and our ministry.  Thank you Grace, it was a wonderful time and we look forward to seeing you again soon!   

Other random highlights of our time home so far include visiting my good friend Rob and his wife Liz, seeing my first Copperhead on a trail we hiked, and also watching Shannon run like a bandit from the second Copperhead I have ever seen.  I also got to go fishing and Shannon enjoyed a nice peddicure.  It is good to enjoy some of the pampering of home.  

We will spend the next three weeks in Stony Point, New York at a missionary training that we were supposed to have before we left in 2008 but has been postponed until now.  It will be good to have our many questions answered and become a little bit more familiar with the procedures of the General Board of Global Ministries.  Look for a new newsletter soon.  God bless.

For those of you who don’t know me personally yet, you might be wondering why in the world I am writing about consumerism?  Well, first off, I am a consumer, and a pretty good one at that.  I have already ‘consumed’ quite a bit sense moving here and setting up life.  Second, sometime during seminary I had a huge burden laid on me (by Jesus) to become an informed consumer.  I needed to know as much about my consumption as possible, and make some Christian decisions about some of what I was finding out.  Where things are made, how they are made, how the workers are treated, the impact on the environment, etc. are some of the things I began to research.

Well, I wanted to continue living as much ‘in the know’ as I could in Ukraine and that has proved a bit trickier.  Labels are sometimes missing, and when they are in clothing, they are not a big enough brand to be on the internet so I can’t follow them up.  A lot of shopping is done in markets here, and that also makes things challenging.  I’ve tried to ask some of the bigger stores about their clothes and they look at me like I’m crazy.  There is a good chance that my words didn’t come out exactly right either, so I’ll chalk it up to that.

However, when asking my Ukrainian friends and the students I work with about these kind of things, they just laugh.  Well, they don’t really laugh, they say 1) I’ve never really thought about it or 2) Shannon, we have bigger things to think about.  At least now I can say that I have shed some light on a topic that has never been introduced to them before.  

I had an experience over the summer that reminded me that this is a passion of mine (yes, sometimes even passions get forgotten when you move to a new country, with a new culture and new language, to start a new job with a semi-new husband).  I was shopping in one of these markets with the American team that came this last summer.  One girl saw a dress, picked it up, looked at the label and said this is the exact dress that I bought in Texas before we left.  She said she paid $16 for it, and wanted to know how much the dress was selling for in Ukraine.  The seller of the dress said $45.  Yes, $45 and that was in USD, not hrieven, which is the Ukrainian currency.  I couldn’t believe it, I was furious.  The girls thought they were coming to the market to find some deals.  We pretty much stopped shopping after that…they said they would wait until they returned home to buy anymore clothing.

Well this sent me into a whole new realm of ‘enlightenment’.  Ukraine has a crazy high import tax, hence the $45 dress that is only $16 in America.  All imported goods are spiked in price relative to the cost of goods produced in Ukraine.  The only thing that I have actually found in Ukraine that is cheaper than in America is food, electricity and water.  Furniture is generally more expensive, rent is the same, clothes are higher, drinks are about the same, electronics are higher, entertainment is the same.  

Being exposed to another group that is being taken advantage of, even though they are the consumer in this go ’round, is sad for me.  You might be saying, that is just how it works.  Maybe, especially if we all say that.  But it will continue to baffle me that in a place like America (average household income of $50,000) people are able to buy cheap clothes while Ukrainians (average individual salary being about $6,000) have to pay three times as much for the same dress.

Pilgrim's Kickoff 2009

Last Thursday was our first service of the year!  Our turn out was great, our students were excited, and everything went smooth for our first meeting of the year.  Last weekend we had a leadership retreat and were able to mold a group of young leaders (ladies actually, it’s all girls) that are ready to serve and lead this student ministry.  Shannon and I feel more organized and ready now than we have since we got here.  We are really excited about the new year and seeing what God has in store for this ministry.  Pray for us and the students as we all work to bring in the Kingdom of God here in L’viv, Ukraine.

Preaching: Be Strong and Courageous!

Listening

Lily giving a testimony

If you are seeing a photograph that doesn’t make much sense, it’s about Ihor.  Ihor is our local homeless guy who has decided to make the student center landing his resting place in the evenings.  At first I had no problem with it.  Instead of going the regular route and just kicking this guy off our landing, Lubomir, Shannon and I tried to do something in order to extend Christ’s love and we decided to strike up a deal with him.  The deal was that Ihor could only spend his nights there.  He had to leave before 8a.m. and come no earlier than 11p.m.  He agreed, of course, and was about as cordial a homeless, drunk fellow could be.  And so, for maybe a week it kind of worked out.  Ihor would come in the evenings and the only hang up was that sometimes he would bring his friends.

Things changed.  Ihor started coming more and more often and then regularly during the middle of the day.  Even during heavy traffic hours at the student center, I would sometimes catch Ihor trying to get some shut eye on the landing.  So, Ihor and I had a talk and we really talked; I made him talk to me and repeat what I was saying so I knew it at least had gone in his ears, through his brain, and out of his mouth.  He had three tries, three more times to be there during the wrong hours and then he couldn’t come again.  I thought that the new plan might work, but it didn’t.  In three days there were three incidents and so I told him it wasn’t working.   He wasn’t keeping up his end of the deal, and that was that.  That last time I sat there and watched him collect his boxes and odds and ends and walked him down the steps hoping not to seem him for a while.

That didn’t really work.  Ihor is still around.  His evidence on our landing is patently Ihor and some of it is visible in the photo: his cigarette butts next to where he sleeps, old used plastic bags he accumulates, cardboard boxes he uses as mattresses, his pillow which he hides in the attic door, and of course his pee on our wall, that unfortunately is both visually and nasally evident .

Considering that initially the few students who vocalized wanting to disallow Ihor to stay in the first place seem to have been right, we probably will have to take some steps to prevent further sleepings on our landing.  Considering also that our student center entry and door were severely vandalized a couple years back,  we have all the more reason to protect our space.  I wish there was another way, to both show Ihor Christ’s love and protect our space, but for someone who doesn’t want to listen, who doesn’t respect himself or others, who shows no indication of wanting to get better, I am scared we might only throw our pearls to swine.  God help you Ihor.

Bounty!

While I have often been discouraged by the complete lack of wildlife in Ukraine, one national pastime that has surely benefited from a lack of  mammals is mushroom hunting.  While most Americans in the woods have almost no idea what is fair game for food, when you take Ukrainians into the woods in the summer everything suddenly become edible.  As for mushrooms, everyone seems to know which mushrooms are the tasty mushrooms, which mushrooms are going to make you sick, and which mushrooms will make you fly and then crash and burn.  I went mushroom hunting with Lubomir and we did well, two big medium sized bags full of fungi.  Here is some of our bounty.  The big white one in the middle is the diamond in the rough: a white mushroom.  Apparently they get to be double that size.  That one was delicious and I look forward to eating his fungal relatives again soon.

So you might be wondering what Ukrainian style means…I’m alluding to most international mission trips hosting Vacation Bible Schools (VBS).  Yes, you are correct if you were thinking loud, messy, hot, dirty, unorganized, difficult to sing songs in another language, difficult to preform a skit in another language as well as difficult to explain a craft in another language.  At least loving and playing can be done and done well in any language.

We originally planned to do VBS over four days, when our Texas team shrunk and our students didn’t come forward like we thought they would, we became timid and cut out a day.  When we called the orphanage to tell them, they said, “WHAT?”  We thought you were only coming for one day.  Erika, our student that called the orphanage compromised with us coming for two days.  That should have been a clue to the fun we had in store.

All in all we did have fun.  We ended up with five Americans and about 11 Ukrainians.  The story of Daniel was shared, pictures were drawn, games were played and cookies were eaten even if it wasn’t how we originally planned.  But that’s when memories are made, right?

Enjoying some outdoor cooking

Today is Monday, July 27th.  I have had people in my home since June 15th.  I am almost caught up on the laundry (including the student center’s), my fridge almost looks like itself again, as well as my bathroom (thanks Danny and Jake) and we are once again settling into our ‘normal’ routine.  As crazy (and dirty) as the last six weeks have been, it has also been my favorite time so far.

David enjoys the slow and steady, I like the crazy and busy.  (Luckily we both like the planned and structured.)  This summer has finally given me some of the crazy and busy, and it has helped me to see why I’ve had a little trouble adjusting here.  Ukrainians aren’t so much for the crazy or the busy, especially during the summer.  They are not so much for the planned or structured either, but we’ll save that for another entry.

I even managed to squeeze in a Fourth of July party with Jenny providing the entertainment

After spending a nice week with David’s family, our Texas mission team from Lubbock arrived.  (I apologize for my husband’s error in the previous post, I was not given a chance to proof it.)  They arrived on time and were only missing two of their four bags.  There were only two of them, but they had a serious amount of energy and passion and we hit the ground running (after a couple of days of rest).  

Kristin and Kristi pondering English lessons

We began in the Carpathians, a mountain range that stretches through western Ukraine into Romania, for a week long camp.  The camp incorporated some English lessons by day and teachings about Jacob (from Genesis, not David’s brother) by night.  We hiked in the mountains, picked wild strawberries, prayed, built a campfire, picked wild mushrooms, went swimming in the river, took cold showers, spent alone time with God, ate amazing food, sang worship songs, even made a trip to the hospital (everything turned out fine).

Some of us at the river

Some of us lounging after a hike

It was a little bit pretty

The bonfire, accompanied by singing of course

English Time!

Some edible treats

We had a couple of our ‘regulars’ from Pilgrims invite friends to the camp, and they enjoyed it.  Some of our newer Pilgrims really were able to connect with some of our older folks and David and I were able to watch not only friendships between people deepen, but even more so some of the students’ relationships with Christ.  It was a great week. 

David is bringing the Word of God with the help of Erika's translation

Morning devotional

I’m still not sure how this came up, but Kristin, one of the TX girls, said to me, “You know that game/ice breaker, ‘If you were stranded on a desert island what three things would you take with you?’”  I said, “Yes.”  She said, “Now I know what I would take.”  I said, “What?”  And she said, “I would only need two, a Ukrainian man and a Ukrainian female.”  That became a running joke for the rest of the trip.  Both Kristin and Kristi were floored by how much our students knew and could do in the country.  If Ukrainians know how to live in the city, they really know how to live in the country. 

Summer Camp 2009