Help Ukrainian street children!
We are currently starting to plan our tennis tournament fundraiser, "Strokes Against Hopelessness 2009."
We are tentatively planning to have the tournament in June.
This tennis tournament will be held in Kyiv, Ukraine. If you are interested in sponsoring or playing in the event, please email us at mmkukraine@yahoo.com. We will keep you updated with information as the plans unfold!
I will be officially on "Blog-Lite" for the next few weeks. I am traveling so I am not sure how much I will be able to actually blog so I thought I would just go ahead and take the pressure off by taking a break. I may write a few posts, but I won't be posting as regularly as I usually do.
If you subscribe to my blog through my reader, it will let you know when I post again and you won't miss anything.
Don't worry, I shall return!
Even cats reach the point where they get tired of paparazzi photos. I was practicing using my camera on the manual setting and using the only live model in my flat and things got....well....a little tense.
I haven't been very focused on my blog lately. Every now and then it gets like that. Last week I worked on a power point presentation for our ministry and that ended up being a lot more time consuming than I anticipated. I had never used power point before so I had to get the hang of it, which I did rather quickly but then I had to go through TONS of photos and then figure out how I wanted to put it together. It got a little overwhelming at some points and made me emotional looking through all the photos of the kids. We have had many of our little ones move on into foster or adoption families and quite frankly, I miss them but am extremely happy for them at the same time.
This week I have been working on our ministry newsletter which also seems monumental for me for some reason. I think part of it is that it has been raining, snowing or overcast for nearly a week and I am just feeling very low on energy with the lack of sun. I am absolutely ready for sunshine and warmth!
If you visit Ukraine and are invited into someone's home, you will quickly learn that you will be expected to take off your shoes and put on a pair of communal slippers that the host keeps just for their visiting guests.
If you've ever spent any time walking the streets here, you quickly will pick up that this custom is very practical as the streets are dirty, people walk a lot here and shoes are extra dirty and wear out fast.
I never had to adjust much to this custom as being from California, I can't imagine being inside a home and having anything on my feet much less shoes or even slippers. I have always burst into my home and ditched my shoes immediately. Once I had an Ukrainian friend try to convince me that I could keep my shoes on in his flat as he thought Americans did this and I was like, "No way, (I stopped short of saying "No way dude, hang loose.") I like to take my shoes off."
I have since learned to have slippers ready for friends who come over and I've even learned to wear slippers myself here since it IS cold and they DO keep your feet warm.
I took this photo at our Rehabilitation Center. We have a new TV room and apparently even the slippers that the kids wear in the Center come off before they enter the room. I found these four pair lying outside the door.
Want to know what to do on a Friday night in Kyiv? First, coffee. (photo by Emily with my camera.)
And Puzhata Xhata for Ukrainian food with friends.....
It's been a busy week. I have had a lot of good blog post topics roll through my head but no time to write them. So here is another photo. Please note that this photo was taken on a holiday so the amount of traffic on the road does not give a true representation of what it's like on a road during an average day in Kyiv.
I love the tiny St. Andrew's church on the hill contrasting with the huge modern advertisement on the side of the building.
I took this photo today and can prove that it really is spring in Ukraine! I didn't bother to take the shot in color because there is no color yet. The buds are not green, but they are THERE. You can see them! That's what counts!
Yes folks, I have always said that if I start to twitter, then it's time for a social media intervention. But too many people have been convincing enough about twitter for me to not want to give it a try.
I'm not really sure how I want to use it yet so I am just experimenting to see how and if it can be used to enhance communications in our ministry.
But if you are twittering and interested, you can find me at www.twitter.com/tweetingsfromUA.
As if the "crisis" is not enough for Ukraine, the financial experts now are pointing to the fact that the country may go completely bankrupt.
What this will mean for people living day to day in Ukraine is yet to be seen. I can say that the financial crisis is already hitting the country hard. There are less cars on the streets, more homeless people on the street, and many people are out of work.
Stay tuned...
This is an excerpt from my latest monthly newsletter. If you would like to be added to my newsletter list, please send your email address to mmkukraine@yahoo.com. (Above photo by Cheryl Nemazie, copyright 2008.)
This photo is a year old but I wanted to use it to show the little boy in the front who has been recently adopted. As I just now posted the photo, I realized that all four children in this photo have either been adopted or moved on into foster families.
This past month I have been frustrated to tears with attempts to build a network of children's ministries here in Ukraine. One day last month I came home with a new brochure of the government sponsored NGO that our ministry partners with and I looked at photos of the children and their foster or adoptive parents. That same night, looking through my “stuff” for something totally unrelated, I found photos of street children from my former ministry and found myself laying the photos side by side and looking at them. The contrast between the photos was obvious; children looking out of underground holes that ended up in prison and children who literally grew up on the street and are still living on the street as adults. The Lord convicted me then and there that there is nothing about what I am doing in my ministry here in Ukraine that I should ever be frustrated with and I have experienced nothing in vain. He is in control and leading the way. I just need to continue to trust in him.
This month marks my tenth year in Ukraine and as I looked at all my photos from the past to the present, I realized in a clearer way that God has been with me in my own journey of life in Ukraine and He has been faithful to my desire to help street children. I have learned and grown through the ministries I have served in and He is using that experience in the ministry I am doing now. He has been faithful and is using all the hard times for his glory and good.
I was reminded that it’s not the time to be frustrated about what will or will not happen in the future, but its time to praise him for what he has done in the past, for is happening today, for the goodness he shows all of us when we desire to walk in his light and love and serve others. Whatever you desire to do to serve him, he is faithful and he will do it!
“being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”…..Philippians 1:6 (NIV)
