Thanksgiving: Like an Embassy, But Not So Official.

We had our own little Thanksgiving celebration here, during which we tried to be as American as possible. We even went as far as having two dinners so that we could visit with different people.
On the day itself, three of the mission families were out of town getting their Visas all situated in Germany. For that reason, we had dinner as just the AIM team. This was all done in a great deal of fun and making things up on the spot. So many things we are used to having in the States are absent here and we had to make up the slack. For instance, in the states when I want to make a green bean casserole I simply combine a can of french-styled green beans with a can of cream of mushroom soup and sprinkle french-fried onion right out of their cannister right on top of the whole deal. Done! There's only three ingredients and they all come in a form that can be stored on your pantry self forever. Of course, we don't have any of those three things here and we're too proud to just say 'well, we'll go without this year.' So the first step is researching and cooking cream of anything soup. That done, I had to find some green beans(that are currently out of season. But since Ukraine is a modern(-ish) country I was able to find frozen beans at the store. Now the greatest challenge was getting those casual little onions on top. A few more minutes on the computer I found that they're just what they're named. Frenched(cut to small strips) fried(in oil on my gas stove) onions(much to the despair of my eyes!)
Now, most of our recipes went like that. Ukraine doesn't offer our usual conveniences, so we made them from scratch. This was rough on us students as we had less experience in these matters , but we managed quite well.
We also planned through email that the whole mission team should have a dinner together when the majority of our members had returned. We are still missing the company of the Hindman family, but they have found a new sponsoring congregation and are due to return to us mid-December. We had it Monday afternoon, since that is our regular day off. We had a great time and cooking was supremely easier since we had experience from the previous meal. When we were finished with dinner we retired to the living room to watch a movie together. Unfortunately two of our members came down sick and had to be taken home (two more were already home with a third playing nurse). After the movie we were to play some board and card games, but I had grown tired enough to retreat back to my apartment and check on my sick housemates...

Since then, several of our friends have come down sick also. We have planned to go to Mariupol on Thursday for the weekend to attend a wedding and those of us going are all hoping to not be sick while there or on the train. We'll just have to see how everything goes about. I find that being sick there would be quite upsetting since this is our first opportunity to go to a wedding here in Ukraine and I had hoped to see some friends from Donetsk there. The last time I saw these people I managed to get quite sick then, and I'd hate to let them believe that I sick so often!

Godspeed,

To the Baby Hospital

One of the missionary families have recently infiltrated one of the hospitals here in Kharkov. They worked specifically to be allowed to volunteer with the orphaned babies. These precious children are currently being kept in the wing of one of the hospitals here until their papers are completed so that they may be put into an orphanage. All of them are under one year old and because they are in a hospital instead of a home they are behind in development. One boy is almost a year old, but cannot walk by himself and has a way to go before he will be able to. Yesterday, there were plans to visit this hospital, but a couple of the people going had to cancel. This left an extra white coat, so I was invited along to wear it.

I had a great time! The hospital requires that visitors wear white coats, masks, and booties over their street shoes. After dressing and cleaning our hands, we were escorted to the room our group usually visits. Because these children are just there till they're put into the main system, the number of children varies. EJ, who goes almost every time, says that last time they visited there were just a couple of babies. This time there were a couple more than half a dozen.

When we got to the room, the sweeties were just waking up from their nap time. They were remarkably quite wakers, not one of them cried. I spent my time holding a particularly sweet boy with a full head of thick black hair. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to find out his name (it was written on a tag attached to his bed, but I couldn't make it out). He was great, but really wiggly! He'd often get a panicked expression on his face and start wiggling around as if he wanted to go somewhere or find something. But he'd stop when I distracted his by humming Disney's "The Spectrum Song."*
When feeding time came along the nurses let me give the fellow his bottle, which he polished off in record time! We got to visit for a little longer, but we had to leave before 5pm when the coat storage closed.
The group goes regularly every week or so, and now that I've gone once it's likely I'll be able to go more often.

'Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.'

-James 1:27 (NLT)

*Red, yellow, green, red, blue blue blue/Red, purple, green, yellow, orange, red red

Children, Adults, and a Child

Yesterday, I was blessed with the opportunism to join Brandon and Katie at one of the elementary schools where they were invited to talk about American Culture and teach the children some English. Brandon and Katie put together a really nice presentation about Halloween; complete with
candy, pumpkin shaped cookies, and a collage that each class contributed. Each class began by the three of us being introduced by to the children by the school's English teacher. Then Brandon would teach them a little about pumpkins and show them a Jack-o-lantern he made and brought. He would challenge the children to guess how many pumpkin seeds he had placed in a jar from the pumpkin. While the English teacher took the jar and a paper around to the class to have each student guess, Brandon would go through his slide show presentation and tell them about where we get pumpkins and about costumes and candy. The children were always awed by the picture of candy corn that looked just like the one here. Brandon was sure to explain that candy corn was called that not because it tasted like corn, but looked like corn. They were even more surprised by the photo Brandon showed them of a typical Halloween haul. He explained to them that after trick-or-treating you counted all your candy and tried to have more than your siblings. How true!

Next Brandon asked the children to do a craft. Each class got a different craft and they all went on our collage. The kids seemed to really enjoy this part and they all did a very good job! Ukrainian children are very skilled with coloured pencils and scissors. The crafts almost looked like they had been done by adults in many cases!
Then Brandon taught the children how to say 'Trick-or-Treat' and then we passed out candy followed by cookies! The kids thought this was the best part of the day. Finally, we'd say our goodbyes and then return to the English classroom where we'd rest between classes. We visited four different class, all were 3rd or 4th grade. It was so much fun to meet all the children and to see an Ukrainian school.

This evening, Cody and I were in charge of an English practice group that was all full of adults. It was quite a contrast from the previous day! We played 'hangman' first off. I lead this section and used the time to practice conversational questions. All the answers were questions like 'how are you?' and 'How is the weather?' and 'What is your favourite season?' and then after the answer was discovered we went around the circle and answered each question. At the end of the game, Cody pointed out to me that I had spelled favourite with a 'u' so I took the opportunity to explain how in British English that word and other words with the similar 'our' sound have the 'u' where American English leaves the'u' out. Ukrainians are often very interested in the difference between the two brands of English. I explained to them also that I tend to spell in the British manner because of the Canadian influences* in my life.

Following the game portion Cody had the group read through our text (Jonah 2) twice. The second time we cut the chapter into parts and after the reading of each the sections, we would look for words that the pupils did not understand and explain those words to them. The text was wonderful, and Cody did a good job leading the group through it.

After the lesson we all sat around for some time to talk. Often the students will turn to Russian, but we encourage them to speak in English both for the sake of practice and for the sake of understanding them. The hardest part about these groups for me is talking slow and clear enough for the Ukrainians to understand me. I am beginning to get better, but it's still difficult**. Lucy soon joined the group having finished teaching the children (her two boys and a little girl whose mother is in the adult group) the days of creation. We hope to soon begin a children's English group with the kids we know.
Since there were no other adults visiting with the children, I decided to sit in the living room with them and join their games. When I got there, I found that little Volia(the Ukrainian girl who is about 5 years old) was looking at one of the boys English books. I sat down next to her and asked her if she wanted me to read with her. She said she did, so we restarted the book and read through it. It was a pop up book with lots of animals, so we lifted all the flaps and pointed out all the animals. She seemed to really like that, and I enjoyed it to! I found that it's much easier for me to slow down my speech around children than it is around adults. I guess I'm just less nervous around them.
After reading the book, Canaan asked us to play Battleships with him. Volia agreed to play so I arranged that I would play on her team and that Canaan and Max would play against her. This way I could help her understand the game. We played for a few minutes, but she soon lost interest in such a boyish game (much to Canaan's dismay) and we put it away. She went home with her mother a couple minutes later, so there was no time for another game or book. She is really a very sweet child, and I hope to be able to work with her some more.

Godspeed

*Several people have commented to me that I often pronounce vowels with Canadian sounds too. It's probably because I spell them that way...

**I'm told that this is when my Canadian accent most noticeable! Something about have to slow down and concentrate on words makes it come out. However, nobody has a problem with it so I won't be spending any time exterminating it.

A few thoughts...

{NOTE: I wrote this post a while ago, and it never got published. I figured I mind as well hit that button now rather than forget about it again...}

Mark 1:1 " The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God."

At an English Bible study, we began going through the book of Mark. Mark is my second favourite Gospel; it comes in right behind the book of Luke. Bible scholars believe it was written by this guy name John who was called Mark(hence the name). We hear a little about him in Acts 12:12, 25, 15:37. We also hear about him in church history just enough. And when you Google "who was Mark Bible" address of the first search results starts with "atheism". His account is not of first hand experiences but was his arrangement of the stories given to him by Peter. It would be like if I wrote down all of my grandmothers stories of the preacher J.C. Bailey and the published a book. Only even more accurate.* Now, you should know the different styles of the Gospels. That's also important to this thought. Matthew was written to the Jews who needed to know how the Gospel fit in with their ways. Luke was written by a doctor in a history book style for believers ** and scholarly people. John was written with air pointed towards those who already believe. And Mark was written for the Romans and Americans(surely!) I doesn't go into the drowse of genealogies or back stories or nativity scenes but goes right for the action. It almost skips over most of John the Baptist, it just shows us the cool stuff. It's just plain written for action-oriented people like Roman soldiers and modern man. It runs a little bit like the movies even. It's got the hard to understand beginning: you here an ancient voice reading prophecy. The screen shows a man wearing camel hair clothing and a leather belt. He walks into an ancient town and begins announcing to the people, yelling loudly and maybe wakes a couple babies. With mixed reactions the people listen he raves on about some man that is to come. The screen darkens and plot opens with all of Jesus's whirlwind adventures.

Anyhoo, I think if I were to reorder the books for someone who had never read the Bible and didn't know the stories I'd have them start with Mark. And then after Mark, I'd send them back to Genesis and have them read the whole thing through chronologically excluding the Psalms, Proverbs and Song of Songs. By then, I feel like my subject would have a good base of bible history and then they could be moved onto real meat, theological things! I think that would be pretty awesome.

A few more thoughts:

• God is the King of Kings, and his Bible is literally the Book of Books!
• What if God were one of us? Can he really understand what it means to be human? Oh wait, he's done that already... This thought consoles me a lot...
• What would happen if you wrote each of the proverbs individually on note cards

*Which is quite scary to be because she actually knew J.C. Bailey and after growing up hearing the stories I read a biography of his and she was completely accurate! (If you don't know who J.C. Bailey was what a shame. You've got some more reading to do! Here's a good place to start.

**Much like books you would use to study church history. Not necessarily to convert but to ground your own faith in sure facts. Like reading a scientifically written book or article on a subject you may or may not know just to go over the facts and make sure you haven't mixed anything up.

Friday Nights

Every week we have an English Bible study with the Nigerian brothers (sorry, no sisters yet...). We get together, sing, pray, study the Bible, and have a good time. The last several weeks we've been working our way through the book of Mark. This was a great subject, and all the guys took turns leading the discussions. The Nigerians really love to sing, so we belt it out with them. I really appreciate this time because we get to sing in English and no one has to translate the lessons for us. We move through our studies at twice the speed as in any other group and then we have long discussions about the week's lesson.

Our brothers know all the songs that we know, so we really have a time of it. Sometimes we sing slow, old songs; and sometimes we sing the newer upbeat songs. Just whatever we feel like at the moment. Every now and then we'll sing a song twice and do the second round in Russian, but only if it's a song we're all familiar with. We really love to do this with "This is the Day" (Called "вот это день" in Russian, pronounced [vote eta den])

At the end of the lesson, we have some cookies and juice. Everyone makes sure to contribute every so often to keep things fair. There are so many kinds of cookies in Ukraine, we never have the same kind twice! Sometimes their great and sometimes their awful, but regaurdless, we have a good time.

First Ukrainian Snowfall!

We got our first taste of winter this week! I woke up Tuesday morning to snow falling gently outside my window. I could just barely pull myself away from my window to tell my E.J and Jordan the wonderful news and then I was back to my window again to watch the little clumps of snow pour from the sky. The snow didn't stick to anything but the cars, but it continued through out the morning and onto noon.
Now, this is unseasonably early for snow and so the weather has warmed back up a little. But only a little. We're quite committed to our fall coats and fleece sweaters since the weather has been in the 50's and 60's. Each day is getting a little colder, quietly easing it's way through Fall and onto Winter. Ironically, upon getting on my Facebook account to update my status about the weather I was greeted by several reports a large dust storm blowing through Lubbock. Mike reported that he read an article about the haboob in an Ukrainian Newspaper.

Godspeed

A Story

Today's story has three characters. The first is a man who appears completely drunk. He can not walk, or speak. He's probably not really conscience. The second person is the friend who is helping him navigate his way home through two metro stations. He doesn't have the strength to lift his friend. He can barely support his nearly unconscious friend, let alone direct his steps. To complete their journey, they must walk down the steps in one metro, board one of the carts, ask a stranger to give up their seat since the drunk man cannot remain standing, exit the metro, go up a several sets of stairs, wait for the metro to come, board another car, ask another stranger to give up their seat, exit the car at the proper stop, and then go up more stairs. After that, it's a walk home in the cool, dark night. And when I say 'they', I mean the friend must while doing his best to hold up the drunken buddy. He manages somehow. He seems to move by willpower alone. Everyone is giving them judgmental looks. The task requires more than the friend has to give. And even the drunk man feels the quest for home is impossible and gives up several times; allowing himself to fall completely to the ground or trying to just sit in one spot. I believe that the drunk man's friend is the greatest friend I have ever seen. Although he know the situation is impossible -you can see hopelessness in his eyes if you dare to look at such a disgrace- he pushes onward giving everything he can. He clearly has some sort of love for his friend to fight for him. His heart is clearly loyal to allow the drunk man's shame to land on him. And he is truly brave for trying to do what he cannot.

The third character is me. I am a young student, barely old enough to be called an adult and many tell me my face looks much younger. I am apprenticed to a missionary and I have less than an hour of time to get home before curfew. I ride the same metros as these two men and I see their struggles. I see others around me casting shameful looks on the two men. And what should I do? Here, two voices of reason speak call out to me. The first one speaks and tells me the situation is too dangerous, to stay far away from that man. Who knows what sort of awful things such a strange man could or would do to me. I ought not to even look in his direction and I should move as far away from him as I can. It tells me 'look out for number one!' Maybe I should even get off the metro so I won't be in the same car as him. But other voice says just the opposite. It says 'help that man! He surely needs it!' It tells me to slow my steps so that I can be near enough to catch the man when he inevitably falls. It tells me to take the free arm of the drunken man and assist the pair up the stairs and on and off the metro cars. The first voice declares 'but he is dirty, drunk man!' And the second voice quietly reminds me of a time I suddenly became quite ill while riding my bike home from the library. And how I stumbled into a gas station and called for help, but everyone ignored me believing me drunk or insane. How do I know that this man is drunk. Perhaps, he is only sick. And the first voice repeats it warnings and calls to safety.

Who shall I listen to here? To which Reason do I heed?

The first voice is repetitive and firm, but second seems to be a track set to random. First a song:

Yesterday while walking,

Beneath an overpass,

I saw the figure of Jesus,

Standing barefoot on broken glass.

His beard was graying,

The smell of Urine filled the air...

And then a verse:

'For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

And then a reminder of a class where the teacher told us about going to the Voodoo pit to preach the Gospel to those worshipping idols there.

"Greater love has none but this that he give up his life for a friend..."

And all have hated,

Crucified and walked away,

Savior of the prostitutes

drunkest, rapist and the gays.

And finally: 'it's not about me, I am not "Number One."'

The metro pulls up to my metro station. As I prepare to depart I see that behind me the "drunk" and his friend are also getting off. The friend barely manages to get his companion out of his seat. It's quite a miracle the man has not yet passed out and become unmovable. They shuffle to the door. And I am in front of them. I step out of the car and then turn to them to in concern for there is a gap between the car and the platform. The safety voice begins to win. 'This is not your problem,' it says, 'others will disapprove." The drunk man does not clear the gap, he falls and drags his noble friend down on top of them. Everything is quite in my head as I dash forward to help. I see that the 'drunk' man's arm has fallen into that gap along with his bag that is wrapped around his wrist lest he drop it. I grab the bag and the arm and start pulling! That metro could take off at any moment and that man's arm would go with it. And suddenly two strong men are there pulling up those that have fallen and helping drag them away from the danger and to a nearby bench. In all of this, a 50 grn bill lands so I snatch it quickly before it gets lost and hand back to the loyal friend whose pocket it fell from. The friends eyes show that he knows what almost happened. And as all Ukrainians are prone to do, the noble friend waves away the those who helped. The two strong men offer to help further, but leave as the friend declines their offers of assistance. And little voice says 'walk away.' And in that sudden need to clarify confusion, I do. As I reach the top of the platform stairs I stop again and turn back. The men are still sitting on the bench where they were left. I want to stay to help them up the stairs... they're not ready to try yet and I move on some more. Through the gates and out the swinging doors.

Have I completed my duties to that man?

It was a good thing I waited to be sure they got off alright!

I should have taken that man's arm before he stepped down, then they wouldn't have fallen.

You should not have endangered yourself like that!

That man needed help. As a Christian it's my duty to do so. I was sworn to it the night I was baptized.

No more helping drunk men. It's dangerous! They could hurt you.

I would far rather see myself hurt because I was helping those in need, than to see others hurt because I did nothing.

If I had not suddenly jumped to the men, would the other two people have noticed?

There was no smell of alcohol.

Sheep and goats.

Broken glass.

Paul in prison. Shipwrecked.

The teachers all talk about violating conscience. Did they just mean all that about alcohol or does it apply other choices? If I had walked away instead of waiting out side the car, would I be able to sleep tonight?

I only see myself guilty of doing the right thing.

It's not about me.

Godspeed.

News!

Today was the first Sunday we got to use our new songbooks! We have enough books now that we don't have to split each one between three people, and we didn't have to carry books between services either! One book for both English and Russian assemblies!

There are 100 of these books, so we have them divided between the 6 or so places we regularly meet for our assemblies and devos.

On this day.

Ten years ago today, I woke up to get ready for school. I was in the Fourth grade, and so young. I always got dressed and put my schoolbag together before going upstairs to eat my breakfast cereal and make my lunch. Coming up the stairs I found out that there was something exciting playing on the TV in Dad's room that had distracted everyone else from getting ready for school. That meant it was super exciting and I was very curious as to what it was. I wasn't quite sure what I was seeing on the TV. There was a grainy portion of video footage and then an animated replay to show what happened. I didn't understand what was happening and I thought it was just a movie.
And then a second plane hit the other tower. And we were watching people try to evacuate in such a panic. On that TV, I even saw people jumping out the windows. I still didn't understand that those were real people jumping from such heights that it killed them only because they thought they had a better chance than running down the stairs. I have been told that for some of the people they did have a better chance in those impossible leaps.
The video feed continued and the towers collapsed one after the other. And there was news that a plane had taken out part of the Pentagon. And then there was a Forth plane that had crashed near a place called "Camp David." No one was quite sure what was happening, but they were looking for these things called "black boxes" that all airplanes had and were surely indestructible and contained video and sound recordings. And at some point I found that what was on the TV was really happening. I'm not sure whether or not I got to see it all live but I saw so much of it.
And so I learned that there were such places called "The Pentagon," "The World Trade Center," and "Camp David" just minutes after those people called "terrorist"(I had not heard of them either) attacked them. The younger children will learn of these events second hand and will have no recollection of them for themselves. And maybe in a few years that students will begin to lose interest in those events just as we tuned out so much of our history classes*. I suppose that I can be sure most of the children in Forth grade were only just born that year. Some of them may even be celebrating their birthdays today, not quite understanding why the adults all seem sad or treat their day with such graveness.
When I got to school that morning, I looked to the Principle Mr. Eric for advice. He was only and elementary school teacher but everyone looked upon him as such a wise man. When some one had vandalized the school earlier in the year, we all looked to him and asked him how to respond to such things. He told us that we should not acknowledge such things. The bad people who had done the vandalism just wanted attention and were probably hiding among the rocks of the hill that over looked the school. However, he had such opposing advice on the morning this specific narrative takes place. That morning he told that we should talk about the horrible things that had happened. We should show those bad people that they cannot stop us, and will not discourage us. He also told us it was healthy to share our feeling about these things. I don't remember anything else from that day. I don't remember if the classes were half empty, only that they weren't canceled. I don't recall how my teachers or the other adults in my life reacted. The last memory I can share about that event is this: we lived near two airports and under several common flight routes. Every night as I went to bed I would hear airplanes go over head and would be filled with fear that one of those planes would target my house or my school. It took me some time to convince myself of the logic that there wasn't anywhere in Mesa that would make a good target. (I had overheard that from some adults, but I don't recall who. Maybe God managed that so I would feel less fear...)

We have not forgotten.

Surely, you say, this blog is about the happenings during Dawna's time in AIM! Why should she write about such things? Then I must reply that this collections of words contains not just stories of my activities, but my thoughts and feelings also. Today, although I am in a country far away, join my fellow Americans in remember those we lost. When I was very little. I remember hearing that everyone who was alive at the time would always remember the day Kennedy was assassinated. I knew that such a phenomenon could only be caused by a true tragedy I never thought that such a thing could happen in my life. But we find that it did.
This make me wonder if the same was true about the death of Christ. Surely such a scene was etched into the minds of his followers at the very least. In light of that it wouldn't be hard to blame Thomas for wanting more proof when the others told him that they had seen Jesus alive and well again. It would be like hearing that the towers suddenly rose back up again and all those who were lost were found sitting at their desks in perfect health!

Thank you for reading though this special post. We will continue back to our normal posts soon!

God Speed.

* Not me of course. I loved learning history and never took my eyes off teacher except to take notes. :P