We Took These Pics Today

Nadia's favorite thing about Ukraine is pizza (we usually get it every Friday before Young Couple's Group).
Timmy's favorite is having a house with a balcony where he can see ships: barges, cruise ships, tug boats, sail boats, motor boats and paddle boats. Timmy lost his first tooth last week.
Anna enjoys pizza and having her toys back. She can't wait to lose her first tooth.
Polly likes stairs in our house: she conquered them within our first week here. She does NOT like mosquitos, which seem to like her a lot.

Cleaning out the Sewer Pit

This past week I had the joy of helping with the cleaning out of our sewer pit. The house that we rent is not connected to the central sewer system so we have a sewer pit. It is actually a decent size pit, and this was the first time we had to clean it out in over four weeks of living here. It looks like a hole in the ground with cemented walls and floor, and a manhole cover on top. When you open the lid, you see dirty water. The previous week one of our neighbors had his cleaned out and I grumbled because the smell lingered for a couple of days and some spills ran down towards our house. Not that I was surprised, but in the cleaning out of our pit, I found that our waste stinks, too. It is an interesting process as a guy in a truck comes and pumps out the tanks. (We actually have two tanks and the guy only pumped out the "cleaner", overflow pit.) In order to make sure you get everything, you have to stir the pit with the suction hose. It took two truckloads to empty the pit and because he was busy that was all he could do. We will have to deal with nastier pit next time.

Not to over-spiritualize this but I was thinking about how much better I sometimes think I am than others. I was reminded in a sermon by Martyn Lloyd-Jones how this is the antithesis of the Gosepl. "I am the least of the saints", Paul writes in Ephesians and Lloyd-Jones said Paul is thinking of his past and how it is only by the grace of God that he is in Christ and now a minister of the Gospel. It was what I needed to read as it sometimes is very difficult not to think that I am better and somehow deserve things and favor from God. The pit reminded me that my effort and works are bigger than a stench to God when done outside of faith. Even my best efforts, are full of rotten, wicked sin. I am no better and I am saved by grace, called to be a minister of the Gospel by His grace and kept in him by His grace. Yes, my waste stinks just like everyone else but thanks be to God who "separates us from our sins as far as the east is from the west."

Pictures: (top) our sewer pits; (middle) the view of our street, with our house on the right; notice an open sewer at the bottom right corner (we do not know its origin); (bottom) the view of our street from the opposite side.

We Are Back!

Dear Friends,



After four long weeks of no internet, we have it again!!! It's been a long road... We will list events chronologically to give you a good glimpse of the last month.



May 15, 2007 -- We signed the lease on a house here in Kherson.

May 16, 2007 -- Heat wave strikes. We had three weeks of temperatures hovering between 95 and 100F. Our new house gets a lot of breeze, and we did fine. Julia was the only one who was a little warm: she had forgotten to pack shorts for herself, so she stuck it out wearing jeans. A couple of more fun facts about heat: (1) no A/C on the public transportation; (2) no A/C in the church or any other buildings.

May 17, 2007 -- We moved to our new house (and lost internet, as the cable stayed in the old apartment). The house has a double boiler for heat and water. However, the landlady took user's manual. Jamie tries to turn the hot water on, then leaves to finish up things at the old apartment. When he comes back, he finds our basement filled with 2 inches of water. Everything was fine, but we had to bucket the water out.

May 18, 2007 -- The landlady comes to finish up some things and is not happy about the flood.

May 19, 2007 -- The landlady comes again with an electrician to fix some lights and outlets. Half of them stopped working later than night.

May 20, 2007 -- Jamie preached at a church plant in Tsuryupinsk, a village across the river. Our teammate, Melinda Wallace, and our family went there for worship. The trip to Tsuryupinsk was an adventure: we first had to take a bus to get to the bus station, and then take a inter-city bus to take us to the town. It took us close to 2 hours to get there. We had a very encouraging time with our brothers and sisters there. Jamie served communion, too.

May 21, 2007 -- The search for a new Internet provider begins. Since business is usually done in person here (and in cash), Jamie and a couple of guys from church spent several days in 100F weather going to different internet providers all over town.

May 22, 2007 -- The landlady comes again to water some vegetables she had planted prior to renting the place. Julia gently asks her to respect our privacy and not to come so often. The landlady seems very surprized and upset by our request. As it turns out, she is planning on coming twice a week to water her vegetables and tie up some loose ends left after home remodeling.

May 23, 2007 -- The search for internet continues.

May 25, 2007 -- Search for a water filter begins. Tap water in our new house is undrinkable: when you wash dishes, it leaves white film. It tastes salty, too. We tried a couple of places (we took a bus with a transfer to one store and walked to the other) and settled on the store close to our house. We are getting excited about not having to buy and carry drinking water home.

May 26, 2007 -- Landlady comes again, and again we ask her to not come so often. She blows up and says some angry words. The Holy Spirit helps Julia keep her cool, hug the landlady and tell her that she is like a mother to us, but we would like to live in peace. The disarmed landlady says she will call her daughter (who is the actual owner of the house) and ask her.

May 27, 2007 -- Jamie preaches at Trinity Reformed Presbyterian Church in Kherson.

May 29, 2007 -- Water filter installed! The guy spent 2 hours working hard for $10 (installation fee), and now most space under our sink is taken by filters, pump and storage tank.

May 31, 2007 -- Julia and the landlady go to the DSL place to sign a contract (telephones here are in landlords' names, so it needs to be authorized). We are told the installer will come at the end of next week.

June 1, 2007 -- Jamie calls the moving company about our container. He is told that no, they did not know when it would clear customs, and they would let us know when they do (i.e. we should stop bothering them).

June 3, 2007 -- We had a young man from church over for dinner. He was a great encouragement to us: he is very serious about his faith, he wants to marry a Godly lady, and he is active in sharing his faith with his family and friends.

June 5, 2007 -- Search for a washing machine begins. The one that is in the house has only extra-small capacity. Every washer in Europe is front-loading. This particular one takes 3.5 kg of dry clothes. That's about 1 pair of jeans, a couple of T-shirts and some underwear. All that takes about 2 hours to wash in 11 gallons of water per cycle (washing and rinsing). If you want our opinion, this little water does not do the job. In addition, the washer is so small that the jeans do not have room to properly flop around. The largest capacity washer found here is 7 kg. We just need to find stores that have them and narrow down on one. Easy task, if there were Yellow Pages. Just call the store and ask your question. Well, since phone books have not been sighted in the last few years, it's footwork again. More buses on a hot day. Julia started a comparison chart with how much water the washer takes per cycle (more IS better

June 7, 2007 -- Julia calls the DSL place to check up with them. She is told that the installers will be here next Monday. At the ladies' group that night, we fervently pray for the container to arrive. When Julia comes home, Jamie tells her that it would be coming the next morning! Praise the Lord for such an obvious answer to prayer!

June 8, 2007 -- Our container arrives! It was on our street at 10:40 am, and since the street near our house is too narrow for the truck to back up to, it parked uphill. Six workers came to move our stuff into our house. First they unloaded the truck and piled all our belongings onto the street, which allowed the truck to leave. Then the movers started carrying our boxes and furniture down our street and up the stairs into our house. They did not have any wheeled carts. Everything was carried on their backs or in their hands. They probably had to walk 30 yards from the piles to our house. We had about 200 items. They did it in 2 1/2 hours. They hauled the wrapping paper away, showered (?!) and left. It's been three months to the day since we had our stuff packed. It's great to have our things back. Melinda, thank you for watching our kids!! We begin unpacking our boxes. Later that night we went out for pizza before heading to Young Couples' group.

June 9, 2007 -- Unpacking continues. Kids are happy to have their toys back.

June 10, 2007 -- A wonderful church service: the church welcomed a new member, and a couple had their baby baptized.

June 11, 2007 -- Internet installers come and do most of the work, however, the signal is not sent from the station yet. It will be done tomorrow. We are instructed to call in the office when we see a light on the modem. We hurry up and wait again.

June 12, 2007 -- While Jamie is at his Russian class, Julia spends at least an hour trying to call the internet office and tell them that the light is on. Noone answers. When she finally gets through, she is given another phone number to call. The story repeats itself. Eventually the installer called us and came over and got our internet running. Hooray! It only took us 3 weeks since we started looking!



Not mentioned in the chronicles are our weekly committments: Jamie's Russian lessons four times a week, weekly session meetings, Friday Night Young Couples' Group, bi-weekly MTW team meetings, Julia's Ladies' Bible study, and our mentorship meetings.