The Rains Came Down and the Floods Came Up

Well. The world continues to turn. And although I haven't continued to blog as frequently as I'd like, I continue to want to blog...

I've been back from Ukraine for two weeks today. Dwelling on the adjustments only confuses me, so I won't. But I like being back, and I'm excited for the future as I look into courses at Kilgore Community College and think about options for work.

Today Ethan and I started reading lessons. He already knows some, but with the topsy-turviness of Mom working, he hasn't practiced in a while. So we worked on sounds for a bit. He's so serious that his subtle humor takes me off guard. It creeps into his eyes under the long lashes when I'm in the middle of an explanation, and then I look up and find him cracking some joke. Which takes me off guard, because I'm being serious too. And then I remember that silliness is a greatly underestimated part of education. Not constant silliness, but a healthy sprinkling to loosen things up a bit.

He wanted to go and build things in the creek. After a year in the Crowe household, the lack of boy around here is absolutely alarming. What? Only one? You need two at least, preferably five...

I am a sad substitute for a boy, but only Ethan and I were home, so we went to the creek to build things.

Since I've been home it's done almost nothing but rain. When I left Ukraine it had been raining, and Dad told me to bring some with me, because they hadn't had rain in weeks. As soon as I arrived home, storm clouds began to gather and within two hours there was a shower. Then we went to Glen Rose, TX for the weekend, where they hadn't had good rain for a month. It rained two days. Incidentally, the evening we got home, it stormed violently at our house again. Dad said he should send me on a world tour :)

Well, yesterday and the night before we had five or six inches. Afterwards, it was so humid out that our windows fogged up. Naturally, the ground couldn't hold it, so our lowland lot became a wetland lot, with an island of sagging vegetable garden and an island of house. The creek, which normally runs at only a few inches, was flooding its ten foot banks for a few hours.

This left a nice scene to be explored this afternoon, and some pleasantly squirchy mud to be tested by feet. The water has gone back to almost normal.

(and here I wanted to insert a few pictures I took, but alas...)

One is of Ethan beside the water with the yellow sun on his tanned back mingled with shade, and the coffee-and-milk creek flowing by. Another is of the two of us, and he is making a face. And the last was of the miniature (3 inch high) hut I made out of reeds woven together. We were the proverbial (parablial???) man who "built his house apon the sand," and Ethan spent as much time repairing his house as he spent building it. He dug his out of the shifty bank. By the time we finished we had had three leaf boat races and a million mosquito bites.

In Which I Lose the Rest of my Dignity and Arrive Home Happy

Well, I'm back. No, I'm not threatening anybody :)

I can't believe only a week ago I was in the air probably over an ocean, wishing I could sleep but probably reading Flowers for Algernon instead. (I picked that book up at the airport...it was really interesting, but I would be very cautious in recommending it.)

I have to relate one last Ukraine incident. I suppose I was bound to close my time there in style...my style...

After hugging the sending off crew goodbye (Deb, some of the kids, and Simeon & Asia, who were going shopping with Deb) I got through checking in just fine and got my boarding pass, then sat down in the lounge area to wait, staring for a while at the wavy lines in the roof design and the blue ones of the walls with names of cities painted on.

I discovered that I was suddenly very hungry, so I went over to the little cafe type place across the room. I saw kefir there and, thinking "When am I going to get kefir again?" I decided to get one. In Rzhishchiv it would have only cost fifty cents or so, but this one was four "stinking" dollars and I was a little affronted to find that I had not only been grossly overcharged by also badly ripped off with a bad exchange rate. But I figured that breakfast is breakfast, and I would rather have a four dollar Kefir than a four dollar anything else. So I was a sucker and bought it.

I returned to my seat, as usual trying to act more graceful and composed than I really am, and as usual, not succeeding. I tried to pull off the tab that sealed my kefir, but instead of peeling back, it broke off. Result: sealed kefir, no tab. Unwilling to sacrifice four dollars to a kefir never to be drunk, I pried it open with my fingernails with some trouble. It opened with a sudden burst, spraying kefir onto my face and down my shirt! Dignity...composure...grace...

Well, I managed to clean it up and drink my kefir from the awkwardly designed bottle before boarding the plane. What better way to exit the country? I told myself.

I settled onto the plane, relished the lift off, and spent the next half hour nursing a surprise nosebleed that shattered the rest of my dignity. So I gave up on dignity and composure for the rest of the trip and had a great time, happily joking with the Gatwick checking people, who shocked me by being very nice to me, and laughing almost out loud at the ogreman who yelled at me and everyone else throught the line at JFK. Somebody was having a bad day, but it wasn't going to be me!

I arrived home after a long and sleepless journey, and delighted in the hugs and raptures of my family members. We spent a night in Dallas, then came home for a day or two, then went away again to Glen Rose, TX for a few days.

And now we are home, and I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff with blankness before me. All the nicely formulated plans I had back in Ukraine now seem to fade to mere ideas and wishes, and at least for the moment I feel the need to look down at the ground to steady myself, because looking out THERE is making me dizzy. We only get one day at a time anyway. God is good to keep me trusting Him.

More Later...

A Raw Sort of Love

This morning was my "last" church service with my folks here. I am leaving on Wednesday.

If I've learned anything about God this year, it's that He's a faithful provider. He gave me this family that I love and belong in. He'll make a home for me everywhere I go no matter who I am with.

All week I was sensing that something was going on behind my back, especially when Masha begged me not to go away on Thursday night, because I had planned to visit Nadia at a camp in nearby Baliko Shuchenka.

So I stayed home and Nadia came for supper and then we went over to my house for Thursday night prayer meeting. I already knew something was up, but I didn't know what. I came into the living room, which was rather fuller than usual, to be greeted by a lot of goofy looks, and balloons and something behind the semi-see through guest room door, which Masha was diligently guarding.

Then Cheryl asked me to go get my Bible, so I went to open my door, and Bam! The door flew open and out flooded a dozen or more people! I screamed and then started laughing and we had a hugging assembly line because they could only get out my narrow bedroom door in single file.

I was a little shocked to see most of the church there (about 30 people,) because, having rather limited ideas about parties, I had imagined a small quiet get together. And then this. I was so blessed and I felt blanketed in love. I just have these awesome sneaky friends! I tend to be uncomfortable in groups, but this was a very good kind of uncomfortable, a raw sort of love, one that we could all share. The Body of Christ is precious and I feel so privileged to be a part of it. I love it that even when I wasn't a very sociable person, people loved me into the family anyway.

The only thing that saved me from crying was the fact that I was laughing almost the whole time. They said a lot of really nice things, and there were poems and a song, and we prayed, and they Cheryl and Deb served up banana splits. Ruth said they were talking like it was my funeral, but I didn't mind. Yeah, what's with all the past tense, anyway??

So I am very happy, and very at peace. It's like what Simeon said in his message this morning at church, that we are like sheep, and sheep need the shepherd to take care of certain things for them so that they can relax, like protecting them, finding food for them, making space for them, etc. They get really nervous and freaked out about just about anything. But they know the shepherd so well that just his presence on the scene is enough to calm them.

And I guess that's what I felt this morning as I sat in the upstairs of the Gollan's house with these friends, listening to Simeon talk about the Good Shepherd. God's comforting hand soothing me, completely resting me.

My Weird Dream

Last night I had a very weird and detailed dream.

In it, Masha and I woke up very early and we drove Gaven’s mo-ped to the bus station. I discovered that it is nearly impossible to be ladylike while riding a moped in a skirt. When we got there, we met Gaven and took a bus to Bila Tserkva, where Masha used to live. We went shopping and I found souvenirs for my family and Gaven picked out shoes for Masha that she liked and she bought them. (Weird or what?)

The next thing that happened was that we were in a pizzeria and ate you guessed it, pizza…and then the lights turned off in the toilet while I was there and I was left in the dark.

After that we went to a park where Masha and Gaven went on a spinning-round-and-round-kind-of-ride, but I didn’t do it because just watching it made me feel sick. So instead I took pictures of them, and of the colorful zinnias along the fence. They got off and my nose started to bleed, so I had to sit on a bench with my head cocked back, waiting for it to stop and trying to clean up with Kleenex and water.

I said that it was like a weird dream, and they said that maybe it really was.

When the “leak” as Gaven put it, had stopped, we rode a decrepit ferris wheel that was slow enough that I didn’t get sick but had plenty of time to think about the distance between me and the ground. I was scared silly but it was a nice view.

After that park we went for a walk in a foresty park and saw pelicans and lions and statues we didn’t want to look at, and I ate a hazelnut snickers. Masha hit Gaven a lot with a bottle and I laughed a lot. We were so hot and tired and happy that we dozed on the way home in the marshrutka. And that was that.

Actually, it wasn’t a dream at all. It was all real…except that the lions and pelicans were not real, they were statues. And it was a very nice day.

St. Sophia's

Here are actual pictures of St. Sophia's cathedral. I didn't take very good ones because I was so embarressed at being caught "touristing."

This picture was taken from the other side, right above the entrance.

This Road DOES Lead to Kiev...I Think...

I am so enjoying the Texas team being here. We have the three girls/ladies staying with us. The team is here for a business seminar and has also been getting acquainted with the area, so I've joined them on a few sightseeing ventures. It's perfect timing, considering I hadn't so much as visited the tomato farm in my year here, and it's only a 15 minute drive from here.

Yesterday we went to Kiev. Although the original plan was to ride in by Marshrutka, we ended up having to take the rental van with the heroic Mr. Art Bradshaw as our driver. And guess who navigated? Tanya (from here) and I did the directing, which sort of went like this...

"Well, I think you turn up here. To the left. No wait, right! It's just past that thing...next to that other thing...across the street from that blue thing...How much farther? I don't actually know. Maybe 10 or 15 minutes. Or maybe more. I don't really know, sorry. The speed limit? Umm, well I know you can go at least 60 Ks. Well I think 80 would be ok. You could try 100. Well this looks right. I know I've seen those kind of trees before..."

It didn't help that the roads were abnormally thick with policemen, one every 100 yards or so along some stretches of road. But in the end we made it victoriously to the Fershette parking lot, where we changed to the metro and began a new adventure.

I don't think our driver had much faith in my navigational abilities, but then, what could I say? At least we didn't end up in Kaniv. I really thought we should make a trip there, seeing as it's such a special place and all...

I had a blast on the car ride. It was delightful to be with a vanload of people and laugh at all the jokes, gleefully discovering that I could understand them. The world is funnier with it speaks your language. I guess I've grown accustomed to being in groups where everyone is laughing their heads off about something I only half understand, and I didn't realize what a treat it would be to be with these folks! On the rare occasions that I actually catch what Ukrainians are saying in Ukrainian, I get a glimpse into their humor, but the rest of the time I am...lost. And as Elizabeth Bennet says, I dearly love to laugh!

But I haven't even got to Kiev yet. Nadia and her dad met us in Kiev to give us a tour of the city. We saw St. Sophia's cathedral, which was built in the 11th century I think, and was inspired by the Hagia Sofia in Constantinople, now Istanbul. The inside is covered in detailed mosaics and ancient paintings of apostles and Jesus and royal people. I could have stared at some of them all day. I feel like it's such an unbelievable privilege to be all the way across the world seeing something so old and historic and beautiful. History seems much more appealing than it ever did in school!

We also visited a monastery called Pecherska Lavra, and were twenty minutes too late to go into the caves that lie under the extensive monastery grounds in the middle of Kiev. Monks built the caves so that they could do their monkish living-in-poverty-thing, and later the impressive buildings up top were constructed. Quite a contrast between caves and the domed and guilded monastery! I would have loved to see down there, although I'm told it's dark and narrow and there are a lot of people kissing mummied remains of deceased monks...which is really sad, because they really do that, thinking it will add fervency to their prayers.

Here are Tanya and I on a street on the monastery grounds.

And this is part of the monastery...as I was saying, they must have given up the whole poverty idea...

This is the gate of St. Sophia's.

And lastly, a "We Love Ukraine" sign...

Team Coming!

The last couple of days we have been getting ready for the team coming from Longview and Kilgore to have a "Sister Cities" seminar with business people here in Rzhishchiv. Exciting! It will be fun having six visitors. The three ladies will stay with Masha and I. It's so nice that we have a house so close by with plenty of extra room. God gave us such a good place...for free.

Yesterday I stayed home from the Crowes and scrubbed and vacuumed and did dishes and spent a lot of time packing my stuff. Even though I still have a week or so here, I wanted to pack the things I don't need so that there would be room for our guests. Plus, I will be a lot more relaxed knowing that I don't need to pack in those few days remaining after the team leaves. I can just enjoy time with my "family."

This is so weird, guys! I'm leaving and starting a new life. And it's like Masha said, "But I just got used to you!" It's both sad and exciting at the same time. I think I will just with the flow. I was listening to a sermon today on Luke, I think chapter 12, a passage that warns us to be ready when Jesus comes and not to cling to things. I'm glad that everything that really matters will be restored to us one day when Jesus comes. Until then we live as if waiting for a "heavenly city, one that is to come."

This afternoon it has been raining deliciously. I love rain, and it doesn't seem to rain in Rzhishchiv very much. There was distant thunder, but the rain was soft and gray, and between dishes and housework I snatched a moment to curl up on the Crowes' wide windowsill. I sat there, feeling the breeze in the window and just drinking in the smell of the rain and dust meeting, and hearing the gentle pattering, and watching the drops form pools and rivulets in the leaves of the grape vines beside the house. Mmm. My very soul was refreshed :)

God is such a good father, such a good friend. It's been so long since I really felt "in love" with Him, and I miss that. We have been on good terms, and I know I am growing in Him, but I miss those foolish, happy feelings of "wasting" time in His presence and liking it. But for a few brief moments, in the windowsill, my heart remembered what only my head could recall before, and I could feel Him as a blind person feels the face of an old friend and finds familar, beloved lines.

I want more of this.

Our visitors will be here any minute now, so I will go...