Back in October Katie and I were able to visit an elementary school close to our house and did a How American’s Celebrate Halloween presentation for the kids. We had a lot of fun, and the kids really enjoyed it. This last week we were invited back again to do a little presentation on Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day isn’t traditionally recognized by Ukraine, but it is becoming more and more popular every year.

Most of the kids remembered us from our visit and were very excited when we would walk into the classrooms. When the teacher asked if the kids remembered our names, they could only ever remember Katie’s. One little boy told Katie, “You make great cookies.” We introduced the kids to some Valentine’s Day vocabulary words and showed them a short slideshow. After that we had them make Valentine’s Day cards (complete with a Roses Are Red poem) and then we made little lollypop flowers.

We had a great day together, and we so enjoyed getting to know the kids from our neighborhood just a little bit better. It looks like we’ll be going back during the first week of March to do something for “International Women’s Day” that is celebrated over here. We also talked with the teacher about coming in to help the kids with their English maybe once a week or so, and she seemed to think that was a good idea. We hope to begin that soon.

And finally, here’s a short video showing some of the kids and the crafts.

Today seems like it should be a pretty big day for us. It’s a mile stone, for sure—an entire year—and it seems like I should be writing about how the time has flown by, and how I can’t believe it’s really been as long as it has.

Wednesday.

It feels like Wednesday. And it feels like I have a lot to do before this weekend and I’m not sure how it’s going to get done. I have to get my English class ready for Saturday. I have to keep moving on the articles for our next magazine. I’ve got Russian homework to finish before tomorrow afternoon, and before I can call it a day today I need to get our prayer update sent out.

Yep, it feels like Wednesday.

And I suppose that’s a wonderful testament to what it does in fact feel like to have been here here an entire year now: It feels like home. It feels like regular life. And it feels like we’re right where we we belong.

So to those of you who have helped make this happen, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. To those of you who lift us up with your constant prayers, emails, texts, paychecks, cards, phone calls, and packages, thank you. You’ve been the team we’ve needed, and we absolutely love you for that.

Here’s to another amazing year together. And here’s to Thursday, another day full of so much potential!

At the airport in Tulsa last January 31st, beginning our journey here.

A couple weeks ago my teammate David and I were doing some Old Testament study together and discovered something we had always thought was true, but was actually one of those kind-of truths that got oversimplified in Bible class, but was never corrected as we got older. The two of us were surprised to come to this realization, and so I thought it’d be interesting to share with you here.

So with that, let me ask you a question:

Which part of Israel wasn’t allowed to enter the Promised Land?

Now your typical, kid-raised-in-the-church answer would be “All those who were 20 years old and older, besides Joshua and Caleb.” And, if you were into citing verses, you’d probably cite this one from Numbers 14:28-30

Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the LORD, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.

Seems pretty black and white, doesn’t it? It’s right there: “…all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward…”

Yeah. But.

But what about that little phrase “listed in the census”?

Turns out, what’s being referenced isn’t simply a census of every citizen of Israel. According to Numbers 1:1–4, and also verses 44–46, the purpose of this census was to count and register the number of men who were “able to go to war.” The men were counted for military service and were registered to pay taxes to fund the tabernacle. The text repeats the phrase “who are able to go to war” so much that it makes it obvious that we are only talking about men, and we are only talking about men who could fight.

Right away we’re seeing that it couldn’t have been everyone twenty years old and older that were restricted access to the Promised Land since the referenced census only included able-bodied men. This implies that women along with handicapped and elderly men were excluded from this part of the punishment and were allowed to enter.
So what other exceptions were there?

Numbers 1:47–50 points out that the whole tribe of Levi was also allowed to enter as their job revolved solely around the tabernacle. And the fact that the Levites were allowed to enter would explain three other exceptions we don’t talk about: Moses, Aaron, and Eleazor. Even though Moses and Aaron both eventually missed their opportunity to enter, when God said “every male 20 and older except Caleb and Joshua” Moses was still under the assumption that he would be going as well. Why? Because he was a Levite, and all Levites entered Canaan. This also explains why we see Eleazor the priest at an apparently over-twenty age before the Promised Land, and still a player in the text after they enter. He was a Levite. He was an exception.

Though all this might seem like a fairly trivial piece of information, it’s really made me think about the scope of God’s punishment and how it actually had a big impact on everyone. Usually when we talk about this, we point out how all of those twenty and over were guilty of grumbling and not trusting God. However, when we see that only a certain number of a particular group were condemned to die in the desert, we understand that there were actually different punishments for everyone. Some were condemned to die, others were condemned to lose those loved ones. Israel was forced to lose its mature army and, along with it, the heads of households of thousands of families. Even the children—those who were innocent of their parents’ sins—were still forced to wander the desert for forty years. God punished the whole nation, but everyone paid a different price.

This clarification on a number in the Old Testament certainly isn’t faith-shaking, but I do find it extremely interesting. It’s fascinating to me how the information has been right there this whole time, but all my life I just scanned over the words which laid out the details pretty clearly. We just never stop learning. And I love that.

Most of the time.

Hey I just got a phone call from a representative of a company who is trying to do a professional advertisement. They need someone to play the part of a foreign CEO or business manager for their ad. The shoot will only take one hour, next Wednesday the 25th at 3pm. They will even pay you $50 for your time.

Apparently this Kharkov-based company had found David’s number online from one of our English events. They gave him a call and offered him the part, but since he had plans he couldn’t change he gave them my number and forwarded the rest of us the email. Though it’s illegal for us to earn money with the visas we have, I went ahead and called to find out more information just to see what this whole thing was about.

The lady told me they were shooting a video testimony to put on their business’ website which specializes in search engine optimization. I would come in and play the part of a foreign CEO by reading some dialogue about how happy I was that I chose to go with this company.

Uh huh. I asked her if I could call her back in a few minutes.

I told Katie and we both laughed at how ridiculous this was. They were going to pay me to give a fake testimony about how great they’re service was. The lady on the phone even gave me their website so I could go and see that they were for real. For real? Paying someone to lie about how “real” you are? Classy.

The irony of all of this was how this lady had no idea who she was asking to do this. Even though I’m sure no one would ever be the wiser, paying a missionary to pose as a successful CEO and give a fake testimony for a search engine optimization site is just too funny. I called her back a few minutes later and officially declined the role. “Why? Are you scared?” she asked. I told her I didn’t feel good about it what it was, to which she replied that it wasn’t a big deal. Apparently she thought my credibility was on sale for fifty bucks.

And you know, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened either. Not too long after we arrived to Kharkov we were sitting in a newly-opened Mexican food restaurant. The waitress walked up an asked if we’d like to be in their print ad that was shooting at the bar. All we needed to do was wear sombreros and sit at the bar pretending to enjoy ourselves. We politely declined and enjoyed laughing about the prospect of actually having done it.

The crowds gathered around a natural spring that people visit year-round for free drinking water. In the last year or two, the park surrounding this spring has been entirely re-landscaped.

An orthodox church overlooks this area. We were on these stairs taking pictures when the priest was coming down splashing everyone with holy water.

Hundreds and hundreds of people come on this day to fill jugs of water with holy water. On the morning of the nineteenth a priest blesses the spring and for twelve hours the water is considered to have extra spiritual qualities that can heal both the body and the spirit. People keep this water all year and use it in small quantities to help them throughout the year.

There were many other traditional plants and grains people brought with them to the site. There were plenty of vendors available selling them if you didn’t have them yourself. Though I’m not sure of the symbolism, people bring these things to be blessed on this special day.

Here’s Katie with two of the AIM students on the left, and Abigail on the right. Abigail is a missionary from Saint Petersburg who has been staying with us while she waits for her visa renewal to be processed.

This holiday is probably most widely known for the baptisms in icy cold water. Participants dunk themselves three times in the freezing water to symbolically wash their sins away from the past year and to experience a sense of spiritual rebirth. Think of it like when couples renew their wedding vows.

The weather and the water are very cold. Paramedics are nearby in case of an emergency.

The picture below is definitely my favorite from the morning. They may look wimpy, but what they’re doing is most certainly not.

Age is not a factor when it comes to who participates. Both the young and the elderly submit themselves to the cold.

Culturally, bathing in cold water has long been considered a way to shock your body into health. The idea behind it is that you stimulate your body to working over time to protect you from sickness.

Though we might not agree with their beliefs, the amount of faith they have to do what they do is impressive. It made the think about how in the states we have temperature-controlled baptistries, and how we sometimes focus too much on the comfort of the believer. Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox churches don’t have pews either; you stand for the entire service.

Is controlled water temperature a Right vs. Wrong issue? I don’t think so. But I am challenged to ask myself the question, In what ways do I show others around me that I am dead serious about my faith?

I want the kind of faith that moves mountains. And climbs them.

The group that celebrated New Year's in our home.

A week into 2012 and I’d say things are going pretty well.

We had a wonderful time celebrating New Year’s in our home with 21 other people. We enjoyed lots of games, lots of food, sparklers, and several of us spent three and a half hours trying to put a 1,000 piece puzzle together. We gave up at 5am and most everyone was asleep by 5:30.

This last week has been refreshing. Not only are we enjoying the hopes and expectations that come with a brand new year, it has also been the first normal week we’ve had since, um, forever. First it was traveling, then it was holiday guests and holiday schedules. But starting this week—at least for a little while—extra things seemed to have slowed down and we’ll get to focus our minds on actually being here.

Before the new year, Katie baked some sweets for our neighbors again, and we went around and said hello to those we had already met and introduced ourselves to those we hadn’t. We were invited in for tea to three of our neighbors’ apartments, and enjoyed getting to know them all a bit more. It was a lot of fun, and made living here feel even that much more like home.

Also, we used the collection from our combined assembly last month to buy Christmas gifts for the kids at the children’s home for the disabled, and yesterday a few of us went out there to deliver them. Due to sicknesses, we weren’t able to spend time with the kids, but we got to talk with the staff and are excited to know the kids will be enjoying their gifts.

Olya, Katie, and Vlad after we delivered the toys to the children's home.

This next week we’ll have a missionary from St. Petersburg staying with us while her visa is being processed in Kiev, and then the week after that the Hindmans finally return, which we are thrilled about.

So that’s a little bit about what’s been going on with us. We hope to return this blog to its regularly scheduled updates starting…now!

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to officiate the wedding for the kid formerly known as “Little Sasha.” He’s has long since outgrown that description, but to a select few of us he’ll probably never quite get rid of the name. Because not only were we a part of his life, he was a part of ours, and the impact he left on us represents so much more than he will ever understand.

The church ceremony was at 10am that Saturday morning. I stumbled through my first wedding ceremony (juggling a bit of Russian throughout) and was excited to pronounce them husband and wife to the congregation full of so many beautiful familiar faces. After the ceremony the auditorium was transformed into the reception hall and we enjoyed good food, fellowship, and a few games. (Katie and I were called up to compete against some other couples to see which wife could tie a better tie for their husbands. Katie can do a whole lot of things, but she can’t tie a tie. As the timer got close to zero she just went for a big bow and somehow gained the voting audience’s pity and stole the prize from the other deserving contestants.)

After the reception Sasha and Nastya had to go get legally married. Here in Ukraine the official wedding ceremony has to happen in a Justice of the Peace kind of setting. Typically, friends and family go down to a big hall downtown to attend this ceremony, but since Sasha and Nastya wanted the church ceremony to be the big deal, they chose to do this part in a little branch office nearby. So, around thirty of us tried cramming into a little office space to listen to the speech the officiator was giving there. After twenty minutes, we were done and out of there.

The day concluded with a smaller group of us following the bride and groom around town as they took their pictures. It’s tradition here for the couple to travel with the wedding party around town to take their pictures at popular monuments, fountains, and statues. I wasn’t the photographer that day, but I did manage to get a few pictures throughout the celebrating.

It was a long day, but it was a beautiful one, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how amazing it is that God brought me here and how amazing it is that I’ve been able to keep coming back. I was just so thankful God again saw fit to bless me beyond my expectations by allowing me to not only be there, but to take part.

And finally, here’s a 12-minute video below featuring clips from throughout the day.

For example, religious working visas no longer exist. To live here now we must apply for a temporary residency visa, which on the surface sounded much better than it actually turned out to be. Because of this new change, all temporary residency applications are given only a 45-day visa to be in the country. Within that time period we must register ourselves in the country and, theoretically, we will be able to live here for much longer than the month and a half our visas give. This is what they’re telling us, but we have yet to see the timeframe these new visas produce, though we have reason to believe we will only be able to stay one year at a time (which happens to be the same setup we have now, except before we didn’t have to register and the visas were cheaper).

Because the holiday season is coming up and our 45-day period falls uncomfortably around several business holidays, we have been advised to go to Donetsk and register this week. As in, leave on the train tonight. As in, leave the day after we got home.

So we’ll be spending the next couple of days filling out paper work in Donetsk. Then, after that, we’ll have about a month or so before we need to go back down there and pick it up (unless we can find someone traveling to Kharkov to bring it for us). Dealing with these new changes is frustrating because everyone seems to have a different understanding of what is going on. And, no matter how hard you try to do things the right way, you’re pretty much at the mercy of the knowledge of whichever passport control officer you get when leaving or entering the country (and these guys are often not up to speed). And of course, laws like this frequently change here so everything we’re doing now could end up being void a few months from now.

I’m pretty mentally drained from all the traveling we’ve done over the last month, and I’ve begun to feel pretty disconnected from things going on here in Kharkov. I am looking forward to getting back into a daily routine and to getting back to our regular work here. Almost there.

Almost there.

As you might recall, Katie and I were traveling to Germany to renew our Ukrainian visas, and to attend an annual retreat for European missionaries. After our ten-day adventure, we thought there was just too much to cover in one post. So enjoy this short recap and, if you’re so inclined, follow the links to read more about the separate events and to check out some pictures from the trip.

The first day of the trip was absolutely terrible. One thing after another went wrong all day long. At the end of that day we decided that this trip was unfortunately not going to be able to include renewing our visas. Read about that ugly, terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day here.

After that day, Katie and I spent some very enjoyable days in the city of Frankfurt, both before and after the retreat. You can read about some of the things we did (and check out some pictures), here.

We were also extremely blessed to spend four days in the beautiful city of Rothenberg. We attended the annual Euro Family Retreat and had a wonderful time meeting missionaries from all over Europe. You can read about our time in Rothenberg (and check out pictures) here.

And if you’re interested, below is a five-minute video with some random clips from our time in Germany.

Thanks, everybody!