The birthday puppy

 

 

Last week Asya turned 16. She has wanted to have a dog for a long time, and she knew that was the plan for this birthday. She had been saving her money, we had been researching what kind and where to get it, and we consulted with our neighbors about if they would be able to live with a dog back in our shared house in Kherson. But we were still able to surprise her. I found toy poodles online. Will started calling back and forth with the lady selling them, but Asya didn't know anything about what we were doing. This breeder had available an older puppy and one that was almost two months old. We knew Asya wanted a baby, so we choose the little one. A week before her birthday, the lady brought him into Ivano-Frankivsk on a long bus ride. We met her, talked for a while, and got the puppy. Asya was still asleep when we brought him back, so we just put him in bed with her. I think it was love at first sight.

After that excitement earlier, her actual birthday was mostly a quiet day: church, coffee with her best friend, and a nice dinner. The puppy, Leo, is exactly what she wanted. We're all enjoying him.

 

This was her second wartime birthday. We were talking about how we celebrated last year, and she couldn't even remember. Looking back at photos, we remembered that Will grilled meat, and we ate in our yard. She said that's exactly what she would have chosen this year, too, if we had been at home. But this year she has her best friend nearby... and now a puppy.

День Знань 2023

10th and 6th grades

Yesterday was a strange first day of school. Strange because it was Friday, here (not Kherson), just after I got back from Lithuania, and strangest of all, because there are so few of us. But we did our traditional photos and started. 

Afterwards we went out to celebrate/cry with friends. (That was how my friends worded her invitation to me, and it was just right.)

And while we were starting here, the older two were finishing their first week of university in Lithuania.

I have done lots of hard things in my life, but leaving them was the hardest.

Here's to a good 2023-24 school year for all! And victory!

Next steps

I’ll probably write more about camp soon. It was just too wonderful to move on from without saying more. But for now, here’s a quick rundown of what’s next:

Jaan and Raia have to be at LCC on August 23. For Raia we have a reservation on a van going from Lviv to Klaipeda August 22-23. Jaan has a more complicated trip. He left last night, and he’s still on the road now. He needs to go to Warsaw and get his lost luggage from last month, then find a bus on to Vilnius, then bus or train or something from Vilnius to Klaipeda. Yana is going with him, and he’s trying to find a place for her to live and work near LCC. Jaan and Raia will move into their dorms on the 23rd, have a few days of orientation, and then classes start on August 28.

Back here in Ukraine Asya is going to a youth camp in the mountains, August 24-28. She wasn’t planning on it, because of the expense and the fact that her best friend isn’t going. However someone offered to pay for her to go, and she decided that she could do it without Sonya.

We also need to find a smaller, cheaper apartment here in Ivano-Frankivsk and move. I had really hoped to be able to go home, but Will still isn’t ready. The rental market here is still pretty bad, but not as insane as it was when we first arrived. Hopefully we can find something that still has room for for our Bible study group to meet, but isn’t so big and expensive as where we are now.

And then, of course, homeschooling and online music school starts with the beginning of September.

Please keep all of this in your prayers for us.

Camp videos of happy days

We are back from an amazing trip to camp and a little time at home. As one of the teens who traveled with us said, now we go home like guests and then leave home like... I don't know what. Also like guests? It's very hard and confusing emotionally. But our time there was wonderful.

We had a great camp photographer, and I'm going to post all the little videos she made. Maybe later as I have time to go through her photos and find our kids in them, I can put some still photos up, too. Enjoy!

 

 

  

 

On Sunday morning after camp, they showed one of these videos to the church and asked if one of the kids wanted to come up and pray to thank God for the week. Our Bogdan went right up and prayed. I know he expressed the thanks of many others, too. One little boy had said that it was like a week in Narnia, a complete escape from the war. That's exactly what it was for all of us.

Overcoming

(I am scheduling this to post on our first day of camp in Kherson, where Raia will be back in her element, working with kids and her friends at the church she loves. Please pray for us.)

Jeremiah 1:19 “They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord. 

HomeLife Academy gave Raia their Overcomer Award for this year. 

Here's a link to full year book: https://www.flipsnack.com/76D6C988B7A/hla-2023-yearbook.html 

I just took the one page about her to share here.

 

She has just officially graduated, and I am struck again but how much the word Overcomer fits her and what she has done in the past year. She has overcome 

• Fitting 11th and 12th grades into one year 
• While living, thriving, helping others under occupation and in an active war zone 
• During unexpected sudden evacuation 
• Through a dark winter winter without electricity 
• Far from her very closest friends 
• When her dreams of a certain university became very distant because Lithuania didn’t accept the high school diploma she was working so hard for 
• Not taking the SAT when planned with her tutor and then taking it later when she was stressed and not feeling ready 
• Passing the GED, which she never planned on taking 
• Retaking parts of the GED to raise her passing scores even higher.... 

 
She still has more to conquer, including right now figuring out applying for residency in two countries almost simultaneously, not to mention starting the whole new adventure of university. Thank you to everyone who has carried her and the rest of our family in your prayers and support all these years. Please keep praying! 

If we were in normal times, we would celebrate her graduation with our family and local friends. Even that isn’t really possible right now. If anyone here wants to congratulate her, send words of encouragement, or even little gifts, her email address for both notes and PayPal is raia.xansaker@gmail.com. Again, thank you! 

 

I’ll close with these words of Jesus in John 16:22. Glory to the One who is the real Overcomer: 

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Good news

Jaan’s here! With Yana! It’s so good to have him back.

Raia got her answer from LCC: she’s in! We’re thrilled.

Finally.

That said, we’re still drowning. The war goes on. Jaan arrived without luggage and is caught up in the craziness of modern airline “service,” when he really has so much else to work on, too. Raia’s acceptance comes with some nuances. The logistics of everything for all of us are just too much. I can’t even explain. Stress levels are still very high. Please keep praying.

And praise God for good news.

They’re back

Will and Raia are back, sleeping after a very long night on a bus. They didn't get the visa that Raia needs. Because of where she was born, the consulate couldn't just hand her a visa, like they were doing for everyone else. Her application could take up to 30 days to be processed through Kyiv. Then she can go back to Poland and get it. Of course, this really complicates everything, both logistically and--to be very honest--emotionally. Again, please keep praying....

Now this

Last night Bogdan fell out of a cherry tree. He fell hard, and I thought his arm might be broken, but it was late, and he was doing okay. So, we gave him ibuprofen, iced his arm, and put him to bed. Asya was wonderful; she's really calm in medical situations. This morning it was still hurting. We tried to call a taxi, but the app I like was all busy, so the three of us walked to the children's hospital. I was so impressed with them! There were hardly any lines, and they were so incredibly kind. Bogdan's wrist is fractured, but there's nothing complicated. He has a cast for 2.5 weeks, and that's all.

 

Afterwards Bogdan decided that we needed "Kherson lemonade" to recover, so we walked across town in the other direction to go to a coffee shop from Kherson. Asya and Bogdan had that special treat, and I had cold coffee. Then we came back to the apartment.

 

While all of this has been going on, Will and Raia had their appointment in Poland. As we kind of expected, they couldn't get everything sorted out right away and were told to come back after lunch. They've been running around, and as far as I know, they're back at the consulate now. Please keep praying for them.

Please keep praying

Raia did get her her math and science scores higher. Now her science is up to what Lithuania requires, but her math is still a little low. We're at the point where if LCC can average her scores across all four subjects, she's in, but if they can't accept an average, then there's really nothing else we can do now. Please keep praying. Pray that we'll get a positive answer and soon!

 

Already she has to move on to her next step. The papers we needed for her Ukraine visa application--the first part of applying for residency--came through from the Kherson war administration. Tomorrow she and Will are going to "celebrate" his birthday by sitting all day in a bus to Poland. They have an appointment to apply for her visa on Wednesday, and if all goes really well, they could be headed back Thursday-Friday. We haven't even gotten as far as buying return tickets yet, though, because we don't know how long this will take.

A call to prayer

Tomorrow Raia will be retaking math and science exams to try to raise her scores on them. Please pray for her! Pray that she can sleep on the train to Kyiv tonight and do really well tomorrow. Thank you.

The dam

It's been a week since Russia blew up the dam at Kakhovka. The Bible study we host here is made up of mostly of people from Kherson, and last week's study was a somber evening as we met and were sad together. Even though our family hasn't felt the physical effects of the disaster, we've been so sad. This is a new low place in a long run of awfulness.

Our house and our church in Kherson are high and dry, but the dacha that we bought just before the war isn't. This video is probably somewhere over in that area. And before Kherson we lived for 5 years on the bank of the beautiful Kakhovka Reservoir, which is drying up now (before and after). It feels like we know two sides of this tragedy ourselves. There's yet another side that's even worse. On the other side of the Dnepr River, where the Russians are and were the flooding has been worst, people are suffering even more. Please keep praying for Ukraine and especially for Kherson region!

Here's an old photo of happier days, July 8, 2008, little Jaan floating in the "Kakhovka Sea":

There are more old photos here, too, and everywhere else in our family memories. That beautiful "sea," the other shore was almost too far away to see.

Last Bell

We're at the end of the school year! Kind of. The school year in this part of the world and in our family has always been pretty much the first day of September to the last day of May. Everything is different lately, but still it's Last Bell now. We're celebrating with a walk to the river and a fancy meal.

And, yes, Bogdan is finished. He's done well with 5th grade through all kinds of chaos. His online music lessons will continue throughout June; he has to make up for long gaps when he didn't have access to lessons and/or an instrument. He's loved art here in Ivano-Frankivsk: earning awards, showing up on the news, and having his work exhibited in an actual museum! I don't know if art classes will continue in summer months?

With his teacher and his work at the museum

Asya has also done really well in her 9th grade. She kept up with her music, when no one else could. Sometimes she and her teacher were on Zoom from their phones, when one or the other of them was actually traveling from one place to another, or when explosions or air raid sirens were sounding in the background. Asya has also been in a small Zoom group of AmblesideOnline kids around the world, and that was wonderful for both her and me. (I think our group started a fad; it looks like there are going to be a bunch of similar Zoom groups next year.) Asya's not quite done yet, because in high school we count a full school year by days, and she has some more to do before she gets to the end.

Zoom group in April

Raia won the Overcomer Award from HomeLife Academy, the American school she's enrolled in. She definitely deserves it. This whole year has been about overcoming war, occupation, displacement, distance from her friends, hurdles to finishing high school and getting into college, and so much more. Raia also has more days and more hard work ahead of her before she finishes 11/12th grade and graduates, but she's doing a great job and finishing well. (And you saw a photo of her and Jaan in my last post, so it's fair that I'm not adding one here.) 

I'm always so thankful for our AmblesideOnline family. Finding AO at the beginning of homeschooling and being involved there is honestly one of the biggest blessings in my life. This year especially we've needed that continuity and support, and it's been there for us constantly. 

 One more year of homeschooling is (almost) done!

College

Raia has been planning to go to LCC since her friend started studying there four years ago. Along the way, Jaan decided that he would, too. Then Jaan and Raia worked it all out so that she would finish both 11th and 12th grade this year, and he would use this year as a gap year. That way they could go together, even though they're actually two years apart in age and school. War complicated their plans, but Raia is finishing well, and Jaan is working in Florida to make money during the second half of this gap year of his.

We have been wanting to visit LCC, and when they had "University Days" at the end of January, we finally got to go. That was two days for prospective students to go on a campus tour, attend classes, and find out about studying there. Jaan, Raia, and I traveled for two days through Poland and London to get to Lithuania, spent two days there, and then made the long trek back. We really enjoyed our visit.

Right after that, they started the application process. It has been much more difficult and complicated than we would have expected. Now I remember that when our friends--another international family in Kherson--were going through college applications with their two oldest, it seemed very overwhelming. Now I understand. I really don't know if it's usually like this, but pulling together everything to get into college has been a marathon for all of us. We're almost to the end... maybe. Jaan and Raia are conditionally accepted at LCC! Please pray that they can meet that final condition, one more big test for them to take.

Assuming we can get through this next hurdle (and Lithuanian residency and finances), Raia will study English and Jaan Contemporary Communications. I think they'll both get some Theology, too; LCC doesn't call it a minor, but that's basically what it is. 

Anyway, please pray for us, as we work so hard to get to the next step now.

Residency for Raia

While we've been here in Ivano-Frankivsk, we've had a lot of details to work on, things we couldn't do anything about under occupation. One of those is getting residency for Raia. She'll turn 18 in less than a month. We had kind of decided that we wouldn't do anything about Ukrainian documents for her, since she's planning to be in Lithuania at college most of the time soon. She could legally be in Ukraine with her passport 90 days at a time, and that seemed like enough. But, really, it would be better for her to have residency, so we're slowly moving forward with that.

When we did this for Jaan, I wrote a quick summary of the process. That was back when everything was simple. Now, that first step is very daunting. The first document needed--there could be quite a few subpoints under that first point--is a request from the inviting organization to the local religion and culture office for them to approve the invitation of a foreign citizen. Okay. But there's no religion and culture office in Kherson now. There's also no migration service or passport office, and everyone we used to work with on all this is gone. Can the Kherson war administration do approvals? Will went around to offices here yesterday (and several other times in the past few weeks), and honestly, no one really knows what to do. We have some leads, and we'll keep looking. Please pray for us.

Joy seeping through

I recently started rereading one of my favorite books: Champagne for the Soul. It’s one I really clung to when I had cancer, and I’ve read it several other times. Now my paper copy is at home in Kherson, but OpenLibrary comes to the rescue again. I read a little each day. Here’s just one sentence from a few days ago: 

“Sometimes joy is what seeps through the cracks when our hearts are breaking." 

Joy was my main feeling all through the time of occupation. Yes, it was often mixed with fear. Yes, there was a lot that was terribly hard, but I had peace and joy inside. Since we’ve left home, it’s been different. Everything is dark. There’s nothing I have to do now, and I’ve just been sad. But my book is reminding me that joy can mix with sadness, and maybe the joy is actually leaking through the broken places.

Bogdan's 12th birthday

Yes, his birthday was a long time ago, but before spring ends, I should write about our spring birthday. (Will also wrote about it in a much more timely fashion.) Exactly two months ago, Bogdan turned 12. Raia and her friend and I arrived back from Kyiv that morning, so we didn't have much time to prepare anything. Will had bought a cake, though, and made sure that there were presents. Bogdan was also very excited by the presents that Raia and Dasha had chosen in Kyiv for him:

Polished rocks!

Bogdan took his cake to Sunday school, and shared it there. Then his friends came back with him afterwards and played on the school field near us. That was what he had really been looking forward to, and he loved it.

We went out to dinner at a pizza place he had chosen:

One of the presents was a robot kit from Jaan:

So, Bogdan has had his second wartime birthday now. How we hope and pray that there will be victory for Ukraine before his next!

Christ is Risen!

We don't have a family photo from this year's Easter, so I'll post one from last year when we were under occupation, but all together.

 

We did have a good Easter this year, even if we're in different parts of the world and far from home. We talked about how hard our Easters have been for quite a while now: 2019--I was in the hospital at the beginning of my cancer journey, 2020--covid, 2021--the fire at church had just happened, 2022--Russian occupation, and now displacement. But all the same, Christ is risen!

Neighbor/duck/memories

I confused people on Facebook. Let's see if I can be clearer here. Back in March, I shared a post. Apparently it was a poem? I just noticed text that stuck a chord with me and the picture. (People thought it was a poem I wrote. No, I clicked "Share" on someone else's post.) I don't know the author at all.

Link to original post

At that time, I shared her post with these words of my own:

I will share this morning’s silliness, but the serious thoughts here are the real thing and what I think, too. (Although, I won’t bother to dye these new grey hairs.) I told my family the picture was actually me and our duck this morning. At 6:30 a neighbor babushka called me to say that our duck was on her roof. I woke Asya and we went running over there. Babushka’s son is a child in an adult body because of disability, and he was very excited to see us! And the duck! Once I caught Bella, I realized that I couldn’t crawl back through the fence holding her, so Asya went back to get the keys to our gate, while the son let me out of their yard. Bella and I looked exactly like this picture while we waited in the street, except that I was wearing pajamas and forgot to put a wreath on my head.

 

And then jump ahead to now: on Thursday I was looking for a photo of our late elderly duck, and my search on Facebook brought up that post because of the word "duck" in it. It was very poignant to reread and remember, because we had just learned that our neighbor's son--the one I wrote about there--died from his long-term ailments. His death wasn't directly related to war violence (except for maybe all the fear and stress?), but in peace time he could have been treated at a hospital and lived longer. That morning when he found our duck on their roof was so funny; he was just so excited. Now I'll treasure that memory of him outside, trying to get video of the "rare bird," and going on and on about it. We'll miss him.