On January 8th, in the dawn of the New Year, I wrote a post about my theme for 2014: “Let Go”.  At that time it was something the Lord was softly whispering to me, and as I thought about it more I realized that it was something that really needed to begin to happen in my life.  I began to realize how much of my life I hold on to every day, and because of that, how much less I am holding on to Jesus.

I sit here now, chuckling to myself about what God really had in store for me in the “Letting Go” realm.  Chuckling as in, if I don’t laugh I’ll cry, sorta chuckle.  Annnnnd it’s only March.  Ha!

Much of the letting go in that post was concerning the need for me to let go as a mother.

“Before they were our babies, they were His. My kids belong to God. Forget what our culture says is required for a happy childhood. What does God say my kids need? What does God say is important for a child? Those are things to focus on and invest in. If my kids have all the happiness in the world, but their hearts are far from the Lord, what have they gained?”

Little did I know when I wrote that post, that a month later Addy and Ezra would be attending our local Ukrainian school.  Never in a million years would I have predicted it.  Before we moved and people asked about what we would do for school I answered them that we weren’t sure, but definitely they wouldn’t be in a local public school.  Oy.  Yeah, what do I know??

Addy and Ez have been in school for a month now.  That act of “letting go” has been one of the hardest undertakings in my life.  I know they don’t understand much of what is said during the day at school.  I know at times they are nervous.  Making friends has been difficult because they can’t speak more than a couple of words to the other kids.  I so want them to be happy.  I don’t want them to be lonely. They say they like school, but I wonder, deep down, are their little hearts okay?

Let go.  We are being obedient to the Lord.  Their happiness is not reliant on me.  God will give them all that they need.  He created them KNOWING this would be their life.  Addy and Ezra, Havalah, and Seth were each called to Ukraine, just as Jed and I were.  So what if the American culture says they need lots and lots of friends and activities to be happy?  They have each other as friends.  They have a Mommy and Daddy that love them.

Let go.

Little did I know when I wrote that post about letting go, that 2 months later Ukraine would be at the brink of full-on war.  With Russian troops moving further and further inland, no one knows what will happen next.

What does it mean to truly LET GO when face to face with war?

I have no idea, but I’m learning every day.  We never could have anticipated that God would call us to this.  But, He did.  He knew full well what was going to happen in Ukraine a week after we arrived.  He told us to come, to love on His children who have been hidden away for far too long.  We came without a Plan B.  Ukraine is our home now.  Ukraine is God’s plan for our family.

What does it mean to lay it all down for the sake of Jesus?  What does it mean to be ALL IN, and to really mean it?  What does it mean to say YES, without conditions?  It means the same thing now as it meant to us when we came here.  Only now we better make sure we really believe it.  Is our Yes truly without conditions? We are here in Ukraine until God tells us not to be here anymore.

Because of the political situation here, many people have been asking us when we will come home.  Many have asked us if we have a red line, like “If such and such happens, then we will leave.”  We have no line.  All we have is the voice of the Lord, just as we did when we flew out of Portland on November 12th.  We are watching the news; we are not seeking out danger, but whoever said God will always steer us clear of danger?

Let go.

I know we have our children to think of, and believe me, there is no one that wants our kids to be safe more than Jed and I do.  But more than parents who try to keep them safe, what our kids truly need is parents who will listen to the voice of the Lord and follow Him no matter what- letting go of all else, and clinging with all they’ve got to the hand of Jesus.

Our friends here in Ukraine have no exit plan.  Our boys at Romaniv have no exit plan.  What of the countless others who lay in their cribs day after day, completely unaware of their homeland’s turmoil?  They have no choice, no option of leaving their crib, let alone their country.  

So here we stand and here we stay.  We continually ask the Lord for wisdom.  At the same time, we continually ask Him to help us let go of ourselves, in order that we might hold more tightly to Him.

Please listen to my heart.  It’s not that we are trying to call ourselves some sort of hero or attempting to be foolishly brave.  The Ukrainian people are the ones who are brave.  The heroes are the Ukrainians who live for Jesus despite the injustice that has surrounded them all their lives. We are simply reminded that a life of obedience does not always equal a life of physical safety.  The Ukrainian people need the hope of Jesus more than ever right now.  With a new government being formed, there is new hope for the children we have come to serve.  We believe with all of our hearts that we are here in Ukraine for such a time as this.  If you’ve followed our story at all you know that we didn’t arrive here by accident.  🙂  God made the way and He has a purpose in it.

When we very first started on this journey, way back in 2010, God gave us some verses.  They have been my comfort more times than I can count.  It had been quite a while since I looked them up, and today I wept as I read them again.  Just knowing that God knew all about this way back then is such a comfort.  He does see.  He does know.

“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.

For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities…

‘Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,’ says the Lord who has compassion on you…

All your sons will be taught by the Lord, and great will be your children’s peace,  In righteousness you will be established: tyranny will be far from you; you will have nothing to fear.”

Isaiah 54:2, 3, 10, 13-14

Let go with me, will you?  He promises to be more than enough.  I intend to trust that.

How to begin?  My heart is full to bursting with emotion, yet I feel almost embarrassed to write.  We are Ukrainian babies.  We’ve only lived here for a little over 3 months.  We only just started falling in love with Ukraine and her people in 2010.  What do we know of Ukraine?

There are missionaries who have lived here for decades.  They’ve given years and years of their lives to the Ukrainian people.  They’ve loved Ukraine for almost as long as I’ve been alive.  What do we know of Ukraine compared to them?  Not much.

Then there are the Ukrainian people themselves.  So many lived through the fall of the Soviet Union, were present when Ukraine found it’s independence, had their hopes built by the Orange Revolution, then hopes dashed when things did not improve- but only got worse.

They know what it is to expect corruption.  They know what it is to live without hope of change.  They know what it is to be stolen from and oppressed over and over and over.  What do we know of Ukraine?  Nothing.

We know practically nothing of Ukraine compared to these, yet our hearts yearn to know.  God has planted us here and He has given us an overwhelming love for these people.  I know I will never understand like those others, so I can only share what I do know, with a humbled heart.  I simply have to write it down because I never want to forget these days.

Yesterday we took a walk with the kids to the site of the fallen Lenin statue here in Zhitomir.  We attempted to explain to the kids why these days are significant.  As we walked we talked of history books yet to be written and revolution and lost lives.  We talked about what it means that the people of Maidan were willing to give their lives for freedom.  We talked about those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.  We have several friends who spent significant time at Maidan in the past few months.  It could have been any one of them.

When we reached the statue our hearts swelled and our eyes filled with tears.  Photos of some of the fallen were on the front of the monument.  Candles and flowers were at the base.  Where Lenin stood for so long was a lone Ukrainian flag.  People were constantly streaming to the site.  Some took pictures, some talked with each other, some simply looked and were quiet.

What struck Jed and me the most was that the crowd was almost solely made up of the elderly.  Old men hobbled up with canes and snapped pictures.  Babushkas looked at the photos on the monument, lips moving silently.   Oh, what I would have paid to know what they were thinking.  These people who have endured such hardship and pain, what do they think of this time in history?  Do they hold hope for their beloved Ukraine, as we do?  What can they tell us of life and suffering, hope and fear?  Oh, what I would pay.

Today the president was impeached and fled from Kyiv.  Today Ukraine began to build her new future.  This is the stuff of the History Channel, yet we are here, living it alongside our neighbors and friends.  We are here trying our best to understand and support.  And we have to wonder, why did God place us here for this time in history?  He knew when we boarded the plane in Oregon that a revolution would begin a week after our arrival.

Perhaps He placed us for this time so we would understand just a bit more what it means to be a Ukrainian.  Perhaps it was so we would know better how to pray, and others who may not have noticed before would be prompted to pray as well.  Perhaps there are people here that we are specifically here to encourage at this time.  God only knows.  I will just say that I am 100% thankful for it.  There is nowhere else we would rather be at this time.  Our hearts are simply exploding with love for our new countrymen.

We pray that as Ukraine builds its new future that men’s hearts will be turned toward the Lord.  May the sacrifice at Maidan never be in vain.  As the thousands stood, and even now stand for justice, may they not forget their most vulnerable who desperately need justice as well.  May government leaders’ hearts be softened for the fatherless.  May their eyes be opened to the value of every single life in this country.

Ezra said it best: “I know, Mom!  Let’s pray that the new president will love orphans!”

Amen.  So be it.

There is a long road ahead in building a new Ukraine.  Much wisdom and courage will be needed.  May God bless Ukraine and may His Spirit flood this land like never before.  May many, many hearts and eyes turn to Him as the real Hope for this country.  May Ukrainians live lives wide awake to the Father and His never-ending love for them.

9 Days.  The countdown is ON.

Only 9 more days till we have some very, extremely, over-the-top special guests at our house.

Eeeeeeek!  We are so excited!

In 9 days our dearest Tom and Emma will arrive for a 10 day visit and we can’t believe it’s true.

Let me just brag on Tom and Emma for a sec.  Many, many moons ago we met our friend Tom.  Addy was only a toddler at the time and she was in love.  She would chase Tom all over church calling him Keith Green.  (Don’t ask, we still don’t know why…)  Tom became family to us and actually ended up living with us for several years.  He was the best housemate you could ask for.  Then, Tom got even better by choosing an AWESOME wife, the amazing Emma from across the sea.

Tom and Emma have been such good friends to us.  They have supported us and encouraged us since the very beginning of this crazy journey.  They’ve spent countless hours playing cards and Speed Scrabble with us.  They moved in and stayed with our kids when we were in Ukraine on our planning trip last May.  They let us have the CRAZY HUGE garage sale at their house in the fall.  They even let us stay with them for our last two weeks in the States before moving to Ukraine.  They are simply the best.  (Can you tell we miss them?)

Anyway, Emma is from England, and she and Tom are headed that way to visit her family.  Since they’ll be sooooo close to Ukraine they decided they better pop on in for a visit!  I mean, how can you come all the way across the pond and not come for a sleepover?  It just wouldn’t be right!  🙂

The kids have literally been counting down the days.  We knew they were excited for the visit, but when Jed noticed what they were playing this afternoon he had to document the sweetness of it.

Meet Tom and Emma 🙂

Tom, Seth, Havalah, Emma, Addy, and Ezra

Taking a tour of where we buy milk…

Checking out the meat market…hahaha

Hava giving a tour of our house. (I promise we don’t really live in a barn)

Introducing Tom and Emma to our friends Oleg and Tanya, and baby Zakhar

So, yes, you can see we are pretty excited for our visitors to arrive.  More than anything it means the world to us that they would take the time to come all this way.  We so want our friends and family to see our life here and meet the people we love so much. 

Come on Tom and  Emma! We’re waiting!!!  🙂  

We spent the weekend in Kiev getting our love tanks filled up by good friends, good food, good worship, and fun fun fun. Our kids get spoiled so bad in the big city, it’s no wonder it’s their favorite place to be. Whenever we visit Kiev we leave feeling so loved and encouraged it’s like balm for the soul.

Here’s some pics of our time:

Of course there must be plenty of food!

Men cooking AND doing the dishes AND making us delicious coffee? Woohoo! Thanks Maks, Andrey, and Jed 🙂

Pillow/tickle/wrestle fight = my kids’ heaven

Taking the metro to church

Seth and Olya

Seth and Anya, chillin’ at Sunday School

Hava and Anya, walking to lunch. They are the cutest together, like twins separated at birth. Ha!

Sergei bought the kids donuts!

Please keep praying for Ukraine.  Being in Kiev was bittersweet.  We love that city and we love the Ukrainian people more each day.  Please don’t forget Ukraine.  Thank you!

We’re nearly done with our first week of Ukrainian public school.  Whew!  We made it!

All in all I would say the week has gone well.  It’s a pretty huge life adjustment for our family, so it’s definitely going to take some time to adapt, but really, so far so good.  I guess I couldn’t have asked for it to go any better.  The kids are happy and they love it.  The teacher is kind and made a point today of having an English teacher meet me in the classroom when I dropped the off the kids just so she could have a translator to help her find out if the kids are happy and okay.  The fact that she cares and wanted to check in made me so happy and relieved.

The process of getting them in to the school has been pretty easy, but also pretty interesting.  Yesterday I went to the Ministry of Education office with the school’s Assistant Director and an English teacher to get the kids registered with the region.  Then today I had to fill out another application thingy to go to the Director of the school, plus I filled out an info sheet for their teacher.  My Cyrillic writing probably looks like a kindergartner’s…so I hope they could read everything okay.  🙂  We had to give the school notarized copies of their passports and vaccination records.  Unfortunately our vaccination records are all in English, but fortunately, with the combo of the school nurse and me + a friend helping to translate + sign language of diseases + common brand names of vaccines we were able to figure out if they had all the required vaccines.  Apparently our kids are waaaaay more vaccinated than Ukrainian kids, so the nurse said they were A-OK.  Haha!  All they need to be fully registered is TB tests.

Here is their school schedule, in case you’re curious:

Every day their class walks down the street to the school building where the older kids study and they eat a free meal in the cafeteria.  It’s no big surprise that that’s my kids’ favorite part of the day.  🙂  They usually eat at like 9:30, but the meals are like full on lunch/dinner foods. The first day they had salami, corn, and pasta; another day they had meatballs and rice; yesterday they had fish and potatoes, and then today they had some kind of porridge and meat.  Tea with milk is served every day with the meal.  There’s a little counter in the cafeteria where kids can buy treats with their own money.  Addy and Ez said that usually a few kids will buy snacks and share them with all the other kids during breaks.  So, today they made sure to pack some grivna in their backpacks so they could get in on the treat time.  🙂

The kids wear uniforms, boys in suit jackets and slacks, girls in black dresses or skirts.  The Director said we don’t need to worry about uniforms yet…but he didn’t say when to buy them…I guess someone will tell me when it’s time.  All the kids wear snow boots to school, and then when they arrive they change in to slippers to wear in their classroom.

Addy and Ezra tell us that the kids are really kind to them, and they’re learning some of their names. They say they don’t understand much at all of what their teacher says and I’m not sure the best way to help them with that.  Will it just come in time, or is there something we should be doing at home to help them? Jed and I are studying Russian, but the kids’ school is all in Ukrainian.  Oy.  I have no idea what we need to be doing to assist them…I’ve never done this before and don’t know anyone else who has.  Anybody have any ideas?  This is uncharted territory for our family, and honestly is pretty overwhelming.  I know, I know, one step at a time.  I wish we were all learning the same language.  Jed and I debated for a long time before we moved here on if we should learn Russian or Ukrainian.  We really felt like we should focus on Russian.  Pray for us, would you? We just need a lot of wisdom in this situation, and we all need loads of supernatural language abilities.  Thank you!

Thank you everyone for all your prayers and encouragement as the kids started school.  On one hand, this is so exciting because it really plants us here in Zhitomir even more.  We are learning more about the culture and everyday life for the Ukrainian people.  We’re dropping off and picking up along with loads of other parents and interacting with a lot of people who are super curious about why we are here.  There are many opportunities for Jesus’ name to be made great.

On the other hand, I feel like I’m in a bit of a mourning phase.  Having our kids always together has been our way.  It’s all we know as a family.  Homeschooling them has been a MAJOR focus of my time and energy for the past four years.  Addy and Ezra being gone during the day EVERY DAY is huge.  It changes everything and I just need an extra dose of peace during this time.  I’m missing them like crazy and often during the day I wonder if this is the right thing to do.  We’re asking Addy and Ezra to do something very, very difficult and I wonder about their little hearts.  Are they scared?  Are they confused?  But, then they come home happy and I know we can make it another day.  I guess this is just a “yes” that is pretty hard for me right now.  Praise God they are loving it a lot and I know He is super close to them while they are away.

Do you have any questions about school?  Ask away!  It’s a pretty fascinating thing to be up close and personal with a situation so foreign to us.  I still can’t believe this is my life.  Ha!  So cool.

Big news folks.  My sweet Addy and Ezra are starting school on Monday.  Hold me.

How did this come about?  Wanna know?  Okay, I’ll tell you.  🙂

During Christmas time my friend Tanya told me about a gymnastics class at our neighborhood public school.  The daughter of one of her family members attends the class and she knew we were on the lookout for some sort of activity for our kids where they could hear language and interact with other kids, so she asked if we were interested.  Sure! Natasha, the mom of the girl attending, asked the coach if some crazy Americans could try out her class and she said yes!  So we did.

Oh the hilarity that ensued.  Seriously, to be a fly on the wall.  It is VERY entertaining.  I think Tanya and I laughed nonstop during the first class.  Picture a very old gym with bare walls, barred windows, and dirty mats.  Picture flexible Ukrainian kids flipping and cartwheeling and doing the splits and the bridge like they were birthed onto a balance beam.  Then picture the Johnson children (minus Seth) entering with all their clumsiness and lack of coordination (I’ll take all the genetic responsibility for that); not understanding a lick of the language, not able to cartwheel, but doing their very darndest to follow along.  Then picture the coach calling out orders in loud Russian.  It’s like a three-ring circus I tell ya.

Believe it or not, the kids LOVED gymnastics class and continued to attend all during the school’s Christmas break.  Technically the class is only for the students of that particular school and is free for them.  But, the coach likes our kids (she is so kind) and said she would ask the Director of the school if he would allow them to continue in gymnastics once school was back in session.  She even said Hava could stay in class, even though she’s technically too young.  🙂

We were in Switzerland getting our visas when Tanya emailed to let us know that the director had agreed to the kids continuing gymnastics!  Woohoo!  He had also asked why they don’t attend school.   Everyone had been telling us that the schools wouldn’t accept our kids because they don’t speak but a few words of Ukrainian and Russian.  As far as we know, our kids are the only foreigners around, so the schools are not at all set up to work with non-native speakers.  The director said that was no problem and that he wanted to talk with Jed and me when we got home from Switzerland.

A couple days after we got home from the visa trip we went to the director’s office for a chat.  He doesn’t speak any English, so the school English teacher translated.  He asked us the ages of the kids and where we live.  He asked if we plan to be in Ukraine for a long time or just short term and if the kids are vaccinated.  Then he got on the phone and talked about the situation to a higher-up at the Ministry of Education.  At the end of the meeting, he told us the kids are welcome to attend his school if we want!

We are a homeschooling family to the core.  We love homeschooling.  Addy went to kindergarten at a Christian school in Oregon where my mom teaches, and Ez went to one year of preschool there, but otherwise, they’ve only been taught at home.  Homeschooling has just become a way of life for us and we have never thought we would do anything different.  If you’re curious why we homeschool I can talk about that in another post.  I LOVE to talk all things homeschool, so don’t be shy!   All that said, things got a bit tricky once we got to Ukraine.  Our kids’ brains are wired for language learning right now.  Everyone says “Your kids will learn the language so fast!  You won’t believe it!”  That’s probably true, but how can it happen if they are home all day?  They certainly aren’t going to learn it quickly from me!  Ha!  We put them in gymnastics, and they attend Awanas, and Sunday School, all in Russian and Ukrainian.  They have picked up quite a bit, but it’s slow.  They need to be immersed in the language while their brains are in this forming stage.  I wish I had that opportunity! We don’t really know of an option for a tutor who can teach them as many hours as they need here at home, so we were at a bit of a loss.  We were asking the Lord what to do to help our kids with the language.  We considered checking out the two local, Ukrainian Christian schools in town, thinking maybe they would have the ability to be more flexible with us, but they are both pretty far from our house.  Then this school fell into our laps.

On Thursday Jed and I went back to the school to check out the classroom they would be in and meet the teacher.  We asked the Lord to guide us and give us peace if this was the way to go.  What can I say?  It was great.  We decided to give it a go.  The school is about a 5-minute walk from our house.  Addy and Ez get to be in the same class, and school only goes from 8:30-noon.  Totally doable!  The director wants to put them in first grade because they need to learn to read and write in Ukrainian, and those students are still learning those skills. Most of the students in the class will be 7, so Addy and Ez will be older than them, but we aren’t worried about that.  The main goal here is language acquisition,  and having them with kids younger than themselves will probably help take away some of the social pressures that would distract them from learning.  Plus, first graders get to do more fun stuff 🙂

The thought right now is that they will attend school from 8:30-noon, and then come home to continue plugging along in their normal homeschool work.  We’ll only focus on the basics when they get home, like English and math, since I know their brains will probably be a bit fried when they get home from school.  Their school is taught in Ukrainian and their teacher speaks no English.  This school also specializes in Polish, so they’ll be studying Polish three times a week.  Oh my…this should be an adventure!

Our Teacher

This is the plan that seems most peaceful right now.  We’ll finish out this school year and then re-evaluate for the fall.  I most definitely don’t want to abandon homeschooling, since the reasons why we school at home haven’t changed.  I guess we’ll take it a year at a time and see what God says.

So, Monday is the big day!  School books have been purchased and the kids are excited to go.  I’m excited for them…but also quite nervous for them.  I’m so extremely thankful they get to be in the same class.  Praise God for His kindness.  He opened this door when we weren’t even looking and totally paved the way.  We are praying that this leads to divine relationships and open doors in our neighborhood.  We are excited to see how God plans to use this for His glory.

If you would pray for us on Monday morning (Sunday night in the US) we would appreciate it so much!!!  I’ll let you know how it goes!

Welp, I officially feel like we moved to Siberia.  Sure, our address is in Ukraine, but I’m still pretty sure we’re actually in Siberia.  …Or maybe it just seems so for the girl who comes from a town that gets maybe 2 snow days a year.  Where I come from, school is canceled if there is even a chance of a snowflake hovering.  If the ground is white, forget about it.  Life is canceled and snowmen are attempted out of the inch of snow that barely reaches the tips of the grass.

Not so in Ukraine.  Life goes on and it is quite the adventure!  It snowed quite a bit here last week, and now it’s been snowing for about 3 days straight.  It’s beautiful!  I’ve never had to live in snow before so I have a lot to learn.  Add not having a car to the mix and you learn pretty darn fast.  🙂

After one of the children (who shall remain nameless) laid down in the middle of the sidewalk in the middle of town to make a snow angel we realized that we probably needed to teach the kids about “snow play time” and “snow errand time”  The two snow times are not created equal.  When we are on “snow errand time” we don’t make snow angels in the middle of the sidewalk and we don’t throw snowballs at each other as we walk down the street.  There are at least two reasons for this: we don’t want to get chewed out by babushkas for getting cold and wet, and we don’t want to enter stores and shops cold and wet.  Oy.

“Do you see anyone else making a snow angel in the middle of town????  Get up right now!!!!”

When it’s below freezing it’s imperative to pay close attention while on the bus.  The windows of the buses are covered in ice and the inside of the bus isn’t cold enough to thaw them, so it’s pretty much impossible to see out the windows at all.  Riding the bus at this point is like crowding into an icy cave full of fur-clad strangers.  You must remain on close lookout for neon light landmarks along the route that help you see when you should get out.  Another method would be to count how many stops it is from one place to another, but I haven’t mastered that yet.

I’ve learned to properly bundle my children and it feels like a strange form of child abuse.  I basically render the little ones incapable of independent movement by the amount of clothing they’re wearing, but it can’t be helped!  I’m becoming a Ukrainian.  There’s no such thing as too much bundle.

First undies, then thick Ukrainian tights, then regular pants, then wool socks, then long-sleeve shirt, then short-sleeve shirt, then snowsuit, then Ukrainian wool vest, then coat (with attached shell), then mittens, then scarf, then hat.  It may seem like overkill, but when you’re in waaaaaay below freezing weather, and you have to wait for the bus you don’t really care about the mobility of your arms, you mostly care that your arms don’t freeze off.  Bundling in Ukraine is like an art form.  Everywhere you go you see mom’s breathless as they stuff and pull and wrap and tug.  Who needs a gym membership when you have 4 kidlets to bundle?

 Though it FREEEEEEEEEZING outside, our house is warm and cozy.  We have plenty of yummy food (and warm coffee) to fill our tummies, and we are happy.  Though things are in upheaval in this place we love, our hearts are full of peace.  We’re finding joy in experiencing a snowy Ukraine for the first time.  Snowy Ukraine is beautiful 🙂 

Yesterday was such a great day! A little stress, a little food, a lot of fun.

We started out the day bright and early with breakfast at our little Bed and Breakfast. I can’t say enough about the place we stayed. It was just perfect! Clean, fresh, bright, super friendly owner, a five minute walk from the train station, walking distance to the embassy, and about half the price of a hotel in Bern. The owner graciously let us keep our bags there all day till we left on the train in the afternoon, so that was great!

We knew the embassy was only open from 9-12 on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so we were determined to be first in line since we only allowed ourselves 2 embassy days in country.

With google map picture in hand we headed on our way!

We took a little funicular down the hill from Parliament.

Along the way…

Purty, isn’t it?

Wow! It’s so busy! Good thing we got up at the crack of dawn! 😉

All our paperwork was in order and the visa applications and loads of documents were handed over. We then had to walk to a bank over by Parliament to pay for the visas and return to the embassy with our receipt. We didn’t realize we had to pay for the visas with cash and just BARELY scraped up enough cash to pay. That was a nail-biter, folks! Apparently, the people we heard of who had their visas done in just 2 hours either got really lucky, or they paid to expedite them and we just didn’t know that part. In order to have our visas done in time for our return flight to Ukraine on Tuesday we had to pay double and expedite them. Ouch! But, when you figure in how expensive it is just to eat and sleep here, it’s actually less expensive to pay the expedited fee. So, we chose the lesser of two evils and our visas should be ready for pickup on Monday at 11:30! Pray that is the case! Thanks.

After the visa stuff was done for the day we had about 3 hours to kill before we would leave on the train to head to a town about 40 minutes away to stay with my friend Sandra and her fam. So, we explored Bern and it was fabulous.

We had to hit up Starbucks for the wifi to update our parents on visa stuff. See this whole, huge, spacious room?

…this is the spot Jed where Jed chose to sit. HA!

Swiss photo bomb

We just walked around the corner and bumped in to this church. WOW!

It was open so we took a peek inside.

In search of lunch…

We settled on this deliciousness. So goooooood.

Soon it was time to head to meet our friends. 🙂

The countryside on the way from Bern to their town looked just like the landscape on HWY 99 from Salem to Corvallis. Really! It was the most familiar thing I’ve seen since leaving the US. It even seemed more familiar than Starbucks! (hehehe) There was a lot of green farmland and lots of pine trees. Hallelujah for pine trees! I miss them very much. It was beautiful. 🙂 I tried to take a picture but it didn’t really turn out.

We arrived at the train station where Sandra would meet us and found her easily. YAY! It’s always fun to meet people in person that you’ve communicated with for a couple of years. It was also so surreal. What are we doing here? Ha! This is hilarious that it actually worked out!

We took the bus to Sandra’s village and then walked to their apartment. It’s cozy and welcoming and we are having a great time here. Walter and Sandra are originally from Singapore, but Walter’s job brought them to Switzerland 11 years ago. Sandra cooked us delicious Chinese food that made us very happy. You can’t really get any type of Asian cuisine in Ukraine, so it was a major treat. SO GOOD! Then we talked, played Wii Fit (Which, by the way, gave Jed a Wii Fit age of 30 and me a Wii Fit age of 36. I hate the Wii.) It was a great time to get to know each other better.

Sandra was talking some about Singapore and I admitted that I really know nothing about Singapore or the culture there. I remarked to them that we only really know one person who ever had a tie with Singapore. Some of my parents’ best friends are named Joe and Janet. Joe’s sister Eileen was a missionary in Singapore for many years before we met her. I was mentioning to Jed that I think Eileen is the only person we know who has spent any time in Singapore. Walter and Sandra perked right up. Come to find out they knew Eileen! They were friends with her and worked in ministry with her in Singapore before they were even married! SHUT UP. You have got to be kidding me! At first, we thought they were joking. I mean, out of all the millions of people in Singapore, the one person we know who lived there was their friend. What a crazy small world we live in, I tell ya. We were laughing our heads off about it. God is just too funny.

Now we’re getting ready to head out to explore the little Swiss town we’re in. It’s Jed’s birthday today so we’ll need to make sure we find lots of treats.- I’m just looking out for Jed, mind you. This has nothing to do with my personal need for treats. 😉

Thanks for your prayers for our visas! Keep ’em coming! I’ll let you know as soon as we have them in our hot little hands.

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