Hello everyone! Hope all of you are having a great weekend! Today is an important holiday celebrated all throughout Ukraine and the former Soviet Union, Women’s Day! We’ve been told that it is similar to Mother’s Day in the US, and it sure looks like it. We spent some time this morning and afternoon going around some of the shops in town and all the guys were backed up at the counters buying flowers, balloons, cards, and candy! Just like the US, huh? Since it is a holiday, we will not be meeting with the church tonight. They celebrate this day with their families and spend time “helping women celebrate being women.” That is what Valentine told us.
We have settled down into somewhat of a routine. We have been going out during the
afternoon to purchase various things we need and then meeting with the church at 5:30 for about a 90 minute study. On Thursday we did not go out to eat, we just ate a collection of slim-jims, crackers, Hershey Bars, and granola bars. We topped all that off with water! We had plans of trying the restaurant here in the hotel, but it had closed by the time we got back from our bible study. By Friday afternoon, we were ready for some real food and our translator, Vera, took us to a pizza place. I know what you’re thinking, but Pizza Hut this is not. In fact it was a seafood pizza place. We managed to order a pizza that didn’t have fresh fish or caviar on it. We thought it was going to be large enough for the two of us, but when we got it, it was like a calzone. We shared it and it hit the spot.
One of our biggest challenges thus far is getting acclimated to the time zone. We are not sleeping well...in fact sleeping in shifts. This is because when one of us sleeps, we snore so loud we keep the other one up. There have been several times I fell asleep and when I woke up I thought I had been asleep for hours. Kipp said, you’ve only been sleeping 15 minutes. This part of the trip has not been fun, but we’re hoping as the days go by that will change. (Next time, I’ll pack some of those breath-right strips that are supposed to lessen snoring.) We did feel like we had a breakthrough today though. We were able to sleep simultaneously for over 5 hours! Wow! Oh yeah, forgot to tell you we couldn’t go to sleep till around 4 AM. Today we are going to push ourselves and not give in to the urge to go to sleep until it is bedtime. Perhaps that will help us get adjusted.
We are looking forward to worship tomorrow. We are supposed to meet at 10 AM. It is my turn and later this afternoon I will decide what topic upon which I am going to speak. After worship, Valentine wants to take us on a tour of Mariupol. He said Mariupol is the “greatest industrial city in Ukraine.” It should be an enjoyable time for us and for him. I’ll be sure to take my camera and get some good pics.
One last thing, let me take a moment and brag on our translator, Vera. She has been our translator each time we’ve been here. She does an excellent job and we have a great deal of faith in her. She watches over us while we are out, and has helped us with buying necessities, dining out, and of course, helping us carry on conversations with the Christians. She was married last June and she and her husband are expecting their first child, which will be born this June. Since we do not know Russian, she has been instrumental in making these trips a success after we get here. She has yet to obey the gospel, and we pray for her decision on a regular basis. Will you pray for her?
Hope all of you have a great Saturday..and for those of you in Indiana...have fun playing in the snow!