Yesterday

During the Christmas season our children collect money for "a birthday present for Jesus." In the past, they've used it to buy toys for orphans. This year they decided to use it to get a present for the homeless man who Will has been helping for a while. Yesterday we finally went to the shelter in Zaporozhye, all together to visit him and take him his present. Sadly, "Uncle K." had just been taken to a tuberculosis hospital, so we couldn't see him. We thought maybe just Will could visit him there, but even that wasn't possible. The general city TB hospital wouldn't take K., so he's out in some small town. Please pray for him! He's been in a Christian shelter all this time, but now he's back with all his old prison buddies.

We had a long, fun family day trip, though. Our children got to see the homeless shelter, meet the man who runs it, and hear his testimony, even if they didn't get to deliver their present in person. When we got to Zaporozhye, we took a taxi out to where the shelter is located, in the factory district of one Ukraine's most polluted cities. Will always talks about how awful it is out there, but I had never seen it. Yes, it's horrible! But the funny part was that when we came around a bend in the road where the panorama of smokestacks, cooling towers, slag heaps, and grey air opens out, all three of our children exclaimed: "Wow! Cool! Look!" They couldn't stop talking about how beautiful and wonderful it was. "This is where they make clouds, right Mama?" and "It looks just like sheep wool coming out of those chimneys!" Although, Asya did say, while holding her nose, "Let's just call this place Stinky City." I think the taxi driver was laughing at us.