Worth the Wait

It wasn't just me who said that it seemed like the time dragged by while Dave was gone. Our children asked why did it seem like a month instead of two weeks. Katrina mentioned how long it seemed since he had left. Our teenage Ukrainian friends said at a separate time, that it seemed at least a month.

The day was here when he was supposed to come in. But the city of Kyiv with thousands of wild drivers was between me and the airport. I don't react well or quickly in a situation that requires quick physical judgment and movement. So rather than bother someone else to drive us and our van to the airport, I got up before most of the rest of the world and was on the road at 5 am. I was basically at the airport at 6:20 am. His plane was supposed to arrive at 1:15 pm.

We slept a little. We went into a store and bought breakfast and most of lunch. We listened to a story and checked email. We sat. We went into another nearby store, sort of like a Home Depot and saw what they had for sale. We sat and listened. We took a snooze. We went to another store to get a cold drink for with our lunch. We checked on Dave's flight. According to the internet it hadn't left Germany yet. Hopefully someone was just slow keeping the records up. We headed on to the airport. We walked in at 1:16 pm and breathed a sigh of relief when the electronic sign stated that his flight had already arrived. Half an hour later he called us on the mobile phone. He was in line for passport control. (It is allowed here, in contrast to America.) In another forty minutes or so, he called to say his suitcases weren't visible. Two hours after we had walked into the airport to meet him, he walked out through the sliding glass doors to meet us.

All in all we waited nine hours for that moment. It was worth the wait.

Someday, we're going to come to the end of a much longer period of waiting. We'll see Jesus in heaven if we serve Him faithfully here. That will even more be worth the wait.

Kenyazachee Construction

Another VBS in a small town close to Kyiv, with the name of Kenyazachee. The theme is the same, building a solid life on Jesus, obeying God's Word. We "camped out" in our house in Osikova. Because the propane tank was empty, we enjoyed food cooked over a campfire several times.


Here's the older group building their toolboxes.


The smaller children were in a relay filling a cup, spoonful at a time. It was a bad choice. They didn't have the patience.


Katrina got really tickled trying to keep up with this catchy song in Russian, "Here's the Sea." It's a little like the House that Jack Built in adding detail after detail.


The smaller guys are trying to build their tower of cups.


Here's a better picture of one of the yarn spider webs.

Building turned out to be a lot more challenging than any of the children thought.

Jesus Loves the Children (Uyanivka VBS continued)

I thought about letting the first day be all that I blogged. But when I looked through the pictures, I thought there were some you must see.


Like this girl who got herself in a tangle while helping to build a spider web out of yarn (see Kenyaz. post)


Like Maksim working hard at painting his bookend.


Like the colorful birdhouses that the older group made.


Like Artyom working with the younger kids in a game.


Like Dima translating for Goody, the bear


If you've looked at Katrina's blog you've seen a picture similar to this where the kids built a "bridge" out of cardboard bricks (if they won the quiet seat) for someone to stand on. It was a bit more challenging outside.


I managed to get my hands on baby Tim a couple of times.


Since the theme is all about building, one of the final day's games was to build a village out of icecubes.


In this one I really liked the genuine enjoyment on Vitaliy's face.


All things come to an end. We've loaded our VBS supplies back into the trailer and the guys are pushing/pulling it out the gate to connect it to our van. The size of our guys was interesting.

VBS--1st day at Yulanivka

We got a bit turned around getting to the village so came in at the last minute. Kids were already waiting for us. This was the looks of the "parking lot." As they road home most of the bikes had a big brother and little brother on them.


Around 20 children were there--in a town that had 2 first graders last year, not a bad turnout.

Our theme is about building, especially building a solid life on Jesus. So our crafts all have to do with building.


Little Dennis is totally concentrating on his project.


Danik is the one missing from the Shevelenko children posing around Marina a few posts back. He wanted to pound in every nail himself.

Picture Perfect

Marina Shevelenko got a beautiful new white skirt sewn by her mom for her birthday. Along with her sweet smile, it made for pretty pictures.

A bit of everything

This is one of our smallest Kids' Klub attenders hanging in the window, while his mom alternately scolded him and chatted with me on the driver's side.


Allona has said she didn't know how to cook. These last few days she's been getting a crash course. Here she is with her cabbage burgers. That's cabbage and hamburger and spices inside a homemade bread bun.


It made a welcome break in the push of the week to take Katrina to the bazaar for some chickens. The look on her face when she discovered the feed bags she was so helpfully carrying were for grain for her own chickens "just cracked me up." (There's a better picture on her blog.)


Hurrah! Seth and Katrina finally finished cutting out the pieces of our VBS crafts today. By the time we make for 4 VBS's there were hundreds of pieces.

The last of our confrontation with Ukrainian bureaucracy/paperwork ended today with getting the inspection sticker for our trailer. Now we, our vehicles and our trailer are all legal for the next six months.

Zaccheus' friends

Sputter! Sputter! Complain! "It's not fair!!!!" . . . but it's Ukraine! There I've gotten it out of my system (maybe).

We were in a rush to get both vans inspected. Dave drove one. I drove the other to the suburbs of Kyiv. I do not even try to drive in Kyiv's crazy traffic. We arrived at 9 pm, bagged up some junk and headed out to find a 24 hr car wash because the vehicles have to be clean for inspection. We found one, the van was power-washed and chamois wiped. . . it must have been surprised to get such attention. At midnight we got back to Osikova to sack out on the mattress on the floor.

6:15 am found us getting up, washing the dash and the floor of the Volkswagen and bagging up stuff in the Mazda. We left the Volkswagen off with a friend for him to run through inspection and headed into Kyiv.

Today was the Mazda's turn at the car wash. I asked Dave if I could stay inside while the wash was being done. The attendents looked surprised but didn't say anything. I actually semi-slept through the car wash.

Then we headed to inspection. First step, all the fees have to be paid at a bank. Dave waited in the 30 person line until it was his turn and paid the fees. Then we had to carefully angle our car amid the crowded lot to the inspection lane. We got in right away. . . well and good!!!

(Here's the parking lot. One vehicle has to move a few feet before another one can move to get in a space or get out of the lot, etc.)


The inspector only found two problems, the fire extinguisher wasn't big enough and the brakes weren't strong enough . . . again a sigh of relief; there could have been lots worse things to deal with.

We walked to an auto parts store and got the extinguisher. Dave jacked up the van and tightened the brakes. After lunch hour we headed back to the inspection lane. Yes the extinguisher was what we needed. They said there was no difference on the brakes. . . . first sign of problems--they weren't even looking at the machine used to measure the brakes strength.

Since we've been to the same inspection and had problems every year with the brakes, Dave decided maybe there was something dark and hidden that he didn't know about. We got out more money from the bank and headed to a reputable mechanics' garage.

They took the brakes apart and examined them carefully. "Nothing's wrong!!!" They followed the brake lines and the emergency brake cable. "Nothing's wrong!"

Now we got the picture. We were in Ukraine. That had been the police inspector's way of asking/complaining that they didn't get a bribe.

We returned the next morning, armed with the mechanics' receipt. Although the mechanic had done nothing except loosen the brake that had been getting hot from where Dave had tightened it last year, today the brakes were pronounced "excellent!!"

We went to the final step, taking the now signed and approved check list to get our sticker. To our surprise the policeman at the window told us we had to pay for inspection. "Funny," Dave said, "that the bank missed THAT!"

We went to the long line again, were about three people from the front when Dave found a receipt that we had already paid for inspection. He checked with a couple of people. Yes that was what we needed. We stepped out of the line and went back to the policeman and handed him the receipt. "Yes, that was what we needed," he said. We filled out an application and returned it to him. He flipped through the receipts again. "Where's the SECOND inspection receipt? I sent you to pay for inspection!"

"But we already paid!!"

"But you had to use our equipment to go through a second time. If it had just been a matter of looking, like at the fire extinguisher there wouldn't have been an extra charge, so now you need to pay for inspection again."

We returned to the long line, advanced to the clerk. "What are you doing here?" she said, "you paid yesterday! It doesn't make sense." She hadn't heard of a second charge. We paid anyway. It was obviously their way of getting more money out of us since we hadn't paid the bribe.

We went back to the policeman, waited an hour for him to "quickly" get back to his desk and he duly gave us our inspection sticker.


There was a pocket on the wall for a book that has been advertised as the consumer's protection. A friend noticed that the pocket was empty. "Do you see that?" she smiled. I asked her what kind of book it was.

"A book for complaints."

Because we were expected eight hours away at a birthday party at 6 pm in the evening and it was already 11 am, we didn't bother asking for the book or trying to register a complaint.

On the way home, I decided that we were dealing with Zaccheus' friends. He, too, wangled his way into dishonest money. That's why the common people detested him and his ways. But Jesus loved him and took part in his hospitality. Maybe I should be praying for these dishonest policemen?

PS. The Volkswagen took 2 turns in the inspection lane without bribes and any further problems while we were working with the Mazda. We were done with inspections for both vans and could take our weary selves home. Thank God!


Marina, girl at far left, at her birthday party . . . 10 pm. . . . they waited for us.