Life with Jerry and Kim...

Stars on Ice

2012-01-24T06:42:00.000-08:00

Here we are....the not so famous Stars on Ice of Kiev! We usually hang out at our place and have fun speaking in English, but last week one of us had the grand idea of getting together on a totally different day to go ice skating while we spoke English. It was a beautiful evening, the snow was gently falling. We warmed up afterwards with tea at a cafe and laughed about the fun we had going round and round in the rink, managing not to fall. Such fun people to have the privilege to know.

As we drank our tea and laughed...someone had another brilliant idea - to go snowboarding!

Yikes!

Remember us as we have fun, sharing our lives, dreams, hopes and the most important stuff of life.

Old Christmas Pie

2012-01-16T08:44:00.001-08:00

Our friends and the pie they prepared!
cutting the pie

It was 'Old' Christmas Eve and our good friends invited us over to their place for pie. In Ukraine, Christmas is a religious holiday. On that night, "Holy Dinner" is eaten after the first star appears and no gifts are exchanged. We were excited that they would invite us over on this special day.

We thought we were invited over for dessert, as we sat down we realized the pie they had prepared for us was a fish pie! It was beautiful. On the bottom was a layer of potatoes, a layer of sliced onions and then a layer of fish, all wrapped in a savory crust. It was delicious!

As you remember the special memories you have of this Holy season, will you also remember our good friends as they wrestle with their beliefs and thoughts about Jesus and how His birth changed everything. Thanks for coming along with us on this adventure!

New Year's dinner 2012

2012-01-01T11:53:00.000-08:00

We enjoyed a quiet dinner together with 3 of our friends here at our place. Our neighbor brought a stuffed fish that she made for us to eat along with our tacos. It was a very nice dinner. I am sorry that I totally forgot to take a picture of us all together. At 11pm, we started walking to the center. We enjoyed a few mintues of the free concert and then the fireworks began at the stroke of midnight.

Happy New Year 2012

2012-01-01T11:48:00.000-08:00

the beginning of the firework salute!

the ocean of people celebrating the new year 2012

Ringing in the New Year 2012

2012-01-01T11:42:00.000-08:00

We celebrated in the city center, Kiev with thousands of others...Happy New Year!!!!

Merry Christmas 2011

2011-12-29T11:04:00.000-08:00

We have had this nativity scene for a long time. Our kids have played with it their whole lives. The figurines are made of plastic, the angels were Happy Meal toys, the kids decorated the trees when they were little. These figures were well loved, chewed on and played with for hours. They came with us when we moved over here 16 years ago.

Many other little ones have been in our home over the years, and they have played with, chewed on and loved these figures too.
Our kids are grown now and still this is our nativity scene.

It is sitting on the buffet in our livingroom in our beloved city, Kiev. It is a visual reminder of why we are here. At just the right time God sent His son Jesus to be born and raised by a humble family. He would grow up and one day become the saviour for all.
Such a simple reminder of the greatest event in all of history.

Happy Birthday Jesus!

the New Year's decorations on our street

2011-12-26T09:35:00.000-08:00

Each night we look down at our street and see the pretty butterflies that have been hung for Christmas/New Year's.
Hope you have enjoyed celebrating Jesus's coming to earth. His birth changed everything!
Oh come let us adore Him!

At last!

2011-09-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

Last night we had our first English club at our home. I was a bit on the edge all day, nervous about how it would all go down? who would come? would anyone come? would it be any fun? what would it be like?

It has been a long, kind of discouraging month last month. A month that has had postponed meetings, canceled get togethers with friends, and other times put off till later. I was afraid to be very hopeful about the turnout for this 'let's get aquainted' time.

But, I am so happy to say, our livingroom was full! 11 people came. It was SUCH fun!!!!!!! A friend called today to tell us what was not good about our gathering last night, he told us that we made it too much fun, we will have so many people come to our English time, that we won't have room for everyone!!! yeah! that is a problem that we can live with!

So, please remember us...in 2 weeks we will have another English gathering, and we are thinking that we may have to divide up into a few groups! How cool is that? Remember us as we meet new people, that we can be effective in our witness and lives...giving back the love and grace we have been given, to be attractive as ambassadors!

Apocalypse Now? Really...?

2011-08-08T22:32:00.001-07:00

We are working on plans to host an Alpha class in our apartment. It won't be big, at first, but we hope to see it grow to reach more and more friends and neighbors. If you don't know, Alpha is a program for people who want to investigate the message of the Bible.

Anyway, how do you go about demonstrating to people that maybe, just maybe, there is a need to consider that the Bible contains truth. (Forget about insisting that the Bible IS truth. You'll get nowhere with that argument in this post-modern world).

One way to do it is to read the headlines and you realize that not only that "there will be terrible times in the last days" but that these are pretty terrible times right now.

You may practice a healthy skepticism and say, "Yeah, well, you know that every generation at some point has said, 'This is it...the END!' "

It's healthy to think that because this truism- that every generation thought it was seeing The End -seems to be a fact of history.

But what is relevant is the degree to which The End will differ from normal apocalypses: "...There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken...." Luke 21:25-26

This and other apocalyptic passages in the Bible describe a world gone insane, not only geographically, but also geo-politcally, socially, personally and economically.

Speaking of economic realities of the future I find this article found at this link (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/12/04/subdermal_rfid_chip_provokes_furore/) extremely interesting. The article has a bit of a 'scoffer' tone to it, but the facts are all accurate.

Those of you who read the Bible know the significance of this. (It's nothing to be alarmed about, because to paraphrase, Jesus said, "Don't let your hearts get weighed down by fear of all these things".)

Moving back to Alpha. It seems that VeriSign and VeriPay have entered the Russian market. If you read Russian you can read all about the first importer into the Russian market here: www.membrana.ru/particle/1629

In fact, what this does for us is that it gives us a chance to show people here, in a language they can read, that MAYBE, JUST MAYBE the Bible contains some Truth that would be of great interest, not to mention benefit, to them.

What is more, while the Bible makes it clear that there will be doubters and scoffers until the very end- in fact doubting and scoffing will increase by orders of magnitude -no one will be able to deny that, as the Bible says, those times will be terrible times.

So the stock market is going Chernobyl; "London Calling" to "London Burning"; flash drives empower flash mobs.

Is this the Big One? Really? Well, I'm one of the skeptics, but I'm not so skeptical that I won't continue to watch the signs "of the fig tree as it ripens" (Luke 21:29). And I won't miss the chance to say, "You know, my friend, it's interesting that 2000 years ago this kind of stuff was predicted..."

Thanks for reading along and for praying for our efforts to start up Alpha.

Mike and me

2011-07-30T08:24:00.000-07:00

Hoop dreamin' with Mike Fratello

2011-07-30T00:33:00.000-07:00

Hey,

Well, here we are. Summer is scheduled to leave Kiev tomorrow, when rain and 73F are predicted. After that, the 5-day forecast never calls for anything warmer than 75F. We're hoping this means an end to the summer sweat. But all the while I have to remind myself that in January these will seem like the best of days.

So, Mike Fratello? Well the story begins this way: My friend Ilya- the English professor turned BBC cub translator/reporter -became my 'guy' for sporting events when we lived here before. We went to soccer and basketball games together. I enjoyed getting to know the sports teams of the city with him.

Those of you who have tracked with us know Ilya as the guy who can argue for any conspiracy theory and can argue AGAINST any theory as well. I have fun crossing rhetorical swords with him.

But it all came to a head a few weeks ago. He invited us over for dinner with his family, the first time we were getting a chance to meet his wife and daughter. We went and had a good time. They then wanted to see us off at the subway and so we took the long way through a park so they could stroll with their daughter. While walking Ilya asked me where in the Bible does it say things like homosexuality are a sin. I quickly dialed through my smart phone to Leviticus and showed him. "Oh," was his only response.

When I got home I also copied to him some verses out of Romans which are very blunt on that whole topic. He wrote back quite upset, "How could a 'God of LOVE...?'" was the response he fired at me. I felt bad. I was only trying to answer his question and I'm not going to apologize: I didn't write it. (What's more, I think you better be pretty sure who did or didn't write it before you start trying to bend the meaning...but I digress).

Anyway, we had plans to go on BBQ outing with him and his wife and daughter and I sort of wondered if that would now fall through. In fact, his wife had to go out of town on business on the day we'd planned the outing and I thought, "Well, that's that..."

Jump to today, 2 weeks after the fateful email. Ilya called. He invited me to a basketball game. It seems that Ukraine, in a bid to make a showing in 2012 in London, has hired Mike Fratello to coach their national basketball team. "Would you like to go see Mike Fratello's futile attempts today?" Ilya asked in his very good English.

Uh, well, "YEAH!" I said, not caring if I sounded a little too eager. So, my hope is to put a picture of me and/or Ilya with Mike Fratello. I'll add it to my Jerry and Carl Lewis collection. The point of the picture, besides saying "Wow, he's SO cool!" (me, I mean, not Mike Fratello) will be to remember to pray for Ilya. He believes in God, heaven, hell, eternal punishment and eternal reward. What about Jesus? Nope, that was a conspiracy...

Thanks for reading along. We'll keep you posted.

ps. sorry. Ilya insisted on taking the picture instead of being in it. He seemed to feel funny about getting in the picture with someone famous...even if they were only famous in America. Anyway, that's me and Mike to my right in the blurry picture. An interesting bonus was seeing Eddie Pinckney, (you remember Villanova v. Georgetown from 1985, right?) who also coaches the Ukrainian team with Fratello. He is barely visible in picture seemingly coming out of my left shoulder.

Luda and Marina at the Datcha

2011-07-27T11:46:00.000-07:00

Unpacking

2011-07-20T22:51:00.000-07:00

Hi readers,

It's time to update again. We've been here for...could it be almost three weeks already...? I guess that's right. We've been working our way through all the things that go with moving: moving boxes, unpacking boxes, arranging furniture. Today there is some furniture that needs to be assembled (yuck) and then we'll be done. I'm happy for Kim, who does the bulk of the unpacking and arranging that it is almost done.

I would help but I don't know where anything goes...after 28 years of marriage.

Our days have been busy seeing friends also, though not as busy as things will be when the school year starts up. Our good friend Alexander is the director of foreign languages at the University near us and he was sooooo happy to have us back. He asked us to come for a meeting as soon as we could. When we did he told us that they had special ideas how to use us this school year so that we can maximize the benefit to the students. (He really does have the success of all of his students at the forefront of what the language department does and we are happy to help since we also want to see them, and their country, succeed.)

We continue to pray about other avenues of ministry. We are in the happy position of having too many potential areas to work in and not too few. The question for us now is: "God, what's YOUR plan?" We could really use some help following up these many contacts but for now we are here on our own. We don't know why that is, in the Great Scheme of things, so we trust that this is a part of God's plan that we just aren't all-seeing enough to understand. Go figure.

Everyone else seems good: the sauna guys; Vitya, the former medical student but now a doctor; our neighbors; professors from the U...The list goes on and on. So, God, what's your plan?

Thanks for following along with this and for praying.

Jerry and Kim

Log On

2011-07-09T00:33:00.000-07:00

Log On

And…We’re back!

We arrived in Kiev around 36 hours ago. Uneventful flights, (except for really nice seats on the 747 from Detroit to Amsterdam!) Meeting us were Tom, Miriam and the nearly-brand-new Jamie Becker. We appreciated their help getting our apartment open and food in the fridge.

I was happy that it was a little rainy when we pulled up to the apartment. During bad weather Enver doesn’t sit outside and I knew that we’d have to talk for a long time…Anyway, twelve hours later as the Beckers where headed back to Moscow I met Enver at the bottom of the elevator. He gave me a big Georgian kiss on the cheek and asked where Kim was. They were happy to know we are back in our old apartment, one floor below them. We went right to their apartment and talked to Galina. It was a great time and felt like we’d never left. Around 10pm last night Galina called and wanted to bring us food to help us get settled. How do you explain 10-hour jet lag to someone who’s never experienced it? “Uh, how about tomorrow?” was all that I managed to mumble.

It was great to talk to Sasha the Bible study guy yesterday. He’ll be here for lunch and reconnecting today. We’ll find out what happened to everyone from the Bible study and what prospects there are for getting together with everyone.

It’s Monday morning here, which means Sauna Day tomorrow. I don’t want to go, again. The question becomes, “Lord, I’ve told the the Sauna Guys all the important points of the Good News…Do you want me to keep putting time in there or should I look for a different way to invest myself?” Kim and I prayed about it today, trying to start our time here properly…It feels like, right now, that unless I have something actually conflicting with the sauna time that I should go. It may be passive fishing, but it’s still fishing.

And Ilya the professor (who now works for the BBC) has invited us over to meet his wife and daughter next weekend. And Alexander the director of Languages at the university has written, excited for us to get together. We hope he wants to plan for English events at the University for next school year.

Well, that’s it for now. Pray for us, that words may be given us and that when those opportunities come we might proclaim Christ fearlessly, as we should.

Thanks.

a granbaby quilt

2010-10-20T15:48:00.000-07:00

a Grandmotherly thing to do

2010-10-20T15:38:00.000-07:00

well, yesterday I finally got my act together and began to sew the quilt top for my granddaughter. We went to JoAnne fabrics in late June and picked out the fabric and only now am I beginning it. It has been a busy time since then. I just got back from a tour with Jerry in Montana. We went to visit many of our friends in many different churches, telling them about our lives in Kiev. Each time I looked at pictures of our friends, it made me homesick for our life there and hope things are going well for them. It is funny...when we are in Kiev, I am homesick for our life with our family back in the states, it seems that we are always missing the other life, whichever one we aren't in at the time, get it? Guess that is where trust comes into play.

Anyway, I began sewing the quilt and finished the top yesterday. I like it, it is pretty wild and colorful, our granddaughter loves color and design even at this very young age.

Can't wait to finish it and see my grandbaby sleeping underneath it!

Looking forward to hearing from our friends in Kiev, how they are doing....

the new family pic

2010-09-15T14:48:00.000-07:00

here we are all together!

Summer in the states

2010-09-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since we have blogged,
where do we begin?
We got back to the States just in time for our first grandchild's birth! Maia Grace Wagner was born a week after we returned...and...she has captured our hearts! We thoroughly enjoy being grandparents and understand that we are truly blessed!

This summer I also realized that we are now the parents of 3 adults. I knew this was happening, but somehow it crept up on me. Three weeks ago, we drove our son to his college about 2 hours away and helped him settle into his dorm room. The end of this month, our younger daughter begins her 2nd year of college...yikes!

We are now visiting with longtime friends and folks that pray for us, sharing what has been going on in our lives, how God has been working in us and through us as we allow Him. We are in Montana one of the most beautiful places in the world! Everywhere we look, we see how creation displays Gods' handiwork...
We have been blessed by all and encouraged in our adventurous life...

Each time we talk about our life in Kiev, we are reminded of all our friends back there...and remember that God's plan continues on, we look forward to returning and being a part of it!

Fishing Season

2010-06-10T01:08:00.001-07:00

(some of the sauna guys, Sasha, Yura, Yura and Volodia)

Well, we peaced-out of Kiev a few days ago. After a monstrous travel day we arrived in Kandern for Parker's grad. Grad is tomorrow and we've spent the last day and a half feeling like we needed to be doing SOMETHING, after all the activity of packing and goodbye-ing.

I hate goodbyes. That is, hands down, the worst part of the job- goodbyes to the kids going to boarding school over the years, goodbyes to pastors when we left Russia and now, goodbye to our really good, pre-believer friends from what may be our favorite place to live ever.

Once again I feel the way I've felt often over these years as an international worker: I get PAID to do this! There was a time when we were considering this calling that we wondered if it would be worth it. Now we know- most days it's not only worth it, it's an embarrassment of riches of excitement and fascination mixed with unbelief that this is my life. Ok, not every day, all day, is like this but enough are to make me ask the question, "What if we'd never done this? What if we just stayed in our own little world in that other place we loved so much, Wyoming?" Well, the happy answer is that we don't know but we're thankful that for us the truth stands proven and uncontestable: "He who loses his life will find it".

So, fishing season. I've never enjoyed fishing for fish as much as I've enjoyed fishing for men these past 1 1/2 years. Discouraging, exciting, rewarding, challenging, stretching, compelling. Pick any of these words, they all apply to the job we had the great privilege of doing. We have yet to see any outright conversions though friends like Galina now pray everyday, and Yura has made serious efforts to cut back on vodka drinking. These we take as signs that God is moving them towards final repentance and we keep our prayers up for them.

Sasha, our good friend, made 7 or 8 converts when he came back to the Lord after years of wandering in the gray. We got to work discipling him and this small group met at our apartment for a few months. We ask you to pray for the continued growth and development of Sasha and this group of new believers and most urgently for another place to continue this small group.

All these things are part of what made our time in Kiev so rewarding. Now we're on our way to Oregon for the year. Can't wait. I'm working the internet for info on fishing for finned fish and Kim and I are both trying to think of ways to keep the fish-for-men thing going, so much have we been thrilled by the chase. I see on-line that there are informal groups of anglers that get together for BBQs and fishing trips, maybe that will be a way in...?

Thanks for reading along.

Distractions

2010-05-29T07:07:00.001-07:00

I should be packing,... our house is looking quite topsy-turvey, action packers piled high, stacks of stuff that needs to be sorted through and really thrown away, but will stay around and finally be thrown out on the last days. You know the stuff that just is too good to throw away, but not good enough to save...

I should be packing...most of our kitchen is already in boxes, the landlord's stuff is back in the cupboards. We are having some friends over to make Thai food together on Monday...hope we can make do with what we have...

I should be packing....I go from room to room bringing something to the room with the box full of "that" stuff and find another project that needs my attention and get caught up in that project, forgetting what I was originally doing. It is hard to stay focused.

I should be packing...on Monday Jerry will take a load to the storage place. That will help me see what is still needed to be done. I think we have just a bit left. It is always a challenge to figure out what will fit into our suitcases that we are bringing home with us and what needs to be put in a box.

I should be packing...but all of these nostalgic feelings come to my mind as I pack up our stuff again. I remember that when we first came over here, our kids were little...their whole lives ahead of them. Now they are adults ready to lead their own lives. I have been stepping into this new phase of parenting for a few years now and it still feels like someone else's life, not mine. I just packed away Parker's hand print from 5th grade, it makes me stop and count how many years that has been, and I begin to think of how he will start college this year. Beki is finishing up her first year of college. Laurel and Trent are getting ready to have their first baby.

Somehow this all snuck up on me. It seems that the kids were little just the other year and now they are grown up. When we come back, it will be just the 2 of us. Wow! time ticked right by us!

I should be packing, and I am...it just takes me a little longer as I stop and remember the times...

I should be packing....but we keep having friends over for one last goodbye, I keep reminding myself that God has a plan and He will accomplish it in these dear lives...I just need to be faithful to pray for them...help me to trust....

elevator music

2010-05-28T08:56:00.000-07:00

This past month has been filled with special memories, meals and events with all of the good friends that we have made here in Kiev this past 19 months. One of the special friends, is Vitya. He has been studying medicine for 4 years, on his way to becoming a doctor. We met him a year ago and have met with him weekly this year, watching movies, eating food and speaking English with him. He has become a good friend. We have also gotten to know his parents and some of his friends. On Wednesday we had a fajita dinner at our place with his parents and a friend and then we went to an organ concert. It was a lovely evening together.
Vitya will be in the states this summer, we are really hoping that we can get together with him. We are trusting God and will be praying for him this year. Please pray with us for Vitya.

2010-05-16T02:38:00.000-07:00

Our good friend and neighbor, Enver, wearing all of his medals from his service in the Soviet Army.

A Victory Day dinner at our good neighbor's home. We enjoyed getting better aquainted with another couple from our entrance. Our friend, Enver has personally introduced us to nearly all of our neighbors. We love them and are praying for their souls!

2010-05-16T02:11:00.000-07:00

Another walk through the Botanical Gardens with Iilya, our good University professor friend.

They love to debate philosophical and spiritual topics.

May Day

2010-05-16T01:36:00.000-07:00

Jerry and Vitya, our good friend in front of a monastery and lilacs.

We have been celebrating the many May holidays in Ukraine these past few weeks and hanging out with our friends as we begin our good-bye saying. The first of them was May Day, May 1st. We have met friends at the National Botanical Gardens just down the street from us. It is beautiful this time of the year, as the lilacs are blooming. The smell is at times overpowering and the views of the surrounding Orthodox monasteries are so beautiful!

We are trying to take all opportunities we have to spend with our friends here before we take off to the states.

We will miss them.

Sasha again

2010-04-24T01:06:00.000-07:00

Finally, we're back home and back to ourselves.

(I reread our last entry and want to update you on Michael Merrill. He is in the US and is still undergoing treatments. At this point the doctors have not been able to come up with a solution that's going to work long-term. Please keep praying. Trevor Hope has recovered from the sickness he had on our travel to Germany.)

Back to Sasha: to make a long story a little shorter, I wrote back to all the contacts I'd received from the website manager. One of the people I wrote to again was Sasha. He was interested in meeting to talk about life. He suggested one of the many McDonald's restaurants we have here in Kiev, near a school where he is learning English. We talked about his walk with Christ, which had stagnated over many ears of D.I.Y Christianity- no church attendance, no Christian friends, only that whole 'I can worship God where ever I am' type of deception that so many people try to make work.

Anyway, we had a good talk about where he was and where he needed to be headed if he wanted to get to the Abundant Life that Christ promised. This was on a Saturday so I invited him to an English international church service the next day. It turned out the church was within walking distance of his apartment so he could have gotten there easily, though we did meet him in our car. [We're looking for a buyer for our car before we leave in 45 days, please pray]

Anyway, he loved the service and determined to go to a Russian-speaking small group, which he also loved. And since that first meeting 4-5 months ago Kim and I have been meeting with Sasha weekly for discipleship.

But what was interesting was his attendance at a gathering of some old friends of his who invited him to come to a 'religious' group meeting. He went because of his re-newed interest in spiritual things and a renewed desire to tell people about life change through Christ. He was surprised to find a group of disciples of a woman, who had recently died, gathering to pray to a pyramid...

That's it for this entry. We'll try to get back to this story soon, (which I can already tells you ends, as of this writing, with a group of new believers meeting in our apartment).

Thanks for reading along.

Quick update

2010-04-13T07:03:00.000-07:00

Hi to our readers...you know who you are,

We just wanted to give you a quick word on what we've been doing and where we've been.

2 1/2 weeks ago Parker came home for Spring Break. We had a nice time in Kiev together but we are quite busy with ministry nowadays, which we didn't realize until we tried to find 'just hang out with Parker' time and we found it difficult. Anyway, all was good. Parker and Jerry did spend a full day working through college acceptance letters (George Fox University, in Oregon and Wheaton) and financial aid packages (a word to young fathers: start saving now). Parker had all but decided on GFU until the Wheaton financial aid info came and the amount they offer makes the choice difficult again. Oh well, on Life's Big Scale of Problems this one doesn't weigh anything.

So, as Spring Break was winding down our Russia (and Ukraine) Field Forum was gearing up in southern Russia. Kim, Parker and I went to Anapa, on the Black Sea, for this annual gathering. It was especially nice for us to be there as a family so that Parker could do his goodbyes for the last time with kids he's known, or know about, for his whole MK life. He had a good time there and we had a good time watching our nearly full-grown baby (18 years old this month) interacting with his friends.

Then, with school starting in Germany the kids had to get back. I had the job of escorting them (since Lisa Merrill (who was the original escort) is in America trying to help her son Michael deal with a chronic health problem. Plllllllllleeeeeeeease pray for Michael. He's one tough kid but he'd really like to get his medical issues resolved so that he can get back to school.)
The need for an escort was only too clear as a couple of the guys got really sick. Trevor Hope, another tough kid, was indescribably ill every hour or so all day l0ng, including airports, airplanes and trains. I haven't heard but I hope he's better today.

Well, anyway, I'm typing this in Parker's dorm while waiting for him to come back from school. This is our next-to-last visit to BFA, at least as parents of students. We'll be back in 7 weeks for graduation. For all the difficult stories that you may have heard about missionary kid boarding schools we can only say from our own experiences with Black Forest Academy that we have nothing but positive things to say. This is true about the quality of school and social life and especially about the spiritual input our kids have received.
Our thanks to all the professionals who have sacrificed time in their careers to give something to our kids.

Ok, that's it for this update. I plan to be back at my computer tomorrow in Kiev and will try to remember to continue the Sasha Saga for those of you who might have been waiting.

Bye for now.
Jerry

Sasha

2010-03-25T00:49:00.000-07:00

So, as promised here goes the story about Sasha.

It begins with our arrival here, now almost 1 1/2 years ago. Through a series of contacts- which are themselves an interesting story -we met Steve Webber, the director of the Christian Broadcasting Network for the whole Russian-speaking world.

In talking with Steve about what we were trying to do here, he offered to connect us with Andrey, the CBN guy in charge of their evangelistic outreach website. Andrey began to send us contact information from people who'd written into the website with questions or because they wanted to say that they'd just prayed a prayer of repentance or re-dedication to Christ.

We did a lot of work, writing to these people, but got little response. One thing we did try was to invite people to an Alpha evangelistic group, in English. In this way we hoped to do something we were good at- English -and combine it with the Gospel. (The attempt was technically successful, but actually the people who came were already believers, which sort of defeated the purpose...)

Anyway, it was at this time that I got a response from a man who was very excited to think that someone would take an interest in him and could show him to a church where they could help him find a job. I wrote back right away explaining that the church could help, but that didn't mean that they could get him a job.

He wrote back right away to say, "Well, what's the use then?"

So I wrote back right away again and said that there was more to life than just a job and not to be discouraged if I couldn't promise him that a local church could help him.

I was to find out later that this guy was Sasha. We'll tell you more of his story next time...

93 days

2010-03-18T21:58:00.000-07:00

Today, (March 19...the day Vitya and his family and friends come over) is the first day Deutschbahn- the German railroad company -will allow us to buy tickets from Frankfurt, Germany, down to Kandern, Germany, where Parker goes to school. We will be on our way to Parker's graduation, and then continue on our way to the US for a year.

Wow, our lives as parents of kids in missionary boarding school ends with Parker's graduation on June 11th. Where did all those years go?

Anyway, 93 days from now (June 18th) we are scheduled to land in Eugene, Oregon. We've been in Kiev nearly 1 1/2 years now...where did THAT time go?

Actually we're thankful that, though the time has been short, way too short in fact, we've made tons of friends and through those friends are connected to other friends and we keep praying and telling the story of Jesus and asking God to do something in the lives of these people.

Tonight Sasha will come over to be with us and Vitya, et.al. I'm going to take time in future blogs to tell you of our relationship with him and how God has used some simple discipleship to encourage Sasha and then he has used Sasha to bring 8 people to faith in Christ.

Anyway, thanks to those of you who have/are praying for our dinner tonight. We'll keep you posted on the results.

AND, more news: on Sunday members of the Sauna Team will be coming over for dinner. We recently spent some time skiing with these three couples and so my personal hero, my wife, wanted to invite them over for dinner. They'll come for dinner at 6pm...but before that Sasha will be here for more discipleship...and before that, a Ukrainian couple will be here for lunch to talk about the potential for working together with us in church-planting.

Yep, all on one Sunday.
And Kim will be working to be hostess to all of them.

You see why my wife is a personal missionary hero for me. Please pray for her this weekend.

Jerry

More work

2010-03-15T23:42:00.000-07:00

Hi,

Our last post was about the people you could help us minister to by praying for them.

Here's a quick update:

We have a new friend, Sasha, who is a very gifted personal evangelist. We want to connect him with some more friends, Vitalic (a 5th year medical student) and his parents and two of their friends. They are coming for dinner on Friday, March 19th.

Please pray for our time together.

Thanks

Jerry and Kim

Work

2010-02-17T01:02:00.000-08:00

HI All,

I'm sort of in a revival of updating the blog. I had, what I'm SURE you'll agree is a great idea: a prayer list.

What follows is a partial list of the people that we have regular contact with and for whom we need your prayers. All of these are open to spiritual themes and discussions but we seem stuck in the discussion phase...

Anyway, so you don't overload I'll give you ten names and a little about these people so you can join us in our work by your prayers:

Yura and Luda Serikov- The orignial Sauna Guy, Yura has become a good friend. Once when we were all together and 'God' came up (as he often does when we're hanging out) Luda told the story of a life after life experience she had while undergoing an appendix operation. I would say the Serikovs are willing to be convinced that there is a God and that he loves them. Pray for their eyes to be opened; for steady construction work for Yura who's dealing with the weak economy; for recovery from a minor operation for Luda. (Yura is in the picture on the left- This was taken recently when I went skiing with him and Volodya Tikomirov.)

Volodya Kompanyets and Volodya Tikomirov(in the picture on the right) these are two more of the Sauna Guys- The first Vova is a jet aircraft engine mechanic and sharp, sharp. He's an 'orthodox' believer, which means he can live however he wants as long as he calls himself 'Orthodox'.

The second Vova is an electronics repairman and is sharp, sharp. He doesn't know what he is, religioulsly speaking, but has expressed a desire to know what God wants from him and to live right.

Pray that these guys get more and more hungry...

Ilya G- It's funny we don't know his last name. Ilya is a professor at the University where we teach English and we've known him for a year. We have wide ranging spiritual discussions by email and we see each other from time to time at the U. He has a lot of arguments against Christianity: "If Jesus is real why do Christians kill other people?" I think he means things like war. Anyway, he's a new father and I think, humanly speaking, if God works in his life it will be through his needs as a father and husband. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to reason him into repentance.

Galina and Enver- Our two oldest friends in Kiev, they live one floor above us. Galina is an avid reader of Christian books we give her and she also shares them with others. Getting from avid reader to the assurance of salvation is really our prayer for her. Enver is a Georgian who credits Stalin with bringing order to Soviet society. He smiles a smile that says, "You poor, naive person" whenever I bring up life after death. He's in his 70s so he thinks about dying, he just wants to avoid any topic that might suggest a Judgement Day.

Pasha and Halya- These two ladies we met on the street selling potatoes and cottage cheese when we first got here. We have great relationships with them. They've read verses from the Bible and other books but we are clueless as to how to take this to a higher level. These two ladies are 'salt of the earth' quality and we would just like them to experience true joy in Christ.

...and last? Sasha the van driver and (11th) Vitalic the taxi driver. Two guys who we've really been blessed to know because we can trust them completely with guests coming and going. We've talked with both about Christ and Vitalic, at least, is open. Sasha is just a great guy but smiles that same, you-poor-naive-person smile as Enver.

We are confident that these guys have good hearts and that God could really work there.

Well, thanks for reading along and praying for even one of these people.

Until next time

Fish

2010-02-13T01:23:00.000-08:00

Had an exciting meal a few days back-a baked carp. Um, unforgettably forgetable.
The issue, apart from the fact that it was a Carp, was that it hadn't baked long enough and was a little raw-ish towards the back bone. Anyway, I'll eat more carp if it's served to me but I can't see Carp-shore-lunch ever making my Top Ten list.

But it does lead me to digress a little, bear with me...
'Fish' is such an easy word in English.
For instance: Fish- the noun; Fish- the adjective; Fish!- the imperative; to Fish- the verb; Fishy- the adverb

Without boring you with a Slavic grammar lesson I can tell you that fishing is not such an easy thing to, uh, tackle in the other languages. However, the actual task of fishing is exactly the same no matter the language.
But that makes perfect sense, right? Languages, by definition, are different ways of describing experience but the experiences themselves are often identical.

And if the fishing experience is the same so are the fishermen! There is a Far Side cartoon that shows two fishermen in a boat. In the background, presumbly over their own homes, mushroom clouds from nuclear explosions are rising into the air. Their response? Something about how what this really means is that there are no longer any fishing limits. Perfect. Gary Larson must be a fisherman. I know Russians and Ukrainians who would also get a good laugh out of that cartoon.

There is something about fishing that gets in your blood and makes you ask: "How can I catch more?" and "How can I catch better?" And the biggie: "Are there any loopholes in the law, in the absence of the thermo-nuclear destruction of the very foundations of society, which say I can catch all the fish I want?"

So here's the good thing about my job: I can fish by any method I want and there are no limits either to size, or type, or number.
Sauna evangelism? Perfect.
Sports night evangelism? Perfecter.
Inviting people over to watch World Cup Alpine Ski Races? Pure Heaven.
Trying new types of food with unbeliever-friends? Absolutely, even half-cooked Carp.

This kind of fishing is open to all- to us here 'on the mission field' (we're really all 'on the field') and to you 'at home' (Home for true believers is where ever God is.)

And remember this: When Jesus said, "Follow me and you will be fishers of men" he wasn't offering a distraction from the fun of fishing for fish. Instead he was offering a life that made regular fishing pale by comparison.

This is what we find in our work here, it's exciting; probably on par with the guy who goes fishing for Great White Sharks and uses himself for bait...Whatever else you might think about someone like that you'd never think they were bored.

Meat

2010-02-02T22:45:00.000-08:00

Hi,
(Wow, it's good to see that Kim is keeping up the blog...I forgot we had one)

The other day- it was either in the sauna with the guys or at sports night with the other guys -when I looked around at all who were gathered and thought "How do I really communicate the gospel to these men who grew up hearing there is no God, but now sort of believe that there is a God, but that He has nothing relevant to say to their daily lives?"

It was right then that I understood that whole exchange between Jesus and his disciples: They were one time trying to get him to eat but he said, "I have meat you don't know about". This confused them: "What's he doing, packing his own lunch? Did we do something wrong and now he's mad?"

Jesus waved off their silly speculating and said, "My meat is to do the will of Him who sent me".

I understood that he meant that the energy and motivation and drive that he needed to do the ministry didn't come from physical food, instead it was derived from the very intensity of the work he was engaged in. Put succinctly, he was energized by his passion to bring the truth of God's love and his coming kindom to those who 'labored and were heavy laden'.

Meat. It feels good to have that kind of passion; it feels right. It doesn't answer the 'how do I do it?' question but I can tell it's the right place to begin to look for the answer to that question.

The task then, is not about methods and plans and...whatever. Instead it's about letting that passion take me where it will: to sports and the sauna and the university and finding God's plan in those places.

heavy heart

2010-01-31T08:14:00.000-08:00

My heart is heavy.
Last night and all day today, I have been thinking about a conversation from the evening before.

My heart is heavy.
Our friend opened up and told me about his spiritual beliefs. We will get together again soon and continue this conversation.

My heart is heavy.
I am reminded how desperately we need prayer and I am reminded why we are here.
Romans 10:14
"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to tell them?"

We need your prayers every day.

Home

2010-01-21T10:29:00.000-08:00

Our daughter just wrote that she was homesick. And that made me think about our life and what that means.

Homesick
Where is home?
What is home?

What does she mean by that? Is she missing us, her family? Missing our life over here on this side of the world? Does she miss her friends? Those who know her well? and understand her best? Does she miss her high school? Places that are familiar and predictable?

If she is like me, it must be a part of all of those things. Ours is a life of always missing where you are not at the time, missing those who are not with you at the time.

Where is home? Home always seems to be the place you are not. Right now, home is here in Kiev. In a little over 4 months, it will be where we are all living, in Oregon, but then we will miss our life over here. I grew up in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Jerry grew up in California and Wyoming. Our kids were born in Wyoming, went to school in Germany and lived in Russia. All of our worldly belongings are in northern Minnesota and our girls live in Oregon. Where is home? Where are we from? It all depends on what you are asking.

What is home? Home is that place where you can go and just be. You feel safe there, loved there and accepted for who you are. It is with us, it is at school, at the dorm, with family, with friends.
Home is where your parents are, and then you begin to make your own home as you grow up and make your own family. It seems that home constantly changes throughout our lives.

I loved having our son and daughter home with us for the holidays. They are back at home now. It is too quiet and empty. I look forward to this summer, when we are all together, all of us. We will be home together...whatever that means.

New Year's fireworks 2010

2010-01-01T13:28:00.000-08:00

a sample of the fireworks at midnight Kiev, Ukraine

1 January 2010

2010-01-01T13:17:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! 2010!!!

It is 1 January 2010...It has bee a year, some of it good, some of it tough...

Our kids, Beki and Parker, are home with us for Christmas vacation and it has been so good reconnecting as a family. We have enjoyed introducing our kids to many of our friends here.

I am including some photos of these times.

May you have a blessed year in 2010!

2010-01-01T13:12:00.000-08:00

a friend Ellen and her daughter

2010-01-01T13:08:00.000-08:00

Our neighbor, Galina giving us a beautiful tort that she made for our New Year's celebration

January 1, 2010

2010-01-01T12:01:00.001-08:00

Our university friends, Ira and Victor over for an evening of English and cookies.

Saturday, in the park

2009-11-30T06:25:00.000-08:00

This is the monument to the famine, in the background is the Pecherska Lavra monastery.

down below the monument, on the lower left corner, you see people looking at walls with the names of those who died in the famine, there were 3 million people who perished.

this is one of many walls with names of those who died.

Bright and early Saturday morning, Jerry and I went for a brisk walk together. We needed to walk off some of the extra helpings of our Thanksgiving feast. we walked down the street to the Park of Eternal Glory ( Park Vechnoyi Savwee in Ukrainian). There we noticed that it was being set up for some event later on in the day. We overheard one of the workers mention that the Ukrainian Present was going to dedicate the memorial to those who died in the Great Famine of Ukraine.

We went to the dedication that evening and I have included some pictures of it. It is quite an impressive monument.

After the dedication ceremony, we met our friend Vitya, the medical student. He had promised us that his friends also wanted to pracitce their English, but it just never worked out to meet together. Finally, we were able to meet 2 of them, Ira and Natasha. We sat at a cafe and talked as we drank tea. The conversation soon became about spiritual things. One girl went to a protestant church as a child, the other is an athiest and our friend believes what sound good to him. I love having the freedom to sit in a cafe and discuss the really important questions of life. Towards the end of our time, we met one of the girl's mother, who invited us to come to her English class and help her students practice their language skills. I am encouraged as we are planning to meet again soon. I am anxiously praying and waiting to see what God has planned for our future.

2009-11-30T06:16:00.000-08:00

the statue of the little starving girl

2009-11-30T06:05:00.000-08:00

the candles are being place on the hill sides of the park

Ukrainian Famine Memorial Dedication Ceremony

2009-11-30T05:36:00.000-08:00

the choir singing a Ukrainian folk song

a birthday celebration!

2009-11-14T11:47:00.000-08:00

We were invited to celebrate our neighbor, Enver's birthday party.

We enjoyed a delicious lunch with the whole family...

On Thursday, we met our neighbor as is usual, sitting outside our doorway and he invited us to their home on Saturday at noon. He said we would see what it would be... I made some chicken enchiladas to bring with us...what do you know? it was Enver's 77th birthday party! we finally were able to meet the extended family that we have heard so much about. We had a wonderful time of celebrating his long life and getting to know the family. What fun it was to meet these folks tha we have heard so much about...

We have been friends with Enver and Galina for a year now...we have grown to love these folks, they are the first ones that opened their hearts and lives to us here in Kiev...

Fishers put on a feast

2009-11-14T08:04:00.000-08:00

All of us together! the Fishers, Solonkos and me

Matt and Terri Fisher, also our good friends and colleagues, put on an American feast of grilled hamburgers and fries for our friends, the Solonkos and us... mmm!

our very good friends, the Family Solonko

2009-11-14T07:57:00.000-08:00

We have been friends with the Solonkos for 10 years. They are planting a church in Gelendjik, Russia. They just recently had their first baptism! Praise God!

Another Tuesday...

2009-10-27T10:09:00.000-07:00

another sauna day.

Here's what I find during sauna times: the guys are joking around the way old friends do and I understand about half of their jokes, if they speak clearly.
(Ok, here's a joke I did get that's fresh from today:
A man at a sauna answers a cell phone:
"Oh, honey, " says a woman on the other end, "I just bought a new pair of red shoes to go with my red cell phone...I hope that's alright"
"Well, what do I care? No big deal".
A while later she calls back: "Oh, honey, I hope it's ok that I bought a red purse to go with the shoes and phone. Is that ok?"
"Well of course, how could you pass that up?" he says.
And later..."Honey, I just HAD to buy a red Ferrari to go with the shoes and purse and phone"
"Well, of course you did. Hope you like it...goodbye." He closes the phone and looks around and asks, "Hey, whose phone is this?")

The general discussion is easier to follow. Today the discussion included religion vs. true faith; how much vodka you could REALLY drink and still legally drive; what the ideal blood pressure was for men of our age (from 55ish down to 48ish). Since I can't always jump into and out of the conversation I have extra time to pray for them.

Volodya Companietz, one of the guys who's at the 55ish end of the age scale, is also a grandfather has a sick grand daughter. The guys were trying to make connections to a pediatrician on their cell phones during breaks from the sauna and, having done that, Volodya will get to take his daughter and grand daughter in to see him tomorrow.

But, anyway, prayer.
Volodya is a Russian, a former-ish communist and a loud but diplomatic atheist. He and Yura laugh at things like Creationsim and miracles and ask provocative questions for which they expect no good answers...though I hope they expect more good answers now.
Anyway, as Alexey the Dentist was delivering us all to our drop-off points after the sauna I told Volodya I'd pray for his grand daughter. He actually stopped in mid-sentence, looked at me, and said "Thanks a lot for that".

There are no atheists in fox holes, it's said. I doubt if there are any in pediatric wards.

So, if you are reading this and have time to pray for this baby I know he'd appreciate it. Of course, pray that God answers in such a way that he doesn't just say, "Yeah, we had a good doctor."

Kim and I will be in Russia for the next 10 days at our annual retreat for CMA missionaries. We'll catch you up when we get back.

Evangelistic Mushrooms

2009-10-18T09:52:00.000-07:00

HI All,

So much has happened. We should write more often...
When Galina left she took with her the Russian tranlation of "Resurrection Factor". She said that she couldn't put it down and read the whole thing in a few hours. I'd asked her to read it and give me a review so that I could give it to Yura and Luda.

The whole Yura/Luda thing took an interesting turn when I went for an overnighter at their dacha. Other sauna pal, Sasha and his son Sergey and I went up on Tuesday morning. The plan was to hunt mushrooms (we never found any), do the sauna (which Yura built as an addition to the dacha) and sleep over.

We did all those things but the most interesting thing of all was that in the middle of it Luda told her own story of how, when she was 21 she died during an appendix operation. If you've ever heard life-after-life stories her's was eerily similar to the ones you've heard. She said that she was unconcious when they started to operate on her- she had her out of body event -and then woke up to the operation in progress. Only THEN did they give her anesthesia...so she knows it wasn't something drug-induced. This assured, dialectical-materialist kept her story to herself until some air of freedom began to blow around the USSR. Then she dared to let people know.
It happened 30 years ago and she remembers it like it was yesterday.

Well, as you can imagine this provided plenty of fuel for the 'meaning of life' discussion that occupied our time there.

Skipping ahead, Galina REALLY, REALLY recommended that I pass Resurrection Factor along to people with questions.

Oh, the Evangelistic Mushrooms? Well, this morning Kim and I arrived at the English-speakers church, (this was after we went to the Russian church with Sasha, who I thought had hated his first experience there). When we pulled up, there was a tall white mushroom growing next to the parking lot. I went to inspect it and found an additional bunch of small brown mushrooms growing.

Subsequently, during the worship service, a plan formed itself- take pictures and email them to Yura and then call and ask if they were edible or not. Turns out the white ones shouldn't even be touched if you can help it; the brown ones- edible but not desirable.

The real reason for calling Yura was just to make contact, say 'yo'- in Russian -and continue to keep lines of communication open.

Oh, and set up a time to go play tennis Monday morning so I can give him that book.

Thanks for keeping up with all this stuff. Have a good week

Galina and 'Movie Night', day

2009-10-11T23:07:00.000-07:00

Hi again,
Thanks for your prayers. You can see by the fairly frequent updates that we're encouraged.
I said below that a whirlwind week began for us last Thursday morning. The events have included: moving possessions from one garage to another (an easy thing when you have access to a pick-up; not so easy in a country where once a month or so you see one and you say, "Hey, look! A pick-up"); an out of town meeting; preparations for the arrival of new colleagues; an evangelistic run to the farmers' market; Movie Night prep.

The busyness will wind down starting on Wednesday night after we welcome our C&MA colleagues Jason, Carolina, Camilla and Joshua Kochsiek to Kiev. They will come here so that we can pursue ministry in tandem with them. Please keep them in your prayers.

So, about Galina. She didn't come Thursday, as she said she would. Instead, on Friday when we took our staunch communist friend, Maria, to the farmers' market Galina came with us. Later that night she knocked and said, "Hey, I forgot all about Thursday. So, tell me now."
We sat and discussed life after death and the biblical promises concerning a new future for those who believe.
She talked about how she's prayed and believed her whole life. In this orthodox country she even said, "I don't really feel close to Mary...but Jesus has always seemed to be really approachable." I don't know where this leaves her. She said as she was leaving that we should do this again. We're trying to figure out how to get people like her and Comrade Maria in for some events so that we can begin to make it a common occurence among the neighbrs to come to our apartment for spiritual discussions.

And, now, on to the "Pursuit of Happyness" at the U today. Since most of the students are economics majors this movie will touch on a lot of things relevant to them.

Thanks for reading this and for participating with us as you pray.

Alpha Dinner

2009-10-07T23:16:00.000-07:00

Well, it's Thursday morning, a day which for us begins a whirlwind week ahead...But more of that later.

Last night Yura and Luda found our apartment. It was really nice having them as guests. We showed pictures of our kids and places we've lived. They are both from the Ural Mountains of Russia so we did a lot of comparisons.
We had lasagna (is that how you spell that?) and salad that was deadly delicious, and for which Kim is famous all around the Rundstrom house. It was a good way to get to know them better.

The theme of the evening was Christianity. They didn't know what to expect and seemed a little nervous. I told them we wanted to show them a video with some information about the Bible, etc. The video was the first lesson from the Alpha program, "Who is Jesus?"
They listened attentively to most of it and got some of the main important points concerning the history of the writing of the New Testament, the teachings of Jesus and other things.

Luda seemed to be saying, "Yeah, we know all this already from the book you gave us." But Yura was more interested. While we didn't make plans to do this again next week this will give me some very good opportunities during tennis and sauna to ask questions, and I hope will give him some things to chew on.

Tonight our neighbor Galina (who along with her huband Enver, were the first of our neighbors to befriend us) wants to come for a visit. She wants to talk specifically about life after death. This has come about because Enver- a life-long communist -has a lot of physical issues and is, not surprisingly, afraid of dying.
Because I know he's afraid I've been saying to him, "Let's talk about life after death".
"There's no such thing! You can't prove that!", he says to me.

Doesn't seem to bother him that he can't prove that there is NO life after death, though.

Anyway, though he's been growly with me he has talked to Galina about it and now she wants to hear more.

We'll keep you posted.

What do you know?

2009-10-07T07:29:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
This will be short because sauna pal, Yura and his wife Luda are on their way here for dinner. You've maybe read the story below...?

Anyway, follow-up on sauna day: I thought that Sasha was acting kind of weird at tennis so, when we got to the sauna and Alexey the Dentist (another sauna regular) asked, "Well, what's everyone been up to?" In order to disarm the weirdness I said, "Well, Sasha came with me to church but he didn't like it."

Sasha lit right up: "What are you talking about?! I really liked it. I'm bringing my wife on Sunday...You're going to be there, right?"

I sort of choked because I didn't want to be uncool and blurt all over so I managed to get out: "Well, yeah. Of course."

Well, what DO you know, anyway? I could sermonize here about how God works but I'll save that for another day.

Thanks for your prayers for these friends of ours.

Sauna Day

2009-10-05T23:43:00.001-07:00

Well, it's Sauna Day, like every Tuesday and I'm back here to continue some of the story: As you read below, Yura had said, last week, "I want to believe. How come you're not telling me?"
I told him, "Well, Yura, I did give you that book about how you can know God even exists and I do try to invite you over but you're always at your cabin." [The Russian word for 'cabin' is 'dacha']
"Oh, ok, well then we'll come over..."

And you already read my last entry about how they were all ready to come. Then Yura called me the next morning to say Luda was very sick, (she's better now) so they didn't come. That was supposed to be Wednesday. Yura and I played tennis on Friday and then they were headed to the dacha again.
So, bummer, they didn't come and though we made tentative plans for tomorrow night I don't know if they'll come.

Part of the reason I don't know if they'll come is Sasha.

Sasha is a sauna pal also, and probably Yura's best friend. He is an orthodox believer, which he interprets to mean he can live any way he wants to. Yet he does have quite an interest in spiritual things. I invited him to church Sunday and Kim and I met him at the metro stop then we walked to the church. We really like this church- good music and great preaching. I even told Sasha on the way there that the preacher is one of the best we've ever heard in any language, and that's saying something since we usually listen to him when he preaches the Ukrainian service; the fact that we still get a lot out of it shows what a good preacher he is.

Anyway, what we hoped for was an enthusiastic embracing of the message by Sasha but the opposite result seems to be what we got. So while I'm saying, "This guy is going to be great, Sasha!" He thought, "I don't like this guy".
Now, every person has their time and their path and God works in mysterious ways but in this case God will have to use Sasha's negative advertising at the sauna- which is what I expect to hear today -to get guys like Yura interested.

How can that work? I don't know. We're trying to trust and not be afraid, here.

Well, at least the good news is that Sasha JUST NOW called to confirm our sauna time and to confirm our pre-sauna tennis time [on the court I call "New York, New York", because if you can play there you can play anywhere] so I was glad to hear his voice and it didn't seem he'd blown me off as a hopeless fanatic because the preacher got a little fiery at the church I'd recommended.

We'll let you know what happens.

Back in the classroom

2009-10-04T03:55:00.001-07:00

well, today I just printed out the lesson plans for the English class I am going to on Tuesday...differences between American English and British English. I should be an expert, because I speak American English, but...honestly I googled it so I could see some of the main differences. We volunteer our help at the nearby University. Native English speakers are a hot commodity and our price is right!
I am pretty excited about getting back into the classes, I find that I really love 17-2? year olds...it is so interesting to hear what they think about politics, world events and life. We have been welcomed into the classrooms and hope to do a great job helping with English skills. Many of these students also will be attending the movie/discussion club. ~kim

My Sauna Friends

2009-09-29T22:23:00.000-07:00

Here's a long story, but I'll break it into bits so that you don't have to read all of it at once.
Before I begin let me give you this disclaimer: I don't always write on this blog because I get depressed. Not the kind of depression that says, "Rats. Our hot water is off again for a week after just being off for two and a half weeks!" Those problems I can live with.
This is the kind of depression that says: "Am I of any value? What am I doing here?"

This is significantly harder to bear than cold showers after a morning jog.

(Am I the only one out there that ever feels this way? Misery loves company so I'm hoping I'm not the only one, but I doubt it it's a completely universal feeling...but I've digressed.)

Ok, the story. We've been in Kiev a year now. Shortly after moving here, and even before, we knew we'd have to use whatever means possible to make 'friends' here. We've chronicled many of those stories in this blog, and Kim has excelled in FaceBooking our lives to the entire digitized world.
Well, one of those friendships we've made is with Yura and Luda. I met Yura last winter at the ski run (which is conveniently located- according to the 'ruler' function on Google Earth -1.77 air miles from our apartment. Yep, that's pretty close.) Since meeting him I've connected with many of his friends and the circle of skiing/sauna friends contains around 20 men.

Well, I'll jump to the end of this part of the story, (want to read the rest? Pray for us that we stay encouraged. Then I'll feel like writing), Yura and Luda are coming for dinner tonight because Yura said to me after the sauna yesterday, "I want to believe in God and I want YOU to tell me how. How come you're not telling me?"

...To be continued...

English movie/discussion afternoon

2009-09-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

Wow! it has been SO long since we have blogged...more than a month!
Our daughter wrote today asking if we were ever going to update our blog...

Just 3 days ago, Friday the 25th, we had our first English movie/discussion afternoon at the University near our home. We were so excited as we sat in a meeting with the director a week earlier showing him a proposal for this 'club' and even more excited as we watched the students come.
We chose a light-hearted comedy called "Shanghai Knights".
We discussed friendship, telling lies vs telling the truth and family honor.
We snacked on Banana-chocolate chip bread and pop.

12 students came, 6 of them we met last year and 6 were first year students.

We are anxious to get back into the classes to help with conversation and excited to build deeper relationships with the students after classes in the 'club'.

an English excursion to the Kiev Water Museum

2009-08-11T05:19:00.000-07:00

We went to the Kiev Water Museum with our friend, Victor. It was a very fun day, we walked, talked and went to the museum.

Parker at the Kiev Water Museum in a bubble

2009-08-11T05:13:00.000-07:00

Jerry in a bubble...

2009-08-11T05:08:00.000-07:00

Kim at the Kiev Water Museum in a bubble!

2009-08-11T05:01:00.000-07:00

Gaining a little weight?

2009-08-06T05:03:00.000-07:00

Well, it happened again, a well meaning friend grabbed my hand and said, "Kim, you are gaining weight!" I tried to tell her that I am about the same size as usual, but she disagreed and said that it looked good on me...( maybe that is supposed to help?)
Yeah, it felt just like you would think it would feel hearing those words coming from someone you know. BUT, she meant this as a compliment, here in Ukraine this is a compliment....never mind that the fact remains that she thinks I have put on some weight.
So, I walked around yesterday feeling a little heavy...

But, walk is what I did. I have a new friend that needs to have someone listen. I am getting really good at listening. And what goes better with talking and listening, but walking?
Much of our everyday life is about relationship building. It comes in many forms...
We want to make a difference here, where we live.
Thanks for remembering us while you are making a difference where you live!

It's August already!

2009-08-02T06:29:00.001-07:00

Wow, it has been a while since we have blogged...

We have enjoyed hosting many out-of-town guests, who have come through Kiev...it has been great to see so many old friends and meet some new ones.

We have been busy with our friends here in Kiev as well. We see our neighbors almost daily as everyone wants to spend time outdoors while the weather is beautiful. Our good friend, Enver, sits outside and knows nearly everyone that walks by. We have met many other neighbors just standing, talking with him.

Our son has been home on summer break, it has been really great hanging out while he is home. He is a disciplined young man, studying faithfully each day, preparing for the AP courses that he has this coming year. In 3 weeks he will begin his senior year of high school. I am trying not to think about this yet, it is one part of our life that I just haven't gotten used to.

We hope to host a picnic or dinner for Jerry's sauna buddies and their wives this month.

dinner and a concert

2009-07-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

Jerry, Mikhailo, Barb and Parker...

everyone staying dry under their umbrellas

We are still trying to learn the Ukrainian language. I have to say, I am such a lazy learner. I find that it is just too easy to speak Russian rather than doing the painful thing... humbling myself and speaking slowly and simply in basic Ukrainian. But, all that said, we are still studying, slowly but surely...

It is summer, everything is a little more relaxed. Yesterday we had our Ukrainian teacher over to our place for dinner and then on to an outdoor concert. We had just been to his place on Wednesday for a language lesson and Ukrainian meal. He is such a nice man. We feel that God has brought him into our life for a reason. His name is Mikhailo (Michael). Please remember him.

We invited another new friend to come along with us. We got to the park, ready for the concert to start and after just a few minutes, it began to get dark and soon it began to rain. Everyone simultaneously got their umbrellas out and the concert continued as it rained. The music continued until it began to rain too hard.
We look forward to the next concert. Mikhailo promised to come again. All the same we will continue our language learning and relationship building.

July in Kiev

2009-07-02T01:11:00.000-07:00

new post and pictures below!

Life as usual

2009-07-02T01:09:00.001-07:00

Wow! July is here! I have been waiting for July to come...outside our windows on the back side of our apartment is a little park area that is full of trees. Most of them are Linden trees. The Ukranian word for the month of July is related to these trees. Lee'-pen. It is the month in which they bloom. Everyone promises that the fragrance is just wonderfully overpowering and sweet. Every day I look out our windows, waiting for them to bloom. I can't wait to smell them! So, I am excited that it is July. We went to Sevastopol and found an apartment for our friends. I have included a few pictures to share the beauty of the Crimea. It was HOT, but quite a pleasant place to be! Our friends should love living there! We are back in Kiev now. As we arrived home, our sales lady friends asked us to buy things...one of which was a rooster that was just recently butchered. It was Pasha, and I couldn't say no. I was shocked at the price per kilo that she was asking, like twice the regular rate in the store...but I just couldn't say no. We prepared it with the recipe Coq au Vin. It was pretty good, but we all decided that I shouldn't buy another one...just not our favorite. Well, yesterday I talked with Pasha again only to find out that she is going in to the doctor today for some sort of test that costs nearly $50. I asked her if she had the money to do this. She answered that she had sold us the rooster and others had bought other things and yes, she had the money. It was then that I realized the overpriced rooster was a blessing and not a mistake. It paid for nearly 1/3 of the price of her test. Pasha also told me that her husband, Ivan has actually gained some weight and is getting stronger and healthier while at the village this summer. Your prayers and ours are being answered. Now to concentrate on their spiritual health!!!

2009-07-02T00:46:00.000-07:00

We also spent some time at the beach, under an olive tree and we went on a boat tour of the naval fleet in the harbor.

2009-07-02T00:38:00.000-07:00

In Sevastopol there is an ancient Greek ruined fortress called Hersonez (sp?), very interesting to see.

2009-07-02T00:29:00.000-07:00

after arriving in Sevastopol, we went to a beautiful outdoor cafe for some coffee and water.

2009-07-02T00:22:00.000-07:00

Galina our neighbor made a cake for Parker's return home from BFA and she delievered it on our guest Nate's birthday! we all enjoyed it together.

June 20th, 2009

2009-06-20T10:01:00.000-07:00

The weather is nice now...quite nice.
I am spending time outdoors with my friend, Galya. She rides a train from her village for 2 hours each way into Kiev to sell her farmer's cheese and sour cream. Every day she estimates how many kilos of cheese she will sell. Most days she sells about 18 kilos.

It has become my habit to go and spend about an hour just hanging out, talking with her. During this time, we talk about many things. One day, she told me that she really doesn't have a friend. It made me so sad but, I realized that God has given her to me as a friend, and so...we are spending time together. One of these days, I will have a picture of her. She asked me if I had a camera and if we could take a picture together sometime...

While we are talking, she is constantly on the look-out for potential customers. She calls out to people who are passing by, that she has fresh cheese. Some are drawn to her and they ask for a sample. The customers know what they are looking for in the cheese. Some want a high fat content, some want softer texture, others want a harder type. It seems that she has a little of each kind. Sometimes they can't find what they are looking for. It is really interesting to be an observer of this whole process. I am amazed at the number of neighbors I meet while hanging outside with Galya.

I am hoping that this time we spend together will help our friendship to deepen. Usually our conversation touches on spiritual things, I am praying that our talks go deeper into what really matters in life.

Parker is home from BFA for the summer. It is so wonderful to have him home with us. I miss him so much during the school year. He borrowed a few text books from the school library for "light" reading over the summer. The one that I am looking at is called 'AP Biology'. He has chosen a tough academic load for the next school year and wants to get a head start on his studies.

We leave tomorrow for Sevastopol, Ukraine. It is on the southern tip of the Crimea. We are going there to hunt for an apartment for our colleagues. Please join us in prayer as we find just the one that God has for them.

We are also going to take a few days of vacation there at the beach. I will take pictures to share....
Hope you are all enjoying your summer and have great vacations wherever you go, whatever you do!
Happy Father's Day!!!!

In the Village

2009-06-10T08:14:00.000-07:00

I saw Pasha today! This will be a rare thing now that it is summer. She will come into the city only about once a week to water her plants. She and her husband Ivan have moved out to the village for the summer. I realized last night that I haven't updated Ivan's status for a while.

Remember we asked for prayer for Ivan several months ago? He was quite sick and in the hospital, needing blood transfusions. We never really understood exactly what was wrong with him. But, all the same, God healed him through the medical treatment he received. Thank you for your prayers for his physical state...now we are concentrating our prayers for his spiritual state and also Pasha's.

So, we will trust God to do the work in their souls and hearts that only He can do.

I have a big bouquet of peonies from her garden... the smell is heavenly!

Last night I went on a stroll with another friend, Galina. We walked arm in arm together around the courtyard by our apartment building. We found a bench to sit on and talked and talked...as the weather warms up, people are outside in the cool of the evenings, strolling.

Every day we ask God to help us to meet up with our neighbors as we are coming and going...He is answering this prayer. We want to be faithful in shining His light in our neighborhood.

Sweet Summer Days?

2009-06-04T21:14:00.000-07:00

Hi,
We're back again so soon.

Well, after a Spring which was worthy to be a cautionary tale about the dangers of Global Warming (and this AFTER George Bush was no longer president!) temps have cooled down to what we'd normally expect in early Spring. It's nice to have a break from the sweaty days to come because soon they'll start for real.

We have a lot of travel coming up for the month. Kim has to escort one missionary kid from Germany to Moscow because his parents are having visa issues-not worse visa issues than other times in Russia, just more of the same old, same old.

Then I go to Germany to bring Parker home for the Summer. Traveling with us will be Phil Neilson and Nate Pharr, two fine young men with whom we became acquainted at Crown College the year we were there as Missionaries in Residence.
We look forward to their visit here.

When they leave we travel to Sevastopol (famous in the annals of the Crimean War) to find an apartment for some colleagues who will be living and working there.
Whew!

Through all of this we need to keep up our connections with people here and hope to see some real advancement from friendship with us to openness to organized spiritual discussions.
We'll see how that goes, as you help us with your prayers.

Take care.

Sauna Wars

2009-06-03T00:41:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
I can't believe how long we go between updates. There are days when it's fun to write because there is actually news that seems to us that it it will be interesting to all of you. The days when all seems to be 'same old, same old' it's pretty tough to find the motivation.

Well, at least today is one of those 'something interesting to report' days. Yesterday at the sauna the Russians were taking on the Ukrainians in the question of whose government was better. Actually, the Russian guys, while holding Ukrainian passports, are really still Soviets and think 'the old days were better than these'. The Ukrainian guys argue back like kids who know all to well that the big, tough kid on the block can dictate his own terms.

Well, the dispute ranged all over the historical map from the ancient Slavic wars and a guy named Urich Somebody to The Great Patriotic War (WWII, to us westerners) and a guy named Adolph Somebody.
From childhood I've been a WWII buff and was able to contribute my opinion on the correctness of the dates that they were tossing around.

The discussion moved on to the Jews wandering for 40 years in the wilderness. One guy said it was because they worshipped the golden calf that God punished them in the desert. Another agreed with me that it was because of their fear-driven unbelief that God could actually drive out the scary inhabitants of the Promised Land.

The day ended with one guy saying, "Ok, Jerry, next time you bring your Bible to the sauna. We're going to turn our sauna time into a discussion time about the Bible and religion."

I don't know how enthusiastic they'll be when the time comes around but the door is open for some serious discussion. Thanks for reading along and for your support in this work. We couldn't fight our own battles without people holding our arms up.

Next time, sooner...

Housing questions

2009-05-26T00:26:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
We're thinking about the future. In just over a year we'll be headed back to the US for our scheduled home assignment. With that in our sights, we've begun to look for housing near Eugene, Oregon, so that we can all be together. (Parker has not started applying for colleges yet but one possibility is University of Oregon in Eugene and another is George Fox near Portland).

As it turns out there is a Christian camp right in Eugene with housing available for international workers. We have our names in the hopper for one of the places there but it's not clear yet if there will be room for us.

Would you pray with us that this might work out? Thanks. It seems too perfect to not work but what looks good from one direction may not be that good.

Sunday Morning

2009-05-24T05:38:00.000-07:00

We got up this morning...early enough to enjoy a quiet cup of coffee and some peace before the day got started.

Last night we agreed to leave our apartment at 9:15am. Well, at 8:45 the doorbell rang...we thought that maybe Galina decided not to come with us to church. I answered the door and there she stood, all ready to go. She said..."Kimmach~ka, I woke up early and was just siting around, waiting and couldn't wait any longer, so I here I am!" Yahoo, how encouraging is that? Jerry and I quickly finished getting ready for church and we were off.

We arrived early and sat, talking while we waited for the service to start. It was a great service, complete with a skit performed by the youth about God's perfect love for us. Galina stood with us trying to sing songs she didn't know and clapped her hands with everyone, seeming to take it all in. Then came the preaching time. The pastor of this church is one of the best we have heard anywhere.
She said that she liked the whole thing and will come back with us again.

Please remember Galina, that the words she heard would come to her mind throughout the week.

Rhubarb, the food that keeps on giving....

2009-05-23T12:12:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day....
This afternoon our neighbor Marie called and invited us to her place for lunch. I had a few hours, so I quickly made another rhubarb custard kuchen...(you can never eat too much of a good thing)...
She fixed a feast of delicious, homemade Ukranian dishes.
We had a really good time of getting to know each other.

After we had been home a while, our good friend Galina, came by.
I made a pot of coffee and we ate some more of the rhubarb kuchen.
Last week we had invited her to come to church with us, but it didn't work out. She said she would come with us the next time. So, this evening we asked her if she would come with us tomorrow. She said ok. We are so happy. Keep us in mind, we are going together tomorrow, Sunday the 24th.

Tea Party Picnic

2009-05-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

well, I made a custard kuchen with the rhubarb...and...it turned out perfectly. Ok, it was just about the best thing I have eaten for a while...(even if I say so myself.)

I went outside this afternoon to talk to my little grandma friends. I bought some green onions, chervil (an herb that you add to green borsh) and more rhubarb. I told them about the custard kuchen I made and that I wanted to share a piece with them. Halya asked me to bring some tea too. So, I went upstairs and gathered together a little tea party picnic.

As I was bringing down my little teapot of tea and bag of dessert dishes and forks, I thought to myself..."this may be just a bit too strange to do here". I wondered what they would think, but they seemed to be anxious to try what I made. So, I gave them each a piece of rhubarb pie and a cup of tea. Maybe it wasn't too strange. We had a little tea party picnic.

Pasha tells us that Ivan is feeling so well these days that he has gone to the store and runs errands. Praise God! one of these days we are going to get together with both of them.

I am trying to be a better friend to Halya.

Rhubarb

2009-05-19T08:06:00.001-07:00

ok, this is really quite trivial, but...I just can't help it.

I was outside talking to our little grandma friends this afternoon. We were enjoying the beautiful weather here in Kiev, it has turned into a lovely spring...talking and laughing...when I looked over at one of the gals and what should I see but RHUBARB!!!

Ok, I told you it was trivial, but in Russia in all of the years we lived there, I never saw any.

I love rhubarb, it reminds me of wonderful times as a child at my Grandma's house. We would go with her and a tea cup full of sugar and pick a stalk of rhubarb. We would play house under a big weeping willow in the middle of her garden, all the while crunching on our rhubarb. I love rhubarb.

I told one of my friends, Halya, how excited I was about seeing the rhubarb, I am sure she thought I was a silly gal. She told me that she has some growing in her yard and would bring me a bunch tomorrow.

As we talked, she told me about how her husband has been dead for 20 years, her son loves to drink too much and how she is all alone.

I had prayed just this morning that God would show us how to go to the next level of friendship with her. I also had prayed that God would encourage me, I have been feeling down lately, kind of all alone here too.

Can God use rhubarb to encourage someone? Can He use rhubarb to inspire deeper conversation? Well, He is God after all and I will have to say a big, 'yes He can!'

I'll let you know what I make with it!!!

Beyond Pain

2009-05-17T09:57:00.000-07:00

Hey, back again already. Yep, it’s some sort of a record.

We have new neighbors. Out of our kitchen window we have a ring-side seat to a nest of crows. There are four chicks, if you can still call them chicks; they’re adolescents in crow-years already, judging by their size.

It was a while back that I saw a murder (that’s what a crow ‘flock’ is called, in case you didn’t know) of crows out of our bedroom window. There were so many crows that they literally blocked the sky. It was a black, undulating cloud.

As I watched them I began to wonder about the character of crows and about the account of Elijah. Remember? God used crows to bring him food as he hid in the desert. But are crows really generous? Would they, by nature, be inclined to bring to food to something other than their big-mouthed, red-mouthed, babies?
The answer is in the nest, I think. It’s made of everything they could find. Most prominent are the electrical wires and strips of metal that they couldn’t quite weave into the nest and so hang down and swing in the wind: feathered dumpster divers, that’s what these birds are.
Now, what I’ve done is to substitute ‘circumstance’ for ‘crow’ in the account of Elijah. What this then tells me is that God can use the circumstances of this world- circumstances that, by nature, have no inclination to work for me- God can use those very circumstances to provide for me.

It would be a massively disappointing application of this truth to say that this means mainly material provision. In fact hardly any of us are in material need, but what about the need for encouragement, love, patience? How about all of those other non-material needs? Those are the things that get me, that cause pain day in and out.
And so, out of all of this I have to conclude that while God can use circumstances to provide for me, he doesn’t always…Why…?

Well…I don’t know…But in this I AM confident: The circumstance that he could use to make my life easier, but doesn't, is itself a circumstance he’s using to make me better in all the other circumstances in which I find myself.

In this I find freedom from pain: His promise to complete the work he’s started in me includes his promise to use whatever difficulty I face for an eternally valuable result.
Oh, by the way, crows don’t carry food in their beaks, or talons; they’re regurgitators- trust me, I’ve been observing.
Poor Elijah? No, and in the eternal picture not ‘Poor Me’ either.

Long range

2009-05-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

Well, we're back.

I know, we said that two weeks ago in our last blog. To tell the whole truth I have to be in the mood to update the blog and we came back from our time in Russia needing a good un-wind before we got back to work. Finally, after some rest and a return to a schedule it feels like time to write again.

So, what's new...
We were back at the University again this week. It was good to see students and teachers that we know and it always feels good to be busy doing something measurable (numbers of hours and numbers of students) again. School is winding down for the year so our summer will be free-ish. The director is asking us to participate in an intensive program of English teaching so we'll see how that works out.
I got back to the sauna with the guys this week. Our Sunday afternoon sports times are done with the coming of summer heat so, needing some other way to keep contact with these guys, I suggested golf. (This idea came from meeting the golf pro, an American, at church on Sunday).
Today Sasha Mazarski, who owns two auto parts stores and has his afternoons free, went with me to the driving range. When I hit a couple 200+ yard drives I could see in his eyes a whole new level of respect for me, which might lend a little more credibilty to the things I say on other topics.
"We have to come back here with Yura", Sasha said. "Yes, let's do it!" was an easy reply from me. Yura is the guy who I originally met skiing and who invited me to the sauna the first time. The whole pile of guys I've met between sauna and Sunday sports have been a really decent, uh, pile. Even so Yura stands out for his ability to like and be likeable so I hope work will let him get away.

Well, that's it for this time. Thanks for continuing to look in even though we've let this whole blog thing go for so long.

The Road Home

2009-05-03T05:44:00.000-07:00

Our coupe on the train with our stuff!

Our colleagues Leo, Roni and girls.

Dinner with our good friends the Fedotovs.

And...we're back.

There's nothing like a long time away from home to make coming home sweet. But that said, we had a good time in Russia, first with our CMA colleagues and then with our Russian friends.
After our Field Forum, which was, as it always is, a good time to reconnect with our co-workers, we spent one night with the Fedotovs in their home (which is also their church building) in Slavyansk-on-Kuban. One night we stayed at the camp, where we put in so much ministry time during our years in Russia, and were able to also meet with some pastors that we worked with in Novorossisk.
We returned to Krasnodar to gather more of our household goods from storage. We also prepared the rest of our things for travel to our home here in Kiev! Yippee! soon we will have all of our things here with us! While in K-town, we visited our Brazilian colleagues, Leo and Roni. It was very good to spend some time catching up with them. Their daughters missed Uncle "Jelly" and Aunt Kim. We also had the privilege of staying with Jeff, Rebecca and daughters.
A good trip in all.

We returned to Kiev on a 23 hour train, feeling like the Beverly Hillbillies with all of our extra luggage. It was somewhat relaxing on the train, we played ROOK and drank cup o soups. The Ukrainian Customs officer hassled us about our things, telling us that we'd probably have to get off the train with all of our bags so that they could check everything...This is code for "Get out your wallet and make me an offer to go away". The key here is not to get uppity but to just wait them out. In the end he was satisfied to look through our suitcases, make a few jokes about us bringing things like extension cords to Ukraine, and then he let us go without gratituties.

As we drove to our door, we saw our friend Pasha standing outside. We got our things in our apartment and hurried out to see her.
As you know, we have been praying for her husband Ivan for many weeks now, and we were anxious to hear how he was doing. We were VERY happy to hear that he is out of the hospital and feeling better than he's felt in a long time. Pasha said she went to an orthodox church and paid for them to read a prayer for him. This is common in the Orthodox world with the topics of prayers and the prices listed at the door of many churches. Anyway, he's better, which is great.

And that's about it.
Thanks for reading along with us.

Road Trippin'

2009-04-19T06:51:00.001-07:00

It’s Spring-time again here, as where most of you are also. The apricot and cherry blossoms are on the trees, and though a late frost often kills most of them it is a hopeful sign that there will be a harvest.
Another way you can tell it’s Spring is that it’s time for our annual Russia Field forum, when all the missionaries get together to talk business and to hang out. For Kim and I forum ‘begins’ in 7 hours when we catch the 24-hour train to Krasnodar. From Krasnodar we go to Anapa where we’ll all meet for 5 days. After that we get to stay an extra 5 days to hang out with our Russian friends whom we haven’t seen since last June. We have several times planned when everyone is getting together so that we can see everyone at once.
THEN we are loading up a train ‘coupe’- which is a four-bed compartment- with some of our personal belongings that are still in storage in Krasnodar. We’re going to try to cross the border with a minimum of tips paid to the powers that be for the privilege. We could use your prayers for this to be smooth.
We’re sorry to be leaving for this amount of time, feeling as we do that we have so much to do and so many relationships here to keep up with. But in some ways our lives are about managing goodbyes. Going back to Krasnodar is a way to unsay some of those goodbyes for a few days. The fact is we’re far richer for having made all those relationships even if we have to say goodbye more often than seems fair.
So, for now we’ll be out of contact with the Sauna Guys, The Seller-Ladies, The U- with its students and teachers. In a little bit we’ll have to go upstairs and tell Galina and Enver goodbye face to face.
We’ll try to write more here in the next week or so from Russia. If not we’ll have stories when we return.

Cherry Pie

2009-04-10T11:27:00.001-07:00

Today is Saturday, the day before Easter and I find myself in the kitchen preparing food for tomorrow's Dinner. I have just put a cherry pie together and in the oven to bake. Tomorrow we celebrate our Savior's victory over death. Living here in Eastern Orthodox countries , we have the opportunity to celebrate Easter and Christmas twice. In the Eastern countries, Christmas is always celebrated on January 7th, and Easter, by the Orthodox calendar almost always falls on a date different than in the West. I like having 2 different days to remember each of these life changing days. This year we Westerners celebrate Easter on April 11; in the East, we will celebrate Easter again next week.

All week long, we have wanted to blog with good news about Ivan but we are still praying and waiting to hear a good report. We have learned that he has a rare blood type. But even so there is a law in Ukraine that says that as foreigners we can't donate blood. (Who knows what that's about?) So, we are still in the same spot as last week, all we can do is pray!

A few days ago, Ivan had a blood transfusion. The doctors are waiting to see how he responds. We don't understand what is wrong with him, would you please continue to pray for him? and for Pasha. Pray that the doctors have wisdom in their decisions as they care for Ivan.

We have been enjoying our time with Parker while he is home for Spring Break. He has come to several English classes with us. The students have enjoyed talking with a real American teenager and asking him questions.
Parker was in track until he came home. He told of continuing pain in his knee- continuing since last Spring. An MRI revealed a 'completely ruptured anterior cruciate ligament'. Yeoch! When Jerry escorts Parker back to BFA next week we hope that he will be able to get Parker into see a specialist to find out what to do next.
Parker's birthday is April 21st but we've been celebrating his birthday for several days. He will be 17!

The cherry pie is finished cooking, and smells like it will taste delicious as tomorrow's dessert. May you have a blessed Easter day as you remember how Jesus took our sin as His, was crucified and rose victorious over death so that we can be forgiven.

Hospital

2009-04-02T07:04:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
Thanks for tuning in.
Today our friend Pasha, whom you've seen in pictures in our apartment making sauerkraut, put her husband in the hospital. Ivan's condition has gone from bad to worse in the 6 months we've known Pasha. We've tried everything we know to be some help for him. The only thing left, it seems, is for blood donors to be found who can match his type. We've volunteered, of course, but we don't know if even that will help.
So, here's where you come in: if your reading this would you take 60 seconds to pray for Ivan? We really appreciate your participation with us here in our work and we are still trying to find ways 'in' in this culture and natural friendships are no-brainers.
So, thanks.
We'll keep you posted.

Jazz Singer

2009-03-31T11:51:00.000-07:00

For the last 2 months Jerry and I have been helping in English conversation classes at a nearby University. We go to talk with students, giving them the opportunity to speak with native English speakers. The students are such fun, each week we have the opportunity to talk and interact with them. We have met at least 150 students so far and 14 teachers.

This week, we are so happy that our son Parker has been able to join us in our classes.

Yesterday we were in a class and one of the students, Oleg, brought his harmonica to perform a jazz song he had written. (I have included a short video clip of his performance.)

Today the class we attended organized a "virtual tour" of some famous sites in Ukraine. They gave us a map of Ukraine and pointed out the location of sites and told us about famous Ukrainians who lived in those places.

This is such a wonderful opportunity and we are very thankful for the chance to meet so many people.

Fabulous Friday

2009-03-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

Fabulous Friday. Why? because that was the day I was supposed to make cinnamon buns at HBR, our son's dorm. After riding the bus home with all the guys, we mixed up the dough. I really didn't make the buns at all, I just sort of directed the making. Parker and the guys enjoyed an afternoon of baking. And then came the most important part...the eating of them...yeah, they were delicious! It was good to hang out with Parker and his dorm brothers, he is blessed with many great friends.

We are very thankful for God's goodness. We are so happy to have Parker home with us for Spring Break! I am hoping the time goes by very slowly!

REAL life

2009-03-17T21:59:00.000-07:00

Well, we're English teachers.
Only Kim always corrects me and says "We're not REALLY 'teachers.'" Well, no we're not.

All the same, the students (at least 80 that we've now not really taught) seem to like us and the REAL teachers and administrators are always expressing gratitude for our help.
They keep us pretty busy, about 10 class periods a week. It's a very enjoyable project and we keep acquiring new friends through the process, which is half the point.
Recently the U offered to hire us, though they promised the pay would be quite symbolic. We countered with our own offer: use the money you'd pay us to hire a REAL teacher of Ukrainian and give us lessons. They liked that idea and are working to find someone.

This thought brings me around to Pasha, the lady you've seen in pictures in this blog helping us make our first batch of Rundstrom Family sauerkraut. Coming home late from the sauna last night (seems I'm 'one of the guys' at sauna now) I saw Pasha on the street, packing up her wares on her cart to head home. She is our favorite teacher of Ukrainian because she insists on only speaking Russian-which she quaintly calls 'your' language-only if we don't understand what she's said in Ukrainian.
As we always do I inquired after the health of Ivan. "Unimportant", she answered which, being interpreted, means "Poor". Her eyes teared up, "We've been together 47 years and he isn't eating. He only wants a few bites and that's all. 47 years..." We pray often for Ivan, that some new medicine might help him, but so far there has been no miraculous answer. We know that in this life there are more important questions than just health, though.
Our work learning Ukrainian is about connecting better wth people like this.
You can imagine, though, how we already share Pasha's pain.

Well, that's it for this round. Hope all is good where you are.

Sauna have I loved but basketball have I hated

2009-03-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

It was the Big Sports Day this Sunday. But first, after church but before sports, we had guests from southern Ukraine. These were the pastor and one of the leaders from a church that we have a close relationship with. This church is located in Sevastopol (a city famous in history in both the Crimean War and WW2).

Anyway, it was a good time connecting with those guys. I don’t know how much influence my wife’s good cooking had on the mood but they expressed a desire to work together with us in Kiev…but how? If you follow our adventure here then you know we’re ‘hunting and pecking’ in our search for The Ministry that fits God’s call to us and our own gifts. So, when we have some live possibilities we’re happy about it. But desire on their part and ours answers one question and asks about 13 others. We’ll see what happens. We could use some wisdom here…

Those guests, Yura and Andrey, rode with me on the metro as they returned to the place they were staying and I went to meet Sasha, Ski Buddy Yura, and 4 new friends, for basketball. I guess I expected to be doing 360 slams and No-look, smooth-and-sweet-as-butter, touch-passes. It was actually more like “Yo, oxygen right here! And don’t be afraid to crank that valve wide open!”

Well, the spiritual lesson for today (it is Sunday after all) is that sometimes the things you think you’ll love, like sports day, you don’t love so much; the things you’d rather not - sauna - turn out to be the fun things. This is one way God teases us out of our shells of false security (I have mental picture of a hermit crab here) and encourages us to try new things.

So in all, another good day in the big city.

Sweat again

2009-03-13T10:11:00.000-07:00

First, Congratulations ski fans on Lindsey Vonn's (fomerly of Buck Hill, Minnesota) victory in the World Cup to make her the most successful US woman skier ever.

Now, to business.
Tuesday was sauna day again. (They say that back in the Old Days of Europe the Rus were the cleanest people around. This was all thanks to their love for the sauna, the purpose of which was to chase the bone-charring cold out of a person's very soul. The bonus was cleanliness.) I went, again, since it is the best, culturally relevant way to build relationships. The bonus is that it keeps my foot in the door for Sunday afternoon sports day (basketball and soccer) which I find much more interesting than sauna in terms of meeting new people.

So, the sauna is a small room, panelled in pine or cedar. Temps in a good sauna start at 212F. Yeah, I never thought it was possible to be in a room that hot and I'm sure you could make antelope jerky in 24 hours or less, but really is the minimum optimal temperature.

After a good sweat the beatings begin. This consists of a flogging with oak branches, which have been previously dried with their leaves on, (a few other types of foliage are also used). These are soaked in hot water and become soft again. The thrashing isn't all that painful except for the heat which becomes like a convection oven. After it's over your skin is red and even welted.
You're thinking "But 'Why do this?'"
"I don't have a clue", I answer, "it's just like the complicated grammar of the Russian language: nobody knows for sure why."

And then there's the cold water pool. After the heat gets to be too much you cool off in the pool. This is a pretty big 'pond' 10' x 10' and 6' deep. The water is somehow colder than ice water. I know this because there is a lake where we do the sauna. During one of our cool-offs we went to the lake and dipped in through a hole in the ice; the pool was colder.
In fact, it's so cold that you dont' want to get too far from the ladder because after 5 seconds your muscles stiffen so much you can barely get up the ladder. Really.

Well, there's some sauna stuff. I'm headed for basketball this Sunday so I hope to make some new connections there.

Flower Power

2009-03-08T00:42:00.000-08:00

Women's Day card

Mimosa sprig

Pasha's cabbage buns

Pasha's Cherry and cheese Ukrainian Pie

I want to wish all the women of the world a happy International Women’s Day! This holiday is not the same as our Mother’s Day in the States. The 8th of March is a holiday that honors ALL women, whether you are just a small girl, or you are one of the older gals on the block.
On Friday, I gathered a small gift for each of the women we know. I found special 8th of March cards and the traditional flower, a branch of Mimosa. Only 2 of our friends were outside selling their foodstuffs on Friday and so I brought them these little gifts. I was disappointed that Pasha wasn’t there. So, I waited…
She called us yesterday and explained that she had caught a cold and wasn’t going to be out selling her goods on Saturday either, BUT, that she had something that she wanted to give to me for the holiday. She asked if Jerry would meet her as she was sick and didn’t want to infect us. Jerry went to meet her, bringing her gift along. He returned with a bag of home baked cabbage buns and a Ukrainian Pie. How delicious!
We are going to our neighbor’s home later today to wish Galina a happy Women’s Day.

Today our family in Oregon is gathering for a big family dinner…missing those family dinners, grandparents, Aunt, Uncle, daughters, son-in-law…hope they will have a great time of being together, laughing together and the great food! Our son is on a school retreat, enjoying a break from studies, hanging out with friends and being challenged to live a deeper life in Christ!
Happy International Women’s Day, whatever you have going on in your lives!
~kim

Home and the Range

2009-03-05T11:01:00.000-08:00

I was just looking at our blog. Mostly I look for comments, but I also look for grammatical errors. I usually find less of the first than I'd hope-enough of the second to be embarasssed...sorry.

Anyway, looking at the picture of Pasha making sauerkraut I noticed the buildings that you can see through the window.
It's a CITY out there.

In the English classes kids ask about American life. One kid haltingly read the question he had prepared, "What life is like in America and how different it is from life in Ukraine?" Don't laugh; learning another language is really hard. Well, my answer was that life is so different in so many places that it's hard for a kid from Wyoming to know how his life was different from kids who grow up in a country's capital city.
And a few days ago, like many other days before, I found myself saying, "Thanks, God, for letting me live here." I don't really understand the dynamic that makes me love the wide open spaces of the western US and still love the pace and the hustle and the sometimes claustrophobic closeness of the Big City.
Except that there is a promise about Abundant Life that seems to explain it: life's richness doesn't have to depend on the circumstances that might appear to dictate how we live and the good life is more than the ideal neighborhood.

I'll be the first to admit that it doesn't always seem this easy, I guess today was one of those abundant days.

Until next time.

How to make sauerkraut, Ukrainian style

2009-03-04T11:21:00.000-08:00

Pasha showing Kim how to make kraut

kneading the salt into the cabbage

For weeks my friend Pasha has been patiently explaining how to make several different Ukrainian national dishes. We always buy Pasha’s homemade sauerkraut. It is absolutely delicious! Have you ever tried homemade? There isn’t any comparison to the kraut sold in a can.
Just yesterday Pasha offered to show me how to make kraut (in Ukrainian it is called kvashena kapusta). She told me, “All you need is 5 kilos of cabbage and salt….” Today, she reminded me that we were going to make kraut. So, I bought 2 large heads of cabbage and shredded them. Then as she promised Pasha came up to our apartment and showed me what to do next. I was so excited that she finally came to our place! We had informally invited her several times to our place, and now…success! She began by kneading a HEAPING tablespoon of salt into the cabbage and then the 3 of us, (yes, even Jerry helped…he’s wonderful!) packed it into a 3 liter jar. She said that the juice resulting from this process is very good for digestion. I couldn’t believe that we got all 10lbs of cabbage into the 3 liter jar.
Now we’ll need to let it stand on the counter for at least 48 hours. She said that we need to bring her some on Friday so that she can taste it to see if we are ready for the next step. We will see what that next step is.
I am so excited that our friendship with Pasha has developed to the point that she could come to our place. We look forward to the day when we can meet her husband Ivan. He is still sick. It is difficult to keep asking about his health, instead we just continue to pray for him. Pasha told me that he is feeling pretty down because of his health and the restrictions that it puts on him.

~kim

A Great Time At The Sauna

2009-03-03T21:15:00.000-08:00

A great time at the sauna? Yep, I know it's a surprise after yesterday's blog.

I took the subway to meet Yura (a contractor who is out of work) and Alexey, a dentist, and Sasha, a painter of murals in Orthodox churches, at the subway station on the edge of town. We drove from there to the 'resort zone' where the sauna was located. Before we got into the car Yura asked if I drink beer, "Uh, um, not so much" I said, not wanting to say "No".
"Well, you better get one right now", he said.
"It's ok, I have water".
"Oh, okay then" he said and he was really not offended and didn't think it was weird.
Actually Kim was helping me by praying that it wouldn't be a big deal since the sauna experience can often mean drinking. But these guys were cool.
On the 10 minute drive we talked skiing. It was nice, non-threatening.

We stripped down- you can forget bathing suits in a Russian Sauna (Ukrainians call the sauna experience a 'Russian Sauna'; in Russia it's just a sauna)- and went in to the sauna to find the temperature an unacceptable 158F. Yura quickly got them to crank up the heat and by the time of our last dip in the ice-water pool it was in the 200F range, which is still more of a temperature for women (that's what Russians and Ukrainians say, not me) but it was nice.

Well, we talked about a lot of things. I've never had such open conversations about the Bible, politics, religion in general, and of course, more skiing, than we had in the three hours there. It was a very nice time.

Ok, this is a lot. I need to go to a few meetings today and one of those will be early so it's time to scoot. This means I still owe a blog about what the sauna experience is like. I won't forget.

Yura and Sasha, (not the church painter but a guy who came a little later and owns two autoparts stores) begged me to go skiing with them this weekend in Western Ukraine. I'm begging off of this trip due to time constraints but the acutal cost is embarassingly cheap- all travel, lodging and ski passes for 3 days for $100. Lord willing, next season...? Anyway, remember these guys. I haven't had this kind of opportunity with unbelievers ever in Russia and these are some good-hearted guys who I'd like to see make life-changing decisions.

Until next time...

Sweat

2009-03-02T23:38:00.000-08:00

So, my ski buddy Yura finally called today, Tuesday, to make sure I was going to the sauna with him and his buddies this afternoon.
Whew! A better missionary than I would find it in himself to love the sauna experience...(I guess I'll write and describe it soon- The Russian Sauna is a cultural event that is unique.) There are plenty of things I do love about life in Eastern Europe- borsch, friendships, hot mustard, the whole "the clock works for us, we don't work for the clock" way of doing business...But for me the only reason to go to the sauna is because it is something you do with real friends and you deepen friendships while doing it.
Meeting people skiing was good but this is definitely taking acquaintance to a deeper level, culturally speaking. How could I say no?

So, while the sauna would not be my choice for getting to know new people, Yura did invite me and this was AFTER he asked me for some written statement of my Christian beliefs (which I had with me and gave him there on top of the slopes) so I'll be putting my towel, slippers, water bottles, toga, and some salty snacks in a bag and catching the subway out to a far side of town where the sauna dudes will meet me with their car.

Whew! again.

While I sweat Kim will be in class by herself at the U. She likes the whole english-thing a lot but would prefer to have me along. I guess today we both get to go beyond our comfort zones.
There is probably a good illustration for the whole 'going beyond the comfort zone' in here somewhere. Maybe we'll have miraculous news to report on the outcome of all of this.

Ok, thanks for reading and remembering us.
Jerry

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!!

2009-02-28T12:23:00.000-08:00

We were getting ready to go to bed at 10pm tonight, and we looked out the window...this is what we saw...How beautiful!!!

Inroads...

2009-02-28T04:14:00.000-08:00

HI,
We're back in Kiev and back to work. We've spent some time at the U lately helping students with their English. It's such a big job learning another language that it's no wonder that those people who can afford to hire a native speaker of the target language to be a nanny for their children.
For the students we're helping it's just another subject and I don't envy them, just as they probably don't envy us as we continue to trudge through Ukrainian. We could very much use your prayers for our ability and determination to keep up the pace. (Russian is still a very easy default settting so it's difficult to force yourself to say some small thing in Ukrainian that you understand, only to be answered in Ukrainian with words you don't understand.)
Also remember the students and teachers we have contact with. We want to be useful there.

Well, I guess a while back I said I'd talk about Ski Ministry. NOW, before you say, "Yeah, right!" let me tell you that Mount Kiev (ok, it's not a 'mount' exactly, but Bunny Hill Kiev just sounds unkind) is located about 10 minutes away by public transportation. 10 runs cost a whopping $3.65 by today's exchange rate. If you read the letter I wrote about meeting Taya, it was there on the slope that we met.
This week I rode the t-bar with Yura who invited me to go to the sauna with him and his three friends. He said he'd call this Monday to set up the place near a subway station to meet them as they drove there. In the attempt to make contact this is one that I happen to enjoy the most and also seems pretty effective since, once you get on the lift with someone, their pretty much forced to talk to you for the next 3 minutes that it takes to get up the hill.

So there's that. Thanks for reading. We're encouraged to see our 'hits-counter' keeping track of our readers and are glad you're reading along.

It was a good week

2009-02-22T23:42:00.000-08:00

We just got back from a trip to Moscow for meetings and for getting our Ukrainian Visas. As Jerry said earlier, we got our visas!!! That is great news.

It was an extra special time in Moscow because some of our team mates from our last 2 years were also in Moscow. We were able to spend time with the Mason family and the Hecock family. Although there were 10 of us in the guest flat, we had such fun with the kiddies and their parents. It has been a while since we have seen them and fellowshipped with them.

During the day Jerry was in meetings and I had fun helping cook meals for the leadership team. There is a saying…”many hands make light work”. I had a good time laughing and solving the world’s problems together with Lisa and Shelly.

Everyone got together one night to celebrate JB’s 30th birthday party. It was so good to get together with the Crouches, Merrills, Volstads, Diane, Eliel, Masons, and Hecocks and spend an evening enjoying one another’s company. Ok, we actually nearly cried several times from laughing so hard, that is good medicine for the soul, I needed that. I sat around and watched how the little ones ran around, playing with each other and it made me think of when our kids were the little ones running around with the others. It hasn’t been that many years ago and yet…it has…thank you God for our great kids and Your plan for our lives!

It was a good week, but, it is really good to be back home…sleeping in our own bed, talking with our kids on skype and seeing our new friends. Today we go to the University to begin a full week of English conversation classes. Please pray with us as we seek God’s direction in this new door opened to us. ~kim

Metropolitan

2009-02-22T10:19:00.000-08:00

Leninsky Prospect

The platform at Leninsky Prospect

The metro arriving

So, while we were in Moscow getting our Ukrainian visas, we traveled around the city.
We got up before the crack of dawn and made our way to the Metro. I love the metro (subway).
In the winter, it is warm and in the summer it is cool. And, there is always the smell. It isn’t a foul smell, it is like the smell in your Grandpa’s garage, somehow it brings warm feelings to me.
That morning we were able to get a seat right away, we got to the metro stop just as it opened for the day.

As we were riding, I looked around and noticed a man getting ready to get off at a station. He was extremely concerned with making sure his shoes were clean. A little later on I watched another man across from me actually get out a shoe polisher and polish his shoes.
As I was riding, I noticed the woman across from me. She had her eyes ‘closed’ and she was looking around, mostly at us. I noticed this, as I have used it myself on some occasions.
During the course of our ride, we came to the stop called “Leninsky Prospect”. It is a stop that is very familiar to me. 10 years ago we lived in Moscow and every day the kids and I rode the metro to their school at this very stop. As we sat there waiting for the passengers to board, many wonderful memories of that year flooded my mind.
I love the metro.

Thanks for reading

2009-02-18T06:49:00.000-08:00

Embassy in Moscow

Hi friends,
We recently put a counter on this blog to see if anyone actually reads it. Turns out there ARE people out there. Thanks for listening to us. We hope that your attention to what we're up to leads to greater prayers offered for the world of need that we are priveledged to serve in.

Quick update: We got to the Ukranian Embassy in Moscow at 7a.m. and were about 5th or 6th in line. We got through the whole process and were warming up in McDonald's by 11:00a.m. Kim will head back downtown tomorrow, while my meetings continue, to pick up the finished products. This will keep us in Kiev until this time next year and maybe even until we return to the US 1 1/2 years from now.

And just now Alexander from the U sent us a teaching schedule for the next three weeks. He's got it pretty packed, which we like, we only hope to do a job for them that leaves them all soooooo thankful and gains us some credibility.

So, anyway, there's a quick update of what we're doing. We'll keep you posted on the teaching we do next week.

Jerry

Air Transit-ion

2009-02-15T05:26:00.000-08:00

Hi,

It's Sunday afternoon and Kim and I are at Borisopol Airport, Kiev's hub, on our way to Moscow. We'll be there all week getting 1-year visas in order to live in Ukraine and also for meetings. We've been delayed by almost 4 hours by snow in Moscow but we planned extra time so no sweat.

7a.m. Monday morning I'll be in line at the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow for the 9a.m. opening time. I hope that I don't regret not arriving at 6a.m.

Before we left home today we had to go upstairs to say goodbye to our neighbors. When Enver saw us he was surprised, thinking we'd left yesterday, "I thought you left without saying 'goodbye'" he said smilingly, Whew! Glad we didn't skip that. We dropped off a copy of Purpose Driven Life in Russian for Galina for her to include with her Bible reading.

We will arrive home late Friday/early Saturday. We expect our friend Alexander, the director of the University language program where we help with English, to have a new schedule for us. We hope to have a lot of hours scheduled to be there since they give us really good Ukrainian practice.
Well, Kim is beside me and said, "Okay, don't make that too long", so I'll end here.
More later...

Pasha’s Tomatoes

2009-02-13T03:53:00.000-08:00

These are 3 liter jars of tomatoes that Pasha canned this past fall. All summer long she works in her garden in a little village outside of Kiev. She grows enough food for her and her husband to eat all year with enough leftover to sell during the winter to supplement their pension.
She also sells her own homemade sauerkraut. Have you ever tried freshly made sauerkraut? The cabbage is still crunchy and even if you are not a fan, you would like it.

Today Pasha took her husband, Ivan to the polyclinic. It has been an extremely time consuming process to just get an appointment with some specialists. Hopefully they will return with some answers. We have been praying for Ivan for more than a month. We have been praying for a miracle in his life, that he would experience God’s healing and know that it was God working in his life.