L'Arche and L'viv, part 2

(If you want to see what our kids are doing this week, Raia, Asya, and Bogdan are loving art camp. I'm taking photos there, at least some every day, and posting all of those here. Now back to my L'viv report....)



I really like this video for showing who we met and what we saw of L'Arche:


I left off writing where we had to leave the Smiles and the house. From there we went to the workshop that is shown most in the first half of the video above, the "Bees" workshop. Also, the church where "Dreamers" workshop meets was having a camp, so the Dreamers were working with the Bees that day, and we got to meet all of them. They were just finishing up their work for the day. We saw them making necklaces and cards, but I know they do other crafts at other times and seasons.

They put away all their craft supplies and then lit a candle and pulled us in for their closing prayer time. Since we were running a little late, there wasn't much time, but we sang a song together and prayed, and then they had to leave. It was just as beautiful as the morning time with the Smiles, but much shorter. One of the assistants put us on a bus to get to our next destination. This is when we got lost. (L'viv is huge!) Eventually--with lots of friendly help--we found ourselves and got to Ukraine Catholic University (an amazing place, by the way), just a little bit later than we should have.

At the University Christine from Emmaus met us and took us into a classroom that she had reserved. Emmaus and L'Arche are not the same organisation, but they are very close and work together. Christine and her colleague Olga showed us videos and a presentation that explained the history of Emmaus and L'Arche and several other related organisations (Faith and Light, and...?), and they told us about their philosophy and methods. Their organisation supports people with disabilities and their families in many ways, including: retreats, books, work placement, educating the public, and more. Christine is French, but she explained everything to us in English.

After that, Christine took us down to the amazing Emmaus Home. It's a dorm there at the university where students and people with disabilities live together. The setting itself is beautiful, a big, bright, modern apartment. The model is like L'Arche. During the days, the students are busy with their studies and the friends are at their workshops. In the mornings and evenings and other free times they live life together. They also host events like coffee times and French cooking classes for other students. When we got there some were preparing dinner and others were working on projects. They served us tea, showed us their home, and told us a little about themselves.

Christine and Volodya (Nila's photo)

With Pavlo, the philosopher and reader

After such a full day, we were exhausted. We got a taxi back to the L'Arche house, took part in evening prayers, and collapsed into bed. That was our Tuesday in L'viv.

To be continued...

Birthday interlude

Raia turned 12 while I was in L'viv. I have now missed a birthday for each of my children: last year I was in London for Jaan's birthday; I was helping Stephanie in Kyiv when Bogdan turned 4; for one of Asya's birthdays Bogdan and I were in Poland. Hopefully I won't have to miss any more now. Although, they actually like it, because this way they celebrate once with Papa when I'm gone, and then a second time when I get back. This time Will took them to see Wonder Woman and eat at Raia's favourite restaurant on her actual birthday. Then on Friday, when I got back, we had a special birthday dinner with Raia's friend Karina.

I'll get back to writing about L'viv and L'Arche after this.

L'Arche and L'viv, part 1

A week ago today we started out on a wonderful trip. Alys, Nila, and I went to L'viv to visit L'Arche and related ministries there. (Nila is one of the board members for Promise, Alys' organisation that is building the homes. If you read much here, you already know Alys.) To quote Nila directly, our trip "was a wonderful time in the special country of love and joy."

I am supposed to write a report about the trip, so I'm going to start here and see what comes of that. True, some details might be vague or too much info. There was just so much to see, so many people to meet, so much to process! Plus, I was functioning in my less preferred language. No, that's not the right way to put it; I love Ukrainian, too. So, not less preferred, just less learned, less familiar. We'll see what I can pull together, though.

So, we left on Monday, spent about 20 hours on a train and arrived in L'viv Tuesday morning. It was an easy trip; air conditioned trains will never cease to amaze me.

L'Arche in L'viv is a little different from many L'Arche communities, because it's mostly not residential. However, they do have a house, and that's where we stayed. I'm going to be using their vocabulary of "assistants" and "friends" as I write. (Want to read more about that?) In Lviv there are assistants who live full-time or part-time in the house, and then friends come to stay with them, usually for a week at a time, but it can be longer if there is a specific need for housing.

The L'viv L'Arche community is based in and around their workshops. Right now the "Smile" workshop is under construction, so the Smiles are meeting in the house every day. Most of the workshops are scattered throughout the city, and the friends get to and from them by themselves every day. Smile is different, because they have the most profound disabilities. There are two Smile groups, and they alternate days. A bus picks them up in the mornings and takes them home in the evenings. We started our time there with Smile.

Each day begins with a time of sharing, singing, and praying together. We went around the circle telling how we were feeling that day and what we like to do. It was sweet to see how them express themselves so beautifully even if they don't have words and how the assistants help them communicate, too. The assistants told us that when they're in their usual building they have pictures and other helps, but here they just had to go on gestures, sounds, actions, and how well they know their friends. For example, one dearly loves the Bible, so they asked him what he loves and then handed him a Bible, so that he could show us.

Then we sang and prayed. In the morning the friends choose the songs, in the evening it's the assistants' turn.

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When prayers ended Mikhailo, the one with the guitar above, led us in exercises. He had a wonderful, creative approach to it and pretty much had all of us dancing. After some physical movement, everyone was ready for tea, so we went into the kitchen for tea time. Then, it was time for work. In this workshop they don't do as much of the concrete, marketable work that the others do. Plus, being away from their usual space means that they can't do all their usual activities, but after tea time, they all got busy with something. One assistant and one friend went to the store to buy supplies for lunch. Others helped with stacking wood outside, or with jobs in the kitchen.

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All too soon we had to leave for another visit, while they continued with their happy, peaceful work....

*These are Nila's photos.

Lice and love

I debated whether or not to mention this, but when I was chatting with one of the wonderful volunteers who came for English camp, she wrote something that really spoke to me, so I want to share that:

A lady who served in India spoke about this and said she would rather love on people and get lice than hold back and avoid it...every time I've ever gotten lice it was a known risk where I chose love over avoiding lice, I will never regret choices of that nature

Yes, we ended up with four heads of lice after camp. I was specifically praying that we wouldn't, but apparently God had other plans. I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of not holding back; we don't regret loving!

And it really hasn't been bad at all. I will say that I really noticed how very American common treatment options can be: brushes in the dishwasher (they pretty much don't exist here), pillows and stuffed animals into the dryer (likewise), hot water cycle for sheets and clothes (our washing machine doesn't do hot water, but at least we have one!). The medicines are readily available, though; that's nice. Missionaries in Africa recommended pouring boiling water onto laundry in buckets, and there's also the standard method of ironing everything. Anyway, we had a whole day free yesterday to work on it, and to me it even seemed like a little holiday.

What is heartbreaking is thinking of all the kids with lice in the orphanage. We asked about buying supplies for them, because the stuff really is expensive. There's no point to it, though, because the adults don't have the time or inclination to do anything about it. How do you treat that many kids anyway? They need mothers! Please pray.

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Now to change the subject, so that you can stop scratching your heads.... We were late to church this morning, because there was a parrot in our cherry tree! It was absolutely beautiful, the same colour as the fruit and leaves around it, with some blue added in, too. We tried to talk it into coming down, but it wasn't interested and eventually flew away.

Family music contest

May 14 was a long, fun day. Right after church, we went to a family music contest that was part of a big festival. It was all supposed to be outside, but because of heavy rain, the stage was moved into the exhibit hall, which made everything a little bit loud and chaotic. It was okay inside, there's just a lot of noise in the videos, and people were running back and forth through my efforts to take pictures.

Best of all, when we got there, we found that there was a group from "our" orphanage there! Also, there was a group from the Kakhovka institution where I know some people. We got to sit together and talk some while we were all waiting around.

Also, this is completely random, but there was a new homeschool and alternative school group with a booth set up there! I talked to the moms some; one of them even made her little daughter look at our bigger kids and told her, "They study at home!" I hope to go to some of their meetings soon.

Raia and a friend

With Asya's teacher

Ready to go on stage

They're up next

(Both videos by Igor G.)

After the contest part there was a huge professional concert and awards ceremony in the theater. Our kids didn't win anything, but their friends--a family from our church--did get second place, and that was just as exciting as winning for ours. Plus, they loved all the fancy costumes and music and dancing!

"Our" orphanage director getting an award

We went straight from there to "North American fellowship," and our girls were thrilled to get to hold our friends' baby:

Family Day 2017

I didn't even get this onto my little list of blog posts that I want to write, but when I started sorting through photos, I remembered it: Family Day was May 13th this year. We missed Family Day last year because we were in Rovno, but we were at it in 2014 and 2015. These are some of the photos I took this year:

A little dog joined them on the stage

Trying to clean off all that white

Fancy hair styles, a friend, and a beloved Bible teacher

A video that was shown on TV about this year's Family Day: День сім’ї у Херсоні

Taking a breath

Our electricity might be back on! I mean, it is right now, but this is the weekend. However, I just checked the outage list for next week, and--after three weeks--our street isn't on it at all! Hurrah!

This is also the day in between the two weeks of English day camp, and it feels so good to move slowly at home this morning. Camp has been going really well, though, and we are loving it.

Now that I can turn on my computer, I have a lot to do, including sorting through photos. Hopefully I can get some of those online now. Here's just a rough list of some of the blog posts I want to write:

• more about English camp
• International Child Protection Day
• the Christian music times at the Plaza (another video, photos)
• Last Bells
• the play that Jaan was in
• concerts
• all the way back to the contest I mentioned before....

From the concert I missed

Weekend update

As is becoming usual for me, here's just a random collection of things I wanted to mention:

Remember that Bogdan and I went on a field trip to a fire station? Here are some photos from that. These are the few that I posted right afterwards, too. I'd still like to share more, but I don't know if I'll get to it.

Please be sure to check Alys' blog, if you want to see some pictures that include some of us and read a bit about the team that came last weekend. I keep a link to her blog in our sidebar, but here's the specific post about the team, if you just want that.

The family concert that featured our children was amazing, even if it's the proud Mama saying that. Raia was given the choice of an exam or a concert, and she chose concert. It really turned out beautifully! I streamed it live online, and you can still see that video here. The photo above is from after that concert. Jaan and Asya were in another concert the next day, too, but I didn't know about that one in advance, so I couldn't go. Will did get some photos.

There was also the concert and contest from the weekend before last. I think I had already mentioned it? A friend of ours who is a professional videographer filmed our kids' parts. I haven't had a chance to upload the videos from him yet, though. That day was extra fun, because when we showed up, we found that groups from Tsyurupinsk orphanage and the place where Oksana lives in Kahkovka were there as spectators.

We've had lots of "Last Bells" (end of the school year celebrations) already, and there are more to come. I got to be at the one for Tsyurupinsk orphanage on Friday, Jaan had his for his robotics classes yesterday, today was for Sunday school, next week will be for art school. Bogdan is a little confused and upset about all of this. He knows that he will be singing at the end of preschool, so he keeps asking me if this is where he's going to sing. And he was a little worried about how this all works; he had to know what happens after Last Bell. It sounds so final. I assured him that life goes on, summer starts, we have school break. "Then can we study again after that?" After his last art and preschool classes yesterday, he was moaning about how he'll miss his teachers. I comforted him by reminding him that he'll see them again next week at Last Bell. He said, "Then I can miss them after that."

In our own homeschool we're taking two weeks off for English camp, then we'll continue on until the end of June. I think some individual lessons are continuing at music school, too.

Our electricity was off during the days for a second week, and it looks like it will be off next week, too. We won't be around to "enjoy" that much, though, because we'll be helping with an Agape English day camp at the city orphanage.

Actual travel plans

Another day without electricity, so I will write another post that doesn't involve uploading photos. Internet without electricity really is an amazing thing!

We have really had a hard time making specific plans for our trip this summer. The money for our tickets was given to us, and we are so thankful for that! We haven't been able to buy the tickets, though, because a few of our children needed passports. Those finally came today, so tickets can be the next step. There's also just the complication of living life. It's very hard to plan all the details of a month in another country for six people while we're busy here. Right now, there's all the end of the year school stuff going on, a team arriving tomorrow, and Will's very busy with plans for English camp at Kherson orphanage.

We are planning to be in the USA July 6-August 8. The first half of that will be in Florida, and the second half in North Carolina. July 9 we're scheduled to speak at Circle Community Church. That's as far as we've gotten with plans....

Pre-furlough thoughts?

Back when I first read this post, I thought that I should write something like it for myself. On this second electricity-only-in-the-evening day, maybe I'll finally get to it. We do have a little battery-powered internet thing that sometimes kind of works; sometimes and kind of are the key words, though. By the way, it looks like this schedule is supposed to continue all week for our street.

So, did you read the original post? Even if you didn't, you can probably follow along here, because I'll quote bits. My own thoughts are a good bit different than hers in a lot of places... and exactly the same in others.

First, I am going to admit that I don't feel the excitement. Our hearts are here. Our lives are here in this part of the world. I really don't miss anything America. Of course, I LOVE to see friends and family, but the actual travel and being away from home is really, really, really difficult for me. I'm just being honest.

Then, point by point, quoting and adding my own thoughts:
1)When we left, Downton Abbey was on season 3
I know nothing about Downton Abbey. I don't follow popular culture and never really have, so this doesn't affect me much, I don't think. Yes, I get lost when anyone talks about American TV, movies, music, politics... but there's nothing new about that. Sorry!

2)My son is going to think something “normal” is really funny and weird.
Yes. Our children will think just about everything about American life is strange and fascinating. Last time we were there, we got to church the first Sunday, and they bragged about how we had come in a car, and their Papa had driven it. Then they were ages 1, 4, 6, and 8; now they're 6, 9, almost 12, and 13. It's been a while! Thanks in advance for going easy on them and trying not to laugh.

Last time, with the car that Papa drove; they were so little!

3)I’m afraid I won’t remember names
Maybe. I'm decently good with names. Please, do forgive me if I forget, though. What I think about more is how much our home churches have changed. There are so many new people at both! We do want to meet them, but I don't know how realistic that is. Will it be possible? How?

4)My clothes are awful
Probably. Um, okay. I should completely replace this one with something that I'm actually thinking about, but I'm not coming up with anything at the moment.

5)We’ve experienced trauma
No! Not this time, and that's such a blessing. In the past we have come in after pretty serious trauma, and I know we have been emotionally raw. This time we shouldn't be. We are in a very good place for us, and we're praising God for that. Now, that doesn't mean that we won't be exhausted and dazed by culture shock.

6)I need more than 5 minutes
Yes. Coffee dates. Please! If you ask me "How's life in Ukraine?" I'll probably say, "Fine," but is that a real answer? And how I can find out anything about how's your life in America, if we only get 5 minutes or less?

7)My ‘Thank You’ isn’t enough
Definitely. This is too good. I'll quote it all:

How can I adequately express just how thankful I am for everyone who prays, encourages, and supports us? I’ll bring back a woven bracelet or some other unique thing from my overseas home and say, “Thank you. We wouldn’t be here without you.” but am still so aware how short words and trinkets will fall. However sincere, my ‘thank you’ isn’t enough.

A lull

After our full weekend I either want to enjoy this cool, gray weather by sleeping, or to start sorting through photos and thoughts from the past few days. Photos have to wait, because our electricity is off today. Sleep isn't really an option either. We had a great morning of school, though, and we're not doing a strict nap time today, because Bogdan and I are going out soon. I'm loving watching everyone work on the puzzles that were in their prize bags yesterday. It's very sweet and quiet, at least at this moment.

Last weekend and this weekend

Last weekend was wonderful for us, because Oksana stayed with us Friday through Sunday. She had just had her birthday, so we celebrated that together Friday evening. Because she doesn't like sweets, I didn't make her a cake, but I did make the specific kind of soup she requested, and we put a candle in her bread. On Saturday the main adventure was that she took Bogdan to class with me. She's still learning to walk on crutches, and we didn't have her wheelchair as a backup, so it really was quite an adventure for her, but she was a trooper. We made it there and back without trouble, and she got to see where our kids have art classes. Sunday we made almost the same trek again for church, but a good Samaritan did give her and me a ride home.

Bogdan's present for her

Games

Drawing with chalk

The weekend ahead will be full and fun, too. Tomorrow is the yearly Family Day that the churches of Kherson put on in the city park. Our girls will be singing with the church children's choir, and Jaan will be doing skits with the church theater group. Then on Sunday afternoon there's another event; as far as I can tell it's a secular version of what the churches have started. Kids from our music school will be performing music in family groups. Jaan, Raia, and Asya are all taking part in that. Both events have required tons of extra practices and extra lessons. Jaan especially has been running around, preparing for an important exam that he had yesterday, plus going to both sisters' music lessons, on top of his own. Once we get to Monday, it will be back to school as usual, except that Bogdan and I are signed up for an excursion to a fire station!