Richard's Reflections

Hi Everyone: I copied some of Richard's email to a friend in California because he tells things that I never think to write about. Enjoy!

Howdy! No, that's not Ukrainian, but a sincere greeting from us to dear friends, which would be YOU! It's been a while since we communicated, so here we go. Life here is both very amazing and very dull at the same time. Dull because we spend most of our time doing the basics; grocery shopping, washing the dishes, trying to stay cool (it's hot here, but that's a good thing), stuff like that. Amazing in that every so often we get to see God working; in the people we meet, how they are giving their all for God even they don't own a home, car or anything else we take for granted in the States. For example, we know Yura and Tanya, a young couple with two boys who have a family ministry associated with YWAM. They have been working with this ministry their entire married lives, about 13 years, and have never had enough money to buy a home, apartment, or even a car, but they are some of the most dedicated people, and the nicest people, we have ever met. Last week they had to move out of their rented apartment. They had been looking for one big enough for Yura's father to live with them, but so far haven't found one, so they stored their belongings and are living with relatives this summer. They have helped us many times, even helped us find our apartment, and we have never seen them complain about anything. Such devotion is truly an inspiration to us; we have nothing to complain about although we seem to, all too often.
And now for the news. Smile House is under renovation. We had talked a lot about getting it started ever since we got here, but it sat for a long time. Then last week as we were coming back to Kyiv from a two week mission trip (Loma Linda students and others) to Zhitomyr, we drove through the village the building is in, and the first thing we saw was the old roof was gone, and a team of builders had moved in (they do it that way here) and were starting the reconstruction. Needless to say, we were pretty excited to see that. At this point we have enough money to get some new walls up (we are enlarging the structure a little) and a new roof on. From there, it will be up to God. If more money comes in we will continue, and if not... please pray that God will work according to His will. We do not want this project to become more important to us than whatever plan God has, know what I mean? So we walk in faith, step by step.
Did we tell you we are living in the big city Kyiv? And getting kind of spoiled with city conveniences. We live in a nice apartment on the seventh floor, in a nice part of town, with a nice view and a jogging track next door. The only drawback is the public transportation, which is everywhere and very inexpensive. Which means everyone uses it, which means buses and subways packed with hot, sweaty people who have no reservations about pushing and shoving and crowding. So we have been looking into buying a car, but they are very expensive here, so we are still looking. I mean, can you imagine over $40,000 for a Hyundai? German and French cars are less expensive (this is, of course, Europe) but they still aren't known for their reliability. We're still looking.
We found a little Adventist church close by where English is spoken, and has a bunch of young people who are very friendly and enthusiastic, so we have been going there. But a lot of our new friends are of other denominations, and our closeness comes from their love and dedication to our Lord; they put us to shame sometimes by the way they love God and work for Him. And they inspire us to live and love more and more, and that's a good thing.

So that's Richard's comments. I want to add that we saw a hedgehog the other night when we were walking home from the subway. I have always liked hedgehogs so it was fun to see it. When it got over it's fear of us, it moved very, very quickly to get away from us. It was cute.

Also, another interesting fact is that there seem to be no driving laws in this country. You have to be very careful not to be hit while walking on the sidewalks. Last night we were coming home in a small bus and the traffic on the main street was stopped. We watched the large bus in front of us drive onto the nearby sidewalk and then our driver followed. Tree branches were hitting the top and a lady who was walking blissfully about fell over when the bus honked at her to get out of the way. After we were delivered right to the underground walkway, we looked back and there was a string of cars and buses using the sidewalk. This happens often. Last week we saw six guys trying to push a car off the tram tracks in front of an oncoming tram. The car had been driving on them to get past traffic but then got stuck. It's an amazing way to drive. That's the other reason we are still looking for a car--we aren't really sure how much we want to drive in Kyiv.