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.