By the Way

Monday, we travelled farther than we normally do, to visit Lena, (center between Katya, her friend on left and Anya, her sister on right) on her birthday. She travels a lot so we weren't totally sure that she would be home. She was really excited to see us but there was a funeral in her church that day so a lot of hustling and bustling was going on in her home.

But along the way there were a couple of interesting shots . . . the first came at the police post just outside of Nikolaev. It looked like that day was on-the-job training for a whole group of new recruits. Probably fifteen policemen stood along the road, stopping just about every vehicle that passed. We saw three policemen point their batons that indicate that the driver is supposed to stop at one car. Yes, we were stopped and sent on our way without incident. This was the best picture I could get of one cluster.


In homes, people take their shoes off at the door. In stores, no one takes their shoes off. But outside of both homes and stores will be a metal bar on which to clean shoes. Here's the store.

Here's the fellow just finishing cleaning his shoes, the farther one is a bit blurry with his movement.

As traffic increases on Ukrainian roads, so do the accidents. This is one we saw today. The driver is sitting in the truck. The first time we passed two semi's were sitting on the shoulder. The second time, just this one.

As we came back into home territory, I enjoyed the beautiful sunset.

Most of these were just incidents along the way, not really anything major to us. . . except we're thankful for God's protection on the highway!

Some things not quite so unimportant that are going on right now. A church family is preparing documents to go to Moscow for an interview with American immigration authorities, contemplating immigration to America. This will involve us helping their family with a trip to Kyiv. While they are gone for around a week, we'll be responsible for their four children.

Everyone except one child said memory verses at Kids' Klub this past week. They've earned the required number of points to have a special event. Pray for us that we can prepare something both fun and spiritually meaningful.

Smiles

Our game in Kids' Klub this last Sunday was to see how many balloons each child on a team could hold. Yep, people bent over in half trying to hold more balloons than the other fella so their team could win. It was hard to get a good shot of several because they were all bent out of shape!!!
Here's a couple.

And I know that cats climb, but normally it's trees that they climb not ladders!!! Our cat loves to snuggle up close to people but not usually on their laps in a warm cozy spot. This time she climbed the ladder to the box of clothes on top of the closet!

Unresolved

A couple, who had enough marriage problems earlier to be separated for several months, yesterday came to us for advice and prayer. He wants the family to move to one place. She is not totally comfortable with that move. She wants the family to move to another place. He is willing, if he KNOWS without a doubt that that is God's plan to move to where she wants to go, but otherwise, his heart is just not in it. We're praying especially in the next few days for this couple that God will reveal His will, not the husband's, not the wife's, not ours, but God's.

We're posting no pictures for privacy's sake. But would you pray with us for this couple in crisis? This decision could make or break their family.

Apples, apples everywhere!! (and a testimony)

Trying to help our neighbors out, before we buy from strangers we bought three boxes of apples from him for the holiday season. We planned on giving lots of them away in Christmas treats. But we didn't check them out and they were full of spots, not good enough to give away. We bought another box to give away. We had part of a box put away in the cellar that we had bought about a month earlier.

We took the better apples for 80 treats and had three and one half boxes left. Our family spent one full day processing apples. Seth used an apple peeler/corer and froze one box for pies. Allona, Vova and I worked on another box and a half and made it into applesauce all day. None of us wanted to see apples very much for awhile.

We've had applesauce cake. We've had plain applesauce. We've had applesauce cookies, two kinds so far. We've had apple pie.

And most of a box of apples were left.

Olya came in last Friday. "Twila, your apples are spoiling! Let me help you with them. I'll mop floors like normal and then work on your apples." So she cut off bad spots, peeled and sliced apples for another two or three hours.

We have maybe a peck left for eating after all of that was said and done.

I washed some apples and then worked on fixing supper while she worked on peeling and slicing. She chattered non-stop. She talked about her family. She talked about men's role in the church. She talked about her own church history. Among other things she said, "I think God sent your family here for me. I'm not happy with my daughter and her husband. I want them to serve God, too. We left the orthodox church when we started reading the Bible. We left the other church when the pastor started using narcotics. He's in prison now and women are taking turns preaching there. God sent you here for me."

St John the Baptist's Day

We went for children's service in the village of Mikhailivka. At the end the hostess, Valia, asked us, "Don't you celebrate St John the Baptist's Day? On this day we can get a glass of water from anywhere, the river or our well, it doesn't matter, take a drink of it and it won't spoil or get old the rest of the year."

As we continued our day, we noticed people out enjoying the ice on ponds and on frozen rivers, a few more than normal, probably because it was a holiday.

We also saw a priest in one village going from house to house to bless the people with "holy" water, in honor of this holiday. I snapped a picture of him to show you but it was hurried and too blurry.

For the Guys out there!

We teased Vova that this should be his car. It's a souped-up Moskvich, Russian made, year probably mid 80's. Notice the extras: front bumper guard, air scoops on the hood, a spoiler and special wheels.

Cars no matter what make, how old or new are quite frequently still a prized possession in Ukraine.

Notes of Culture

"Christmas" lights at last . . . I took this picture on the eighth of January. I'm not sure you can call them Christmas lights when the only place I could find a Christmas card was in a Bible book store. There were plenty of holiday greeting cards, all emphasizing the New Year. Last year we didn't see lights like these in Nikolaev.

A group of holiday carollers left the fine arts building of Nikolaev as we were parked in front of it on January 14th. These are Ukrainian folk carollers, what they do only very slightly resembles Christian carolling in that they sing. Notice the goat's head held up as a holiday emblem. The person in the back with the long blond braids and red painted cheeks is another part of their celebration, a cross-dresser. Seth told me a girl was there, dressed as a guy as well, but it didn't catch my attention.

Elaborate baby carriages are considered a necessary item for every city baby and a few country babies as well. Babies need fresh air, you see. So good mothers take them on walks almost every day. Sometimes a brother, a cousin or a grandma or grandpa will take the baby out, standing in for mama.

Cleaning the streets is still a manual job in most cities here. Vehicles of every sort carry mud and debris into the city streets. Workers go along sweeping it all up into piles and then shovel it into trucks as this one is.