A Day in Ukraine

Let me tell you what a typical day was like for me while I was in Ukraine.

Waking to a small alarm provided by my wonderful hostess, Holly Friesen, I would pull myself out of bed to the smell of delicious coffee.  Holly, a full-time missionary who is a trained nurse practitioner, made me feel so at home.  Our mutual love of coffee was an instant bond, I think.  Knowing a fresh cup of joe was available for me upon awaking fueled my morning routine. 

As I readied for the day, I would stop at a window to behold the breathtaking views of Odessa afforded by a tenth-floor apartment spot.  Relishing the foreign cityscape and unique sounds of the hubbub far below, I would eventually move to the kitchen where Holly would have a yummy breakfast prepared.  Fresh fruit purchased from nearby farmers' markets was a highlight as were scrumptious squares of homemade baked oatmeal.

We would linger at the table, sipping coffee and enjoying rich conversation.  Then, as the time for departing to a nearby village drew near, I would pull on my backpack full of craft supplies and grab the poster I had depicting Jesus feeding the five thousand.  Slinging my green purse over my shoulder on the way out, Holly and I would ride the elevator down the shaft, stroll past one of the old guard ladies at the apartment entrance, and sit down on a bench outside to wait for my ride. 

Shortly thereafter, a vehicle would pull up, usually driven by one of two Ukrainian men who were believers and who helped out with the ministry.  My dad, who was staying with another missionary couple (Bruce and Carol Bagley) would already be in the car as would Carol Bagley.  Carol, a seasoned missionary to Ukraine, came along to help me run Bible programs for the village children each afternoon. 

I would load my things into the car and say goodbye to Holly, whose nearly full-time task right now is to study the Russian language.  Then, we would take off, meandering through the streets of Odessa. Driving within inches of other cars and bold pedestrians who dared to cross the buzzing streets, the van would pull off here and there to pick up our remaining team: two translators and two pharmacy/lab assistants.  These women, all Ukrainians and all believers, were wonderful and helped to make the week incredibly fun.

After stopping at a church to pick up the materials for the traveling pharmacy, we would be off to the village destination of the day.  Some villages were about 40 minutes away from Odessa.  Some took over two hours to reach.  Some roads were nice and provided for a smooth ride.  Some were incredibly bumpy or were simple dirt tire tracks cut through a field.

Always eager for new experiences, I would feel excitement bubble within me as we pulled into a village at the beginning of the day.  Enchanting, colorful houses, livestock tethered by the side of the road, and man-made piles of hay dotted the sides of the street. When we reached the church or meeting center where the clinics would be held, we would unload from the van and be greeted by the sereneness of a country day.

Sometimes, when we arrived, the patients would already be lined up, ready to see Dad, the doctor for the day.  At a few of the locations, a little service would be held with these gathered patients where a pastor would give a testimony about the Lord and then pray.  At a couple of the clinics, my dad got to share some of his testimony (with his fun translator, Luba, by his side). 

After the ceremony, the pharmacy would be assembled and my dad and his translator would set up shop in whatever room was provided as the examining room.  Some rooms were better equipped for this task than others, but they all accomplished the said task: to minister to and share the love of Christ with the people of the village via medical care. 

During the morning hours, I would sit and chat with Carol and my translator Anna.  These times were precious.  I learned so much about the Ukrainian culture and the Russian language in these sessions while soaking up the scenes of the village.  A few times, I took walks in the village to explore the area and capture a few photos.

After lunch, which in of itself is a blog topic, Carol, Anna, and I would prepare to hold our Bible program for the children in the village who chose to come.  We would have anywhere from 10 to 30-some children come for these programs.  Singing, a Bible story, the Gospel message, a snack, a craft, and games were all included.  Interacting with these children was like a dream.  They were precious and sweet and funny and ornery and intuitive and creative and basically everything kids are.  In spite of the language difference, I was blessed by them each day.

Once the Bible program was over and my dad finished with all of the patients and home visits on his schedule, we would load back up, drive home, drop the pharmacy and folks off at their respective locations, and head for dinner at one of the missionary's homes.  We usually didn't eat until between 7 and 8.  By the time we finished dinner and found our way home, it was nearly time for bed. 

Now you are aquainted with a typical day for us while we were in Ukraine.  They were long days, but fun and rewarding days too.  They are days I won't soon forget.

"Ootka, Ootka, Goose!"

Early this morning, the bright green numbers of my alarm clock mockingly declared me a jet-lag victim: 4:44.  With an annoyed groan, I flipped over, pulled the covers tighter, and tried to shake the awakeness I felt.  I had gone to bed only five hours ago.  My body surely wasn't done resting. 

As I snuggled deeper under my sheets, I recalled the deep nap I had taken the afternoon before.  I had been reading when I suddenly felt an extreme exhaustion unusual for the late-afternoon hour.  As soon as I had given in and stretched out on my couch, I was ushered into a sound sleep.  Hmmm.  No wonder sleep was eluding me now.  After fifteen more minutes of feigned snoozing, I threw the covers off and marched into the living room, flipping lights on as I went.  Five hours of sleep it is.  I didn't want to waste any more time lying in my room.

Whatever jet lag I may be experiencing right now is a small price to pay for the rich opportunity I had to accompany my dad to Ukraine last week.  I feel blessed beyond measure by the people I met there, the beautiful countryside I saw, and the paradigm-shaking culture I encountered.  Enchanting, overwhelming, mystical, foreign, dark, profound, beautiful, convicting, eye-opening.  These are a few of the words that describe my view of that far-away land. 

Stories are plentiful.  Musings are varied.  Processing is needed.  Encounters are imprinted in my mind like selective loops, short and repetitive.  One such memory is an adorable village boy who attended one of our little day camps on the first day of the trip.  Unaware that I really couldn't understand the Russian he was prattling, he kept peering at me, wringing his hands, and crying, "Ootka, ootka, goose!"  Over and over.  Enchanted by his foreign tongue and amused by his enthusiasm, I smiled at him and eventually glanced at my translator.  "What's he saying?"

My translator chatted with him.  Within his explanation, he would occasionally repeat his chant, "Ootka, ootka, goose!"  Accompanying the chant was that wringing hand motion.  Turns out, he was begging me to play a form of "Duck, duck, goose" that he had recently learned at a Christian camp.  The wringing hand motion represented a wet rag that the player who was "it" would wring over the chosen "goose", dousing them in water under the warm Ukrainian sun. 

I laughed from deep within, so enthralled by the boy's excitement and further intrigued that "ootka" meant "duck" while "goose" was basically the same as our English "goose".  I wished so much I could burst from the few Russian phrases I knew to interact with the boy myself, but I could only hope that my laugh and smile communicated something of my heart to him. 

That's just one snapshot of my time in Ukraine.  Perhaps the most profound thing is how faith in Christ unites people of every culture.  Meeting those who knew the Lord there created an almost instant bond, even if our communication was limited.  That's amazing to me and speaks to the power of the Holy Spirit.

Jet lag will pass.  The impressions and experiences Ukraine afforded me will remain.  I pray that I will be faithful to learn the things God would have me to from my experience there.

The Wonder of Paris

I can still feel his hand grip my elbow in a grateful squeeze.  The sweet French man who waited on me for dinner.  I think we bonded after I stumbled over the few French words I could muster, pointed awkwardly at the menu to indicate what I'd like, and giggled relentlessly at how foolish I felt in my ill attempts to translate English thoughts into beautiful French sounds.  While perched on a petite sidewalk chair, I feasted on croque monsieur and reveled in storybook French atmosphere.  When it was time to leave, my friend and I laid our tips on the table and slipped between tightly-packed tables to the sidewalk.   The gentle waiter gripped my arm as we left and sang his French thanks, "Merci!"

I can still see the curly dark hair swirling round to crown his young and attentive French eyes.  The alluring boy-man who pointed out his favorite chocolates and named rich delicacies with his heavily-accented English.  Tucked away in a quaint, small Paris street, the sweets shop where he worked was impeccable and decorated in deep purple and black.  When I stepped inside, I clasped my hands and lavished words of praise and exclamation over the dainty chocolates and cookies that rested under the glass counter.  Each moment seemed enchanted as his life and mine intersected over the purchasing of Paris-landed chocolate. 

I can still see the lines crisscrossing up the marble mass, etching out the muscle details that artist Auguste Rodin meticulously crafted a century ago.  Sculpture after sculpture rested in frozen action, displaying a wide array of emotion.  Lifeless forms posed amidst beautiful greenery on the grounds outside as well as in spacious old rooms within the museum building.  How a slab of marble can move one's soul is a mystery.  I can almost feel the artist's breath, aired warm and heavy onto the masterpiece before me.  The breath that exhaled while the soul crafted intangible qualities into the tangible mass.  It reminds me of Creator God, the ultimate Artist, sculpting uniqueness out of dust.  It speaks to me.

I can still taste it.  Wonder.  The wonder I feel ooze through my being as I stroll the streets of a place so intoxicating, I can barely describe it to those who haven't been.  Am I too dramatic?  No.  Not really.  My mind reels to put into words what captures my heart when I am in the city of Paris, France.  When there, I feel entranced.  History seems to groan and stretch in that place.  I can almost touch it, taste it, see it, hear it.  I see stone that those hundreds of years before saw too.  I strain to experience their lives.  Human pain, fear, excitement, toil, joy, heartache, love, laughter, and every possible thought and feeling that we know today wrapped in the facade of a different era.  I want to know what it was like then.  I find times long ago tantalizingly close.  The past mingled with now. 

Is that why it is unspeakably rich to Wyoming-girl me?  To a kid who grew up in an area with hardly any old history tangibly intact?  I am really not sure.  What I do know is that I want to go back.  I can't seem to get enough.  I pray that Paris and I can once again greet each other and that I can walk her magical streets once again.

For Love of Touch

Sometimes, I wish our United States culture were a bit more touchy...in a good way.

While in El Salvador, I looked forward to the 4:00 hour each afternoon.  At that time, the Salvadorian students would be done with homework time and would appear on the grounds of the children's home, ripe and ready for fun.  Playing and interacting with them was as enchanting as it is with any energetic kid.  Yet, there was something uniquely rich about being with these Spanish-speaking sweethearts: they were unashamedly loving. 

I was perhaps most touched (no pun intended...seriously) by their constant hugs.  Without hesitation, arms would extend and wrap around me and in an instant, my heart would be warmed.  I hugged them back, but somehow I feel they gave more than I could repay.  Not as though love is quantifiable.  It's not. But if it were, and if I were a betting woman, I would bet a Starbucks or ten that I lost in the effort of love-giving while in El Salvador.  The sweet smiles and love and the pure interest they had in interacting with me enriched my life.

Love can be shown in so many ways, but I sometimes wish folks in the States were more affectionate with each other.  There is something about touch that communicates love in a way words cannot.  A hug, a pat on the back, a reassuring grip on the arm...these are all gestures that speak richer meaning than a well-spoken word.

I wonder if those children in El Salvador know how much it means for we Americans to receive love from them.  To me, it meant more than I can say.

We're All Broken

It's a blissfully sunny day here in Colorado.  As this week has progressed, I have found it a hard discipline to sit and reflect on the happenings of last week in El Salvador.  This particular struggle reminds me of a trip I took as a sophomore in college with my good friend Rebekah.  Over a long weekend, we traveled with a group of college students to the inner city of Chicago to be exposed to the grim realities of inner-city life. 

One night on the trip, Rebekah and I stayed up for some time, propped up in our sleeping bags, discussing the things we had experienced and hoping that the things that were gripping our consciences at that moment would not escape into oblivion when we returned to "normal" life.  Yet, when I was back on campus, flooded by all the demands of college life, it was hard to keep those images and needs and heart-wrenching feelings vivid.  I recall my frustration that my sense of urgency was fading.  I think this is normal, but I wish with my whole being it weren't.

I guess this is why journaling is so valuable.  Reviewing the thoughts that struck me about my recent trip will aid me in holding onto the things that impacted me most while I was there.  I pulled my journal out today and found a big topic that impressed me while in El Salvador: "We're All Broken."  These were my mother's words that she expressed during one of our team devotionals last week.

She spoke them during our debrief about the destitute community we had visited the day before. We were all batting around the ideas of poverty and riches and happiness and sadness and how all of those factors are correlated.  It's an age-old tension of thought.  How much does material and financial security contribute to happiness?  Though most people would say that material needs aren't necessary for true joy, there is still heartache and deprivation that is caused by poverty that those who are wealthy don't experience in the same way.  Yet, as is also common knowledge, some people who have extravagant material possessions are strikingly sad and full of despair. 

There is some sort of balance to be struck, but I think my mom's words were perfectly poignant: "We're all broken."  When gauging a measure of fulfillment, material possessions are truly a smaller factor than we often realize.  Of course there is sadness in poverty.  Of course there is emptiness in extreme wealth.  Yet, the bottom line is that we all live in a broken world that is constantly screaming in pain because of the unfair pendulum swing of life.  Rarely is that pendulum perfectly in the middle.  Every human in every situation feels a stinging consequence of some aspect of the tilted pendulum.  One man's sorrows are not another's, but we all face the brokenness of our human heart and the shrapnel of the world around us.

I am not at all downplaying the hardships that those in true poverty experience.  I understand that they need love, support, prayer, and help.  I am cognizant that there are people who live horrific lives that I cannot comprehend.  My point is simply that comparing sufferings perhaps ignores a more fundamental truth. On some level, we all feel the shards of a broken world tearing at our flesh.  The only relief from this pain is to turn to Christ.  He alone "heals the brokenhearted" (Psalm 147:3).  He alone can truly remedy the deep soul ache that every human in every circumstance faces.

It was hard to see deep poverty in El Salvador.  If I could, I would fix it someway, somehow.  I felt so fortunate in comparison to the people I saw in that poor community.  Yet, those people and I aren't so different.  We're all broken people in need of a compassionate Savior.  Perhaps solving worldwide poverty is impossible.  Maybe solving spiritual poverty is not.  It just takes one heart at a time turning toward Christ.  What a marvelous, comforting truth!  There is a balm for every broken heart.  Jesus Christ is His name.

Nothing Beats Experience

Two days ago, I strolled onto a big jet, tucked myself into my cozy little airline seat, and contemplated the days I had just experienced in El Salvador.  I pulled out my simple black journal in the hopes of capturing the abstract and scattered thoughts that were surfacing.  During the seven days I was in Central America, I struggled to really debrief with myself.  I felt caught up in the moments and found my day-to-day routine a bit surreal.  I think that's normal, but as I was given time to just sit during the flight back to the U.S., I was determined to pull some deeper thoughts into clearer view.  As I jotted down the aspects of the trip I wanted to focus on in the coming days, one of the phrases I penned was: "Nothing beats Experience."

How true this is.  As great as technology and story-telling can be and as compassionate and sympathetic as humans generally are, absolutely nothing can beat first-hand experience in its ability to instruct the heart.  My experience in El Salvador highlighted this truth to me yet again.  In my lifetime, I've seen a lot of pictures of children around the world who are not so fortunate.  I've heard many a story of them as well. 

Yet, for the first time, I was touched and loved by such children this last week.  I was up close to their stories and their personalities.  I watched tears stream down the face of a teenage boy during a prayer service.  I heard kids joke and laughed at their sharp wit.  I saw their passion for life.  I worked on my Spanish via their patient tutoring.  I received more hugs from them than I can count.  I found out what they like and what they don't.  I watched them play soccer and basketball.  I sang with them and heard their hauntingly pure voices.  I sat next to them and held them close.  These children are fortunate because they live in a safe and loving place where they are taught about the love of Christ.  Yet, most of them still suffer the heartache of a broken family and some of them have been through things I cannot imagine.  Suddenly, stories and pictures of hurting children were a crisp, 3D image that would not have been possible had I not interacted with such children myself.

So, in the coming days, I hope to process a few aspects of my time in El Salvador.  God has a lot to teach me.  No doubt, my experience in El Salvador will afford me the opportunity to learn more about His kingdom and His redemptive plan.  I don't want to miss such a rare gift.

All in a Year

My coffee pot is chirping and gurgling, preparing some delicious decaf coffee for me to sip on as I enjoy this summer evening.  Tonight and tomorrow, I will be busy readying myself for a trip I'm taking with most of my family to El Salvador.  We'll be working with a children's home there.  To state the obvious, I am excited, though I am sure I will be more so once I am completely packed and ready to board a big jet out of the country.

Today, I had time to reflect on what has happened in my life in one short year.  Remembering that I was home in Wyoming for one week at this time last year, I looked up a blog post I wrote last June and was immediately flooded with the emotions I felt surrounding that post.  Trust me when I say that they weren't the happiest of feelings.  Last summer was hard.  Very hard.  It was a summer of learning to trust Jesus when many things in my life seemed confusing.  Though I am thankful for what that time taught me, I am even more thankful that the Lord has healed my heart and has dramatically changed my circumstances for the better.  He did it in one quick and action-packed year.  Amazing.

So, as I stare into the horizon, I feel myself straining for a glimpse of the adventures coming my way.  No doubt there will be exhilarating, life-giving adventures as well as adventures that may throw me for an unwanted loop or two.  That's okay.  It's bound to happen, but there is no use dwelling on all the "what-could-happen"s.  What I do know for sure is better than any other knowledge I could gain---that I serve a Savior who will never let me fall.  I serve a Savior who is in the business of redeeming a fallen world and He has my ultimate good in mind.  Amazing.

Time to make some banana bread with the over-ripe bananas piled on my kitchen counter.  Over and out for now.