Odesa-Kyiv-Ivano Frankivsk

Game night with Kherson friends here

Well, here we are a whole week after our arrival in Ivano-Frankivsk. Again, I recommend reading Will's Facebook posts for details. 

To backtrack quickly, though, on November 24--the nine-month anniversary of war in Ukraine and Thanksgiving Day in America--shelling picked up in our part of Kherson. Our pastor offered to send us to Odesa in a van that had brought humanitarian aid, if we could get ready to go very quickly. So, with shells whistling over us (Bogdan says that explosions are no big deal, he’s used to that, but whistling is BAD!) we took turns running out of the root cellar to grab some things from our home to take with us. And then we left. 

That evening we got to Odesa, spent the night at Camp Lela, and then took a train to Kyiv the next day. During our week in Kyiv we applied for passports at the US embassy. That's easier said than done, because we had to pull together documents and do photos and print things when the power was often out, but it all went smoothly. 

Then last Friday we got on a train from Kyiv to Ivano-Frankivsk. One person in our family is thrilled to be here; one rabbit was in deep depression*, and some people feel like her. Others bounce back and forth. We’re working on settling in; we plan to stay here until we can go home to Kherson. 

 

*She is doing better now. I started Googling her symptoms, and really, the internet said she was depressed. There are actually articles online about rabbit mental health. We followed all the suggestions about "cheering up your bunny," and it seems to be working. If only human emotions were so simple!

11.11.22

It's not overstating to say that November 11 may have been the happiest day of my life. We know that the war goes on, and life is physically difficult now, but after 8+ months of enemy occupation now we are FREE and so, so happy about it! 

And, yes, we haven't had running water or electricity for two weeks now. We're stinky; in the evenings we sit around in the dark and cold (but tonight won't be so cold: Will and Jaan got our heat working!), during days we scurry around searching for internet and working on what needs to be done, and but still we're smiling inside or visibly. 

Will and many others start their daily updates with a count of how many days of war we've lived through. (If you haven't been following Will's posts on Facebook, you might want to. He has made his account public again, now that it's safe to do that. See especially the recent posts that he wrote while offline: about Day 261, Day 262, Day 263, Day 264, and so on.) Now it almost feels like we should also have a count of how many days of freedom we've enjoyed. As in, this is the Xth day of Kherson's freedom.

In case someone hasn't seen this yet, Reuter's did an article from an interview with Will. They called him William and got the wrong age for me, plus mixing up a few other details, but overall it's good: The U.S. family who lay low during Russian occupation.

I can't make any promises about regular updates here. Our connection is still very tentative. But I did want to be sure that people who aren't on Facebook read this. Thank you so much for your love, prayers, and support!

More birthday stuff

Today is Will's birthday. Happy birthday to him! We're going to try going out to a restaurant. A few are open....

Also, we had thought that Bogdan's birthday box from Baba Julie was probably lost, since it was sent before the war. Not too long ago it showed up in Lviv, though. The shipping company asked her for a different address to send it to. Since there's no way to get it through to us, we had it rerouted to the family from the other side of our house. They're in Lviv region now. They got the package and called on video to open it "with" Bogdan. That was great fun all around. He let them eat the candy in the package, and they built the Lego set "together," too. They'll bring it to him when they can come home. (Please, God, let that be soon!)

Raia's birthday

These days I find it very hard to know what to write. We have to be careful what we say, and I just don't have words anyway, not to mention technical troubles. It seems like since I last wrote we've had about three days that felt good and normal, all three were kinds of holidays: Easter, end of school, and Raia's birthday. Since we're almost to our July birthday now, I'll post the pictures from our June birthday, which was one of those three special days.

So, first the preparations: Raia's friends actually came over on June 15, the day after her birthday. Before that I made a chocolate pie which Raia decorated beautifully, and our ducks both decided that they needed to have baths to be ready for company.

Then the guests arrived.

They played games inside...

and outside.

Reenacted old photos

 

Showed off our bomb shelter

...and enjoyed good food!

The whole group

 

Then, on Sunday morning her friends also gave her flowers at church:

We all enjoyed the celebrations, and we love our 17-year-old!

Birthday, back to school, and more

Bogdan turned 11 on Saturday. Like my father said, it was a birthday that he'll tell his children and grandchildren about, but it was actually pretty normal, even though in some ways it was entirely strange. While we were at church, working and visiting with friends there, it was almost possible to forget about the war. Almost.

On Monday we started back to our usual homeschooling schedule, and that has gone okay. At times it's very hard to concentrate, but it's good to have a routine going. Bogdan's friend comes over almost every day to play after they've finished their schoolwork.

On Tuesday Yana went back to her village. We were worried about her getting there, but it went fine. If you look at the screen shot below from Live Map, you can see how it was possible for her to get home, but that we still can't go anywhere. Her family lives north of Skadovsk. (Kherson was under the fire and announcement icons.) If someone can get past the block posts at the edges of Kherson, the roads are pretty open going south. A man came into the city from her village and picked her up; it took them two hours to get back out of the city, but then their trip was fine.

Inside Kherson, lines are very long. Pretty much nothing has been delivered to stores for several weeks now. It can take an hour or more to get into a store, and then the shelves are pretty empty inside. But there's still enough that people aren't starving, and farmers from the south are getting things like potatoes and carrots in. People who rely on medicine (like insulin) are suffering. Our own family is fine, and we share back and forth with our neighbors.

I'm sorry for writing randomly and infrequently. It's hard to know what to write and to find time and energy to do it. Will posts most days on Facebook, and that's public, so you can see it even without a Facebook account, I think.

Tenth day of war

We've gone through quite a few stages already: absolute terror, active fighting around us while we hide underground, being able to come up and live in our home somewhat as usual, weird stuff with communications off and on yesterday.... It changes constantly. We're still here, though, and we're so thankful for your prayers. Even though the stores are empty, we have food. We've been able to share with other people, and they share with us. Our church is providing food and shelter and help for many, too.

The main thing is that Ukraine needs your prayers! Please keep praying.

I think we're past this stage now. (I hope.)

 

There's so much I could write, but I can't quite pull it together now.

We're ok

Friends and family, we want to let you know that we’re safe. Shaken, but safe. The kids are ok. We have electricity, internet, and telephone systems are working.
The Ukrainian government and the US Embassy are encouraging people to shelter in place. So far, it looks like the Russian army has made surgical strikes aimed at army bases and airports around the country. 
Thank you for your love, prayers and support. We will let you know of further developments that impact us.

 

Thank you

Thank you so much for praying. We're healthy now. We've finished another week of school, Bogdan did his music exams by video (and didn't die), our 21st anniversary was nice, and life goes on.

 

Please keep praying for Ukraine!

Doing better

My test was positive, of course. At this point Will and I have both moved down from feeling like we have flu to feeling like we have colds. We join Raia at that level. Jaan is mostly well, but still isolating. Asya and Bogdan are fine, just a little stir crazy. Please keep praying for us, of course, but I don't think there's any need for daily updates. We're headed into another week of doing school at home, and... well, and nothing else.

Next update

We did all our document stuff yesterday. There was no exception. At least we have that behind us.

After that we went for tests. Will has covid. He seems to be coming out of the first 24 hours of misery now. My results haven’t come back yet, but I have no doubts that I have it. We’re all fine, though, and now that we have our paperwork turned in and our covid tests done, we can just sit at home. Asya and Bogdan aren’t sick. Pray that they don’t get it!

Update

Yes, Raia has covid. I'm pretty sure that I do, too. I had a miserable 24 hours, with fever and the worst headache I've ever experienced, but I'm back to feeling human now. I'm a sick human, but not like yesterday! I'll go for a test today or tomorrow. 

We're a little stuck, because today is the day I am supposed to go for fingerprinting, photos, and signing for my residency renewal. The timing is always tight. They don't accept documents early, and then everything has to be done right at the deadline. Will's going to call and see if they have a covid extension or some other kind of exception, or if they actually want me to come in sick?

Ukraine has been hitting "anti-records" the past few days.

 

Prayer requests

Two things:

Please pray for our family's health. Except for Jaan, we were away all weekend. We came back home to him sick, not terribly, but very unusually for him. I sent him for a covid test yesterday, and it came back positive today. (As a measure of how he feels, he walked a few kilometers through thick snow by himself there and and back to get the test. He's obviously not dying.) Raia also has what seems to be a bad cold--very different symptoms and timeline than Jaan--so Will took her for a test just now; we'll get the results from that tomorrow.

And of course, for Ukraine. I know you're already praying. The news outside Ukraine is much louder about the situation than anything here. I liked the way our Florida church worded their prayer request for us:

 Although the current Russia/Ukraine situation is tense, Will and Phyllis Hunsucker and their family remain in Kherson. If the situation deteriorates significantly, they may temporarily relocate within the country, but they have no plans to leave Ukraine. Their ministry continues. Please pray that ministry can become even more significant as the possibility of Russian incursion remains.

Also, I recommended reading this article and posted this on Facebook:

Thank you for all your concern. We are well and happy here. Please do pray for Ukraine!

 

If you're looking for an English news source, I recommend the new Kyiv Independent. So far they seem to provide lots of info with less hysteria than the rest of the English-language sources I know of. Please start with the article I'm linking to here. In my opinion this is the most important.

 

Second Christmas

For Second Christmas Eve we ate the traditional kutya, and the next day we got the traditional (since my childhood!) photo of the kids with Jesus' birthday cake.

On Second Christmas Day we went to church, but that was about all, because Jaan and Raia stayed there the whole rest of the day, getting ready for the children's Christmas program, which would be the next day. And so, the day after Christmas was the children's Christmas program. You can see the video clip about it that we saw at church today here. They had 40 kids signed up, so they prepared for 50, and more than 100 came! Kids with special needs and their parents were specially invited, and Asya led one of their groups through all the stations. Other new guests were children from the conflict zone, especially those who have lost family members. Raia led some of those groups, and some of our own church and neighborhood kids. Jaan spent the whole time in the shadow theater; they did that presentation eleven or twelve times.

When Jaan finally got home that evening, he was the last to arrive, and we didn't even give him time to eat or rest. We went right out on our round of caroling; our neighbors were waiting! Bogdan played his bandura in every home, and we all sang a few songs. Then when we got back to our own house, we sang for our neighbor family here. They invited us in for tea, fed Jaan dinner, and then we sat talking until very late into the night. Even after living together for 7 years, that was a first for us. We just lost track of time and talked on and on into the night. It was really a wonderful time.

(Babushka O. watched with hands clasped and eyes sparkling, until I tried to take a photo.)

Christmas still trickles on until "the third holiday," the Baptism of Christ, next week. Over the past week Bogdan and Will went to a residential hospital with Agape to sing and play for the kids there, and Jaan got to help present the shadow theater show another time in a preschool. We've been back to our school schedule, though, and we're slowing moving from holiday life on into regular life.

Art school update and a contest

There will still be art classes! With our beloved teachers! No one really knows how this is going to work, and the school is still closed, but at least some of the teachers are going to try to continue their classes independently. Thank you for praying, and please keep it up.

Yesterday was the final for an art and music contest that Asya and Bogdan had entered through our library. Bogdan and I went to the central children's library for a special program and to hear the results. Asya was one of the winners! Bogdan was surprised by how many of the kids he knew there. His art class had all made pictures, and some of them were invited. (His picture from art school turned out to be the wrong size, so it didn't go.) Some of his bandura classmates were at the final, too. The picture that our library entered in Bogdan's name actually wasn't his, and he was a little bit upset about that. They had called me a while ago and said the pictures they had from the last workshop at the library were unlabeled and asked for my permission just to put Bogdan's name on one of them; I said yes. But I told Bogdan that he put so much work into his too-big picture from art school, that God knew he deserved the candy prize he got, and that satisfied him. The picture he actually drew--the one that didn't make it to the contest--is the photo above: Scrooge and the Ukrainian carolers.

We were all excited to hear that Asya won. Her flute teacher was actually there, too, since she had entered her youngest ensemble, but she didn't even know that Asya was participating. Asya had just stopped into our library and made an almost impromptu video with them. I've heard rumors that Asya will be invited to tea with the mayor now, but I don't know when and if that will actually happen....