Train Video

I will admit I am a little embarrassed with this video that Anika made, but I just feel like people need to see a glimpse into how our lives really are... You will see how crazy we started to go. I mean, I referenced the zombie apocalypse. My inner nerd definitely came out.. Oh and my crazy hair.. How am I still single when I look that good ;) It was definitely a day we will all remember.

This is just stupid...

"This is stupid"
If only we could have counted in the past 2 days how many times we said this phrase... It was normally followed by laughter at how ridiculous our situation was.
What should have been a quick, good trip to Kiev turned into 23 hours stuck on a train. We were supposed to stay the night at some friend's house in a village outside of Kiev then the next day go into Kiev see our friend and have a meeting. We had heard that the weather was going to continue to get bad but we thought with taking a train we would be okay. Honestly, we all had bad feelings about going but didn't listen to our instincts. Our train left at 4:37am and we should have gotten into Kiev around 10am. At about 9:30 the train stopped and we were only 10 minutes or so from our stop. We kept waiting to start going but an hour passed, then two and we were still sitting there. Sash and I were in one car and Anika and Chel were about 10 cars down. After about 5 hours of sitting, they made the trek of coming down to us. Most of the people in our car already go off to try and walk to the nearest Metro stop. The train guy working in our car told us that the train was going to head back to Sumy when it got started. We asked him if we could just stay on it and make the trek back. He said he would work it out for us. Luckily, we had already kind of made friends with him which was definitely for our benefit...

After 8 hours of sitting there the train finally started moving. What should have taken 10 minutes to get to the next stop probably took us about an hour. The train would start and go about 100 yards then stop. We finally make it into Kiev and were starting to worry about whether or not we could stay on the train because we didn't have tickets. We knew the train guy said we could pay him for the tickets but people just kept piling and piling on. We were praying hard core for seats. God totally blessed us with there being 4 seats. We then proceeded to make the trip back to Sumy. That also took way longer than it should have. We finally pulled into Sumy around 3:30am. We get off the train and it is still snowing like crazy. There are no buses running at that hour so we have to fight with all the other people to get a taxi. We couldn't even get one to take us all the way home because our roads are really bad going to our apartment and no taxi driver wanted to drive there.  It seems that it was a day of waiting.

I try to not hate anything but oh man do I not love Kiev... It has never been kind to us and this did not help my love for that darn city. It is the end of March and in the last 2 days it has snowed about 2 feet. I am so ready for the sunshine. Be excited for the video giving a glimpse into the crazy day we had yesterday that will soon follow...

The start to our trip... Little did we know..

The crazy is starting to take over us.

This is our we hate Kiev faces.

Our one time outside, venturing to get some water and snacks since we didn't have any. You can't see it but when we got away from the train the snow was past our knees.

Our snacks

We looked over and saw that this was a train transporting prisoners. Sash remember being on one like this and was telling us how awful it is. We took some time and prayed for all the prisoners that were there.

Thankful that Chels had some Starbuck's Vias with her.

We had finally made it back home.

My newest Ukrainian niece

I have a little brother here in Ukraine. In terms of blood we are not related, but by all that means anything he is very much my little brother. About 9 months ago or so, he was sitting in our apartment and just blurted out that he had gotten his girlfriend pregnant. You can imagine my shock. Well, there has been a lot of things that have happened from then to now. They are no longer together and really hadn't had any contact other than her briefly contacting me. This always weighed heavy on my heart as I so wanted this little baby to have a mother and a father. I was afraid that Yura was going to make a decision of not being in the baby's life. I know he would regret that his whole life.

I had the most incredible opportunity to meet his baby girl. I had never met the mother(who is 17) but we had been in contact a little when she was dating him. She then contacted me again when she knew she was pregnant and he wanted out. I had some things I wanted to send her some clothes and diapers. Just to help out since I knew he wasn't. But then she contacted me and asked me if I wanted to come to the baptism. I was in shock... I said I would and Anika, Chels, Sash, and I made the 2 hour bus ride. I was seriously so glad we did. I instantly fell in love with Sasha, my newest little Ukrainian niece. She was just perfect. I am of course biased :) But she really was. I had no idea what would come out of this situation but I hoped and prayed it would end with Sasha having a mother and father who love her.

 After this I prayed so much that Yura's heart would change and he would find the courage to be the amazing dad I know he can be. Just a few days after meeting his daughter I was talking to him about the situation and not feeling like I was getting anywhere. I felt discouraged. So you can imagine my shock when the next day I see he has posted pictures of his daughter and has been in contact with the mother. That was on Wednesday and on Saturday through a strange turn of events, the mother and baby came and stayed with us in Sumy. It was so amazing to be apart of Yura meeting his daughter and absolutely falling in love with her. He would not put her down the entire time they were here.  After they went back home Yura would not stop talking about his little girl or looking at her pictures. I know this is a sticky situation but I am going to keep praying that this little girl has a mom and dad who are both apart of her life.

At her baptism, that is why I am wearing a scarf on my head :)

It's all about the money, money, money...

Something I have learned here in Ukraine is that you are never too old for piggy banks :) Sash has been saving his money and for his bday in October, Sasha Tretyakov gave him a piggy bank. It is old school where you have to break it to open it. It was a fun family night of breaking the bank then counting the money.

A rapper in the making

For those of you who don't know me well(why am I kidding myself, there are only like 4 people who read this and probably 3 of those are family members). Well, I grew up in what some would call the ghetto... I went through a ghetto phase myself and even tried talking ebonics. My poor mother... I did grow out of it :) But it made it all the more fun when Boiko, whose rapper name is Boy Boy S Toboy, decided to he wanted to rap.

I so often write about serious things but we do have a lot of fun here too. I thought I would show our crazy side. This was taken right after getting home from our True Love Retreat so we are all a little loopy from being tired. Oh and the song Boiko is rapping, he wrote. It makes it that much cooler.

True Love Retreat Video

It is time to start doing videos again. This one is what some of the kids thought of our True Love Retreat. Hope you enjoy :)