On Monday Katie and I were very excited to celebrate seven years of marriage. It’s amazing that a full seven years have passed since our wedding day. God has certainly taken us on quite an adventure, and we look forward to seeing where the next seven years will lead us.

In honor of our anniversary, we decided to travel to a little city a couple of hours outside of Kharkov that we had been hearing about for a while. The town is called Svyatogorsk and is a popular tourist spot for two reasons: beautiful mountains and a Russian Orthodox cave monastery, or lavra. Orthodox people travel from all over Ukraine to visit the catacombs that have been carved through the chalk mountains. There is also a very famous cathedral there. The town of Svyatogorsk is home to around 5,000 residents today.

Katie and I stayed at a nice hotel outside of town and had to walk forty minutes to arrive to the lavra. It wasn’t close, but the weather was great and the area is absolutely beautiful. The picture below is the cathedral which was built on top of the chalk catacombs. We were able to take a candlelit tour of these caves on our last day in the city. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures, so I don’t have any to share. We did walk past those windows you can see in the picture.

We also hiked to the statue you can see below. The monument is dedicated to a famous Soviet revolutionary and political figure of the late 1800′s. Initially we took the wrong path to get to the statue. Then we ended up on a road we were sure didn’t head the right way. However, after finding a little souvenir and snacks market along the way, we were informed that the statue was in fact just ahead of us. You can get a feel for just how big this guy was by looking at the people standing behind him.

The picture below is taken at the base of the statue itself. You can see the lavra behind us along the river. The furthest point is where the catacombs are. Through the forest are a few roads that wind around and lead you to each end.

While we were wandering, we discovered the “All Saints” monastery you see below. According to what we’ve read, some of the monks felt that the daily ministry at the lavra took too much time away from their spiritual life. So, this all-wood monastery was built at the top of the mountain about a mile away. Here, monks spend most of their time in solitude. The monastery itself is only open four times a year to outside visitors.

Here is a picture of a group of old ladies (and one lonely granddaughter, it appears) who were being given a tour by an orthodox priest.

The land surrounding the monastery was absolutely beautiful. Orthodox women have a strict dress code while visiting holy places. They are required to cover their heads and wear skirts below their knees. Also, no tank-tops allowed. Shoulders must be covered. This tradition is often quite funny since girls often do not come ready for their visit. They will simply wrap a scarf around their jeans and tie another one around their head. (I saw one girl who was dressed quite inappropriately as far as these Orthodox standards are concerned. However her head, shoulders, and chest were technically covered by her very translucent veil, so she was okay.)

On our last day at the lavra we also got to watch an outdoor ceremony along the river. Interesting fact: Orthodox church buildings do not have pews. You must stand for the entire service.

While we were waiting for our tour through the caves, we took a walk around town. Since we were there on Victory Day, we were able to see a special presentation for the veterans at the town square. It’s certainly interesting comparing the scale of this celebration in Kharkov with the size of this celebration in a tiny town like Svyatogorsk.

And here’s one last view of the whole lavra from right across the river.

Our two and a half days in Svyatogorsk were wonderful and we are so glad we went. In addition to our sight-seeing, Katie and I enjoyed the swimming pool at our hotel, along with some ping pong, and a couple special dinners. It was a great trip, and a great reminder of how blessed we are in our marriage. It was also great reminder to us of what it is we are doing here, and who it is we are trying to reach with the truth of the gospel.

Every Friday Katie and I visit an elementary school near our house and teach English to two third grade classes. We’ve been doing this regularly for a month now and we have enjoyed getting to know the kids.

Next Wednesday, May 9th, is Victory Day in the former Soviet Union. As I mentioned last year, this is the day that Ukraine celebrates Nazi Germany’s surrender to the Soviet Union in World War II. Today, after our English classes with the kids, we were invited to join a special celebration honoring those who served during that time.

The kids were all decked out with little touches of military flair. Many of the classes competed in a marching contest and they all made special presentations to the military officials who were present. The whole thing was very cute, and it was even more fun knowing so many of the kids who participated.

When Katie and I had arrived earlier in the morning and were walking to the classroom, we saw a group on the other side of the yard practicing their presentation. We heard one of the kids say, “Brandon and Katie are here!” and then they all turned and waved to us wearing their little side caps. It was special.

We’ve started seeing the kids around the neighborhood too and it’s always fun to say hello. This last Sunday two girls came up to say hello while we were at the market. It’s fun building this relationship with the kids, and we’re so thankful we’ve had the opportunity to teach them English once a week. We really enjoy meeting new people in our area, and we’re hoping we get to meet a lot of new people this summer.

If you haven’t noticed, we greet people a lot in English. We say “Hi,” “Hey,” or “Hello” much more frequently than is deemed appropriate in Russian. In Russian, it’s strange to greet someone more than once in a given day. Let me explain.

For example, you might arrive to my house for a party and I’d greet you at the door. Then, twenty minutes later, I’d find you in the crowd, walk up and say, “Hey, so how’s it going?” Hey two times in one setting. Not weird at all.

Or, you might call me on the phone and I would of course answer with “Hello.” And if something happened and I needed to hang up and call you right back, you would answer the phone with “Hello” or “Hey” or “Hi” even though we had just spoken.

Or, let’s say you came over for a visit in the morning. I would answer the door and of course say hello. Then if you came again later in the afternoon, I would answer the door again and say hello again. There’s no sin in the repetition. All of these repetitive Hello’s are completely normal for an English speaker. But for Russian speaker, not normal.

In Russian, you are allowed only one hello in a day.

Because I speak English this way, I also speak Russian this way. However, a double hello here will make the greeted person awkwardly smile and then clarify, “We’ve already said hello.” In fact, when Ukrainian men are greeting each other, they usually shake each person’s hand in a room and say hello. However, if they’ve already seen you (like at the door when the arrived), they’ll skip you and say, “We’ve already greeted each other.”

You get one hello, and that’s it. One hello or it’s weird. Or funny. Which is what it was to our friend Ina last night when I called her right back on the phone. When she picked up and I said, “Hi” she just laughed at me. This seems weird to us, but I actually think I’ve figured it out:

The way I see it, in English a greeting says, “I have acknowledge you in this moment.” However in Russian it means “I’ve acknowledged you today.”

Well, kind of.

You see, you can actual greet someone twice within one day. However, only Russian speakers have this innate sense of when enough time has passed to warrant another greeting. If enough time has passed between contact in a given day, you might get to say it again. However, even after inquiring Russian speakers about how long is long enough, they can’t tell me. No one knows for sure. They just feel it.

I try to remember this rule, but saying hello more than once is so ingrained it’s hard to break. Sometimes I remember, most of the time I don’t. I’m trying, though. And I hope that somehow, someday, I too will acquire this sense of knowing how much time is enough time.

Maybe.

I also absolutely love our neighborhood. I’ve mentioned before how blessed Katie and I feel to have found the apartment that we did. And since spring has sprung, I’ve been more aware and thankful for that even more. Within a ten minute’s walk from our house, we have three small grocery stores, a large outdoor market, and two supermarkets. We live within ten minutes from two different metro stops and two major bus lines. If you leave our building and walk to the left, you’ll eventually happen upon a lovely park that surrounds a natural spring. If you walk right, you’ll find yourself walking through a forest and, if you walk far enough, you almost can’t hear the traffic from the road. Even though Kharkov is a bigger city than we’d prefer to live in, our neighborhood has all the feel of a small city.

Our apartment building is also situated in such a perfect location. Most apartment buildings in Ukraine are built in clusters, so when you look outside you can see your neighbors’ windows across the yard. However we are not surrounded by buildings on either side. Instead, we have trees. Lots of trees on both sides of our building. It feels like we live in a tree house because once the trees are in bloom, we can hardly see anything else.

This is the view looking out the front of our building from our living room window.

Looking out the kitchen window

On the opposite side of our house, looking out of our bedroom window

God has blessed us in our lives here. Before we ever moved here we prayed we would be able to find an apartment big enough to host events and house visitors. We prayed we would find a neighborhood to live in that would make this big city feel smaller. God absolutely delivered and we never want to take that for granted.

I have always loved to write. I am mesmerized by the power of the written word, and I love trying to harness that power to move and motivate those around me. Unfortunately, though, I don’t write as much as I would like. I dream about writing, but I don’t do it nearly as much as I do in my dreams.

I recently stumbled upon the blog GoinsWriter.com by Jeff Goins. It’s a fantastic blog about writing well and it is filled with very valuable and inspiring information for the aspiring writer. Before we go any further—and only if this is your thing—I highly recommend that you follow his blog, sign up for his weekly newsletter and download his free, 1000-word ebook. You’ll enjoy it. I promise.

Recently I was given an advance copy of his brand new book You Are A Writer. After reading it, there are two words I would use to describe this book: inspirational and instructional. And I don’t know about you, but I need both.

Jeff calls to the artist hiding inside and motivates him to action. He talks about how people aren’t born to write, they simply must choose to write. He reminds us of the adage “real artists ship” and plainly points out that dreaming about writing is not the same thing as writing. He shares from his own journey when and how he decided to get serious about becoming a writer. He shares stories and thoughts that make you want to get out there and do it too. It’s an important call to action.

But whenever someone calls us to action, we’re left to ponder another question: How do I do that?

The second part of the book deals with specifics. Jeff spends a great amount of time talking about building a platform and establishing your brand — two things every creative must have to achieve their writing dreams in today’s world. (He rightly acknowledges these are not easy to obtain, but that everyone can obtain them.) For those who are interested in starting their first book, Jeff lays out a checklist of things to do first so as not to get ahead of yourself. This checklist helps you align your expectations and helps you become a better writer along the way.

If writing is your passion or your dream, pick up a copy of this book for inspiration and instruction on how to take the next steps. It’s a quick read, but it is packed with solid information.

Jeff has launched a special site dedicated to selling this book, and you can visit that site at www.youareawriter.com. Or, you can quickly download a copy right to your Kindle straight from Amazon by clicking here.

This is what a typical package slip will look like in our mailbox. It's usually printed (or handwritten) on whatever scrap paper they had available.

Last week Katie and I were quite surprised to receive three care packages in the mail from people back in the states. Getting packages is a not a very common event, so getting three in a week was like Christmas in April.

The only package we knew would be arriving was from Katie’s mom. She sent us some great holiday supplies, as well as some Easter candy and a few other goodies (including Kashi’s Cinnamon Harvest which we’ve missed). The next day we received a box from our dear friends Glenn and Amy in Lockney, Texas who sent some of Katie’s favorite chai tea mix along with some journals, and they sent me a box of drill bits and a level. Then the very next day we received a box from our friend Anne in Seattle who had knitted Katie and I some gifts and sent Katie a new knitting pattern.

Getting care packages while living outside of the states is special for two reasons. First, it’s a great way to get little things that you can’t get here (or the things you can get aren’t nearly asgood of quality). Receiving a box with some of our favorite foods and ingredients we can’t buy here and supplies for holiday celebrations and quality drill bits and a new package of socks are all things that improve our day to day life in small ways that we greatly appreciate.

The second reason getting a care package from the states is so wonderful is because it makes us feel remembered, it makes us feel loved. Regardless of the contents, knowing that friends and family back home took the time and spent the money to put together a package for us reminds us that we’re loved and that just because we’re out of sight does not mean we’re out of mind. And feeling like that makes whatever is inside that little box amazing.

So to all those who have sent care packages and cards over our last year here, thank you so very much. Thanks for taking that time out of your day and putting a little bit of extra sunshine in ours.

David called me last night and told me he was getting together with a chess player today our friend Valeriy had met recently. Now, to be clear, I’m not much of a chess player whatsoever. (In fact, I’m pretty sure the last time I played chess was when I was eighteen and the fifth grader who had just honestly beat me told me I didn’t have to go easy on him.) However, meeting someone new sounded like fun so I agreed to join him.

Turns out, we were playing chess with this guy. His name is Alexander Moiseenko. He’s a Ukrainian chess Grandmaster and he is currently ranked 43rd in the world.

The best part was that Valeriy had told Alexander that David was “good at chess.” David plays chess, yes, but he’s not like 44th in the entire world or anything. So, he stomped David, then wiped out an LST worker who’s here for a couple weeks, and then he proceeded to destroy me. After those mercy killings, he actually taught us a few concepts and strategies which was pretty interesting. One method was actually how to survive as long as possible if you’re positive you’re not going to win anyway. A honorable death, if you will.

I couldn’t repeat much back to you that he taught us today (there was something about occupying the middle and “developing your pieces”), but it was very cool meeting him. We all enjoyed getting to know him and learning about his unique life. He plays chess full time. He travels the world five months out of the year and gets paid just to show to whatever tournament he’s in. An average game lasts about fifty moves or, in layman’s terms, is around five or six hours.

David offered for us to get together again sometime, at which point he explained to us how much traveling he does. I’m sure the idea of playing chess with mere mortals isn’t too appealing to him. Chess or no chess, one thing’s for sure: he needs a better picture for his Wikipedia page. Maybe I can help him with that.

Yesterday we were blessed to witness another baptism in Kharkov. Victoria, a longtime friend of the team here, chose to become a child of God and begin her new life walking in the light.

Katie and I have met Victoria multiple times, but we do not know her very well. We do know that she has had some tough times over the last few years and the rest of the team has had off-and-on contact with her throughout this journey. Hopefully, now that she has made this wonderful decision, we will get to to know her more and more as we grow together as Christian brothers and sisters.

Say a prayer of thanksgiving for Victoria today, and pray for her as she begins her new life in Christ!

We had a great turn out, with a total of 41 people attending both the egg hunt for the kids and our worship services. The kids enjoyed a great Bible class, and the adults were blessed by David’s sermon on the resurrection. What was strange, though, was that aside from the American missionaries, we only had two of our Ukrainian Christians join us. This was both sad (we missed our brothers and sisters) and encouraging (41 without our regulars is pretty impressive).

God blessed our day and we are so thankful for those we were able to share it with.

One of the first pieces of advice I got when I arrived to Ukraine for the first time almost ten years ago was to expect everything to take at least twice as long as you think it should. These words of wisdom have come back to me time and time again over the years. Yesterday was a perfect example of what I mean.

Yesterday morning I had plans to meet Jordan, one of the AIM students who is working with us right now. She needed to buy train tickets for her family’s arrival on May 28th and I agreed to help her. We arrived to the office and were pleasantly surprised to see that there was only one person ahead of us in line.

When we got to the window, I laid out our plans. Three tickets, May 28th, on this certain train to Kiev. She told us that train was full but that we could take the express train which arrived earlier. We agreed. She asked us if we wanted “economy class” or “middle class.” We decided, then she recapped: “Okay, you want to go to Kiev on April 28th…” I interrupted her and clarified that we wanted to go on May 28th.

“May 28th? You can’t buy tickets this early for that date!”
“Really?”
“Yes. You need to come in closer to the date.”
“Okay, when can we come in?”
“Monday.” (We were there on a Thursday.)
“Can we come in Tuesday? Will you be open then?”
“Yes, you can come in Tuesday. You can even come in on Saturday if you want.”
“Saturday?”
“Yes.”
“But not today?”
“Not today.”

Our trip to the train ticket office was complete, but we walked away with nothing.

Up next was visiting four elementary schools near where the AIM students live to see if there was any volunteer help they could get involved with like what Katie and I are doing with the school near us.

The first school said they didn’t have any English-based classes and so there was nothing we could do. When we walked into the second school the security guard asked us what we needed. When we explained we wanted to talk with the principal about helping with the English students, he said the principal was out.

“When is he coming back?”
“We don’t know”
“When should we come back?”
“Later.”
“Later as in an hour from now, or later as in tomorrow?”
“Just later. We don’t know when he’ll be in.”
“Okay.”

Two down, two to go.

The third school was more promising, but still led to nothing. A quirky old man dressed in a security guard costume greeted us at the door. When we told him what we wanted he used what little English he knew on us and then got us in touch with the right people. We were lead to the principal’s office and had a very short meeting. We explained what we wanted to do and they said that it was too close to the end of the school year to begin anything, but to come back at the end of summer.

At the last school two administrators came out to meet us. They gave us the same answer about the end of the school year approaching, but said we might be able to help out with a two-week camp they’ll be doing at their building in June. They told us when to come again but said we need to bring our paperwork to show who exactly we are and what we’re doing in Ukraine. This is usually not a good sign because when groups find out we are religious workers, they turn down our offer for help whether we are trying to do “religious” things or not.

It was almost noon and we had seen no tangible results for the work we had set out to do. No train tickets, no volunteer opportunities. It’s times like these it’s easy to feel frustrated when the realization sets in that you didn’t actually accomplish anything. It’s not that you don’t understand your time wasn’t wasted, it’s just the feeling that when someone asks what I did with my day, I won’t have anything to show for it. “Oh you went and bought train tickets?” Well, no.

Things in Ukraine take twice as long to get done. Not all the time, but a lot of the time. What was supposed to be one trip to the ticketing office will now be two. What was supposed to be one visit to each of the schools to find out information about volunteering will now be at least two visits per school, spread about between “later” and the first day of school next fall.

Even in the faster-paced city of Kharkov, things still move slower than most Americans are accustomed to. As long as I can remember that before I set my expectations (as I did yesterday), it’s easy to go with the flow and laugh at the speed bumps along the way. It’s only when I forget this 2 to 1 law that things can get a little discouraging.