Family – Page 7 – Wide Awake International

Category: Family

CelebrationFamily

Oh Christmas Tree…On a Bus

Once upon a time, we went Christmas tree hunting in Ukraine…

Uuuuhhhh how’re we gonna get this baby home??

We’ll take the bus of course! It’s the only way…

A Christmas tree on a bus, check that one off the list of things we didn’t think we’d ever do!

We trekked down the street happy with our find and feeling pretty proud of ourselves too!

Home to our favorite decorations for the tree 🙂

We love our sweet tree, what a beautiful sight

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

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kimnjed December 19, 2013 5

CelebrationFamilyFoodHomeThe Move

Birthday Cooking in Ukraine 101

Saturday was Ezra’s birthday!

This was the first birthday celebrated away from family, so I think Jed and I were both feeling the need to make Ezra’s birthday extra special. As in, Ez was convinced Hannah came to visit JUST for his birthday. We let him believe that. After all, it’s not every day you turn 8!

We asked Ezra what he wanted to eat for his birthday and he said he wanted pizza. Woohoo! I can make pizza! No big deal. He also said that instead of birthday cake, he wanted cherry vareniki. Really??? Okay, buddy, anything for you on your birthday.

So, Friday night, right after her arrival, I roped Hannah into helping me make some vareniki. It’s a time intensive job, but much more fun when you have company. 🙂 Vareniki are little dumplings made from butter, flour, salt, and egg. They can be filled with potatoes, cheese, mushrooms, cabbage…or cherries. Mmmmm. That’s how we like them best! You top the cherry ones with sugar and sour cream. They really are delish. Jed and I had them the first time we came to Ukraine and I’m pretty sure I experimented cooking them the very day after we arrived home. 🙂

Vareniki/PJ party

We rolled out the dough, cut out little circles, then put a spoonful of sugar and a couple cherries in each circle of dough. Then we ran into problems. You have to crimp the dough around the edges to seal it so the cherries don’t leak out when the vareniki is boiled. Well, I always just set my cherries in a strainer and work fast. BUT the only cherries we could find were frozen, and as they thawed they leaked like crazy. We had some funky looking vareniki on our hands!

While we worked we listened to the Phil Collins station on Spotify. In my former life (2 weeks ago) I did all my best work (and card-playing) to Phil Collins station on Pandora. Jed, Tom, Emma, and I have worked for years (literally) to perfect our Phil Collins station. It’s seriously like a work of art. Occasionally a Coldplay song will get thrown in and one of us will rush over to thumb it down, but that’s a rarity. It’s pretty spot-on in awesomeness. It’s been faithfully tended and nurtured to perfection. Let’s just say, when it comes to Spotify radio we have our work cut out for us. No Pandora in Ukraine = starting over. Boo.

BUT, Jed had just mentioned earlier in the evening (can’t remember why) that it felt like a Top Gun music moment. And while we were in the deep throes of vareniki-making, guess what song came on???

Cool, right?? PS: not sure why the vareniki look hypercolor yellow. Hmmmm

Nothing lifts the spirits like a good 80’s mix. 😉

Saturday dawned and Ezra was up with the sun. He was so excited for his big day!!

Hannah and I got busy on the pizza dough fairly early since we had guests coming to celebrate for lunch. As we let the dough rise we walked down to the grocery store to see if, by chance, we could find some parchment paper for the pizza baking. We were doubtful we would find anything, but it was worth a shot! Imagine our surprise when we found just what we were looking for!

We hurried home, rolled out our dough, and got ready to preheat the oven. Then we actually took a good look at the oven and found this:

Ummm this is our oven control. Any idea how to decipher this?? Only three temp choices. I guess we better invest in a thermometer 🙂

We spent some time googling for a way to use the oven and eventually decided to just wing it. The dough baked perfectly! Yummmmm!!!! Praise The Lord!

I took it out, ready to slide it off the pan….and at that point realized we didn’t actually buy parchment paper. It appeared we bought some sort of paper that stuck like glue to the dough. Hahahahaha

Pizza with a side of paper

Time to clean the dough off the paper in the other pans before the other crusts suffered the same fate!

In the end, the pizza and vareniki turned out delicious and all was well. This adventure is so hilariously fun!!!

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kimnjed November 26, 2013 4

FamilyThe KidsThis Ukrainian Life

On Cousin-Fetching and Toddler Bribery

This weekend was full.

Full of fun, full of laughs, full of food, and full of lessons learned the hard way. Hence all the laughter.

My cousin Hannah came to stay for the weekend! She arrived on Friday afternoon and we were so excited it was like Christmas Eve on Thursday night. Our first real visitor from afar! Hannah has been in Western Ukraine doing an internship through her University back in Oregon. She arrived in Ukraine in September and will leave in December, so this weekend was our chance to experience Ukraine together. We had a BLAST.

Jed was at Romaniv orphanage with MTU on Friday, so it was up to me to fetch Hannah from the bus and get her back to our house…with all the kids in tow. It might have been a tad intimidating, but I was feelin’ good, feelin’ confident. I could do this!

When our family travels from Kiev to Zhitomir we take a certain bus that randomly picks up at a metro stop in Kiev and stops really close to our house in Zhitomir. Well, Hannah wasn’t taking that bus. She arrived in Kiev via train, so she was going to catch a bus leaving from the official bus station in Kiev. I asked a friend where that bus would drop her and he was pretty sure it would take her straight to the big bus station in Zhitomir.

The kids and I left early so that we could easily navigate the local buses to get to the big bus station. I knew that I knew where I was going, so it was all good. I prepped the kids (listen to Mommy, stay close to Mommy, pay attention to what’s happening around you…blah blah blah) and they were doing great! We arrived at the bus station plenty early; we even had time to get a little bread treat at a bakery next door (which was surprisingly filled with meat…not a bad thing, unless you’re hoping for sweet. Hehe) All was well…or so I thought. 🙂

After about 45 minutes I got a phone call from Hannah:

“I’m here! Where are you guys?”

“Oh, we’re inside. We’ll come right out! Hmmmm I don’t see you…where are you? Maybe stand underneath one of the bus stall numbers so we can find each other that way.”

“Okay, I’m standing under number 7.”

“Ummmm…me too. Oh geeeeeeeez.”

Oops. Hahahaha! We were at the wrong bus station! Apparently, the Kiev bus station sometimes delivers to the OTHER bus station in Zhitomir. Wa waaaaah. No big deal, except I totally didn’t know how to get from one station to the other. So, I told Hannah to stay put, and in good faith, told her we would find her. 😉

I called Jed, who happened to be with locals who also spoke English and everyone was trying to give me directions…it wasn’t happening. So, I got all brave and started asking directions in broken Russian. And, wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, we made it! We found Hannah!!!

It was quite the triumphant moment. Hannah and I were squealing with joy, everyone around was laughing at us, the kids were jumping up and down…it was a sight to behold, I’m sure. 🙂

At that point, I was feeling pretty proud of myself. Look at me, all travel-savvy! Errrrr…not quite.

So, I thought I knew the way home from the second bus station, but once we started walking, the street I thought I needed was a one-way. Looking back, we probably should have just returned the way we came, but I think I was too overcome with joy at seeing Hannah to think rationally.

We started walking, and walking, and walking, looking for a familiar landmark. Oy. Struggle. Soon we were quite lost. Ha! The kids were being quite the little troopers until Seth decided he was done walking. He started doing that limp-noodle thing until I was basically dragging him down the sidewalk. If any of you know Seth in real life you know he’s a big boy. He’s no lightweight. Hannah and I had already taken turns carrying him and Hava quite a bit, and at that point, he just really needed to walk. But he wouldn’t. He sat down on the sidewalk and started screaming his lungs out. I didn’t know what to do, so I did the “Okay, Mommy’s leaving..bye bye…” thing (which rarely works with Hava and NEVER works with Seth. He calls my bluff every time) and Seth continued to park it and scream, much to the amusement of everyone passing by. Again, quite the sight to behold, I’m sure.

Enter the Babushkas.

Two little old ladies walked up to Seth and started rattling off in Russian. I’m not sure what they were saying, but they were apparently trying to convince him to stand up. They were tugging at him, pulling at him, talking and talking and talking to him as I stood back laughing way too hard to be considered a good parent. Seth was not havin’ it. He only started screaming louder and louder. “Who are these people?? What are they saying? What have I gotten myself into???” Then one of the Babushkas started digging around in her bag and pulled out a piece of candy. She offered it to Seth- in exchange for him standing up…which worked. OF COURSE! Seth grabbed that candy, stood right on up, wiped his tears, and marched over to Mommy, “I eat my candy now???” OMG.

Hannah and I were dying. We were laughing so hard. Only NOT in the US would a total stranger walk up to your screaming toddler on the street and bribe him with candy. It was amazing. In that moment I was so stinkin’ thankful for that Babushka! She saved my life. 😉 I told Seth he couldn’t eat his candy till he walked all the way to the bus. Oh yeah, I got some mileage out of that bribe. You better believe it! Oh, I love Ukraine.

Eventually, we found a bus number I recognized, made it home, and settled into a cozy weekend of fun with our Hannah.

Stay tuned for the rest of our weekend adventures!

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kimnjed November 25, 2013 2

FamilyThis Ukrainian Life

A Sunday in Kiev

Happy Monday everyone!

We had a great first weekend. Jet lag remained a beast, but I think we have just about defeated it. All the kids slept through the night last night and didn’t wake up till 5:00am! Thank you, Jesus because I haven’t yet found a good coffee to brew at home, and {no sleep + disappointing coffee = the pit of despair}. BUT- we all got to sleep last night, and today we bought new coffee that was recommended by a friend and fellow Northwesterner, so things are looking up! PTL!

I think our trip to Kiev yesterday had a thing or two to do with our kids’ exhausted state, so add that to the list of reasons why I love Kiev. 😉

A trip to Kiev is no small task for a family of 6. Let me lay it out for you.

We started out from our house at 9:00am and walked about 15 minutes to the city center where we caught the bus to Kiev. Buses go back and forth between Kiev and Zhitomir all day, so it’s pretty easy to get a seat.

The bus ride is about 2 hours long and it takes us right to the edge of town. Normally at this point Jed and I would hop on the metro and then walk quite a ways to church, but we figured with all the littles it might be easier to take a taxi. Our friend Olya (THE BEST) ordered us a taxi and we were off!

We arrived at church around 11:45, just in time to visit with friends we love before church started at noon. The kids were big fans of Kiev Vineyard right away as our friends bribed smiles out of them with candy and cookies and tea with milk. Ukrainians are buying the hearts of our children right and left and the kids don’t mind it a bit. 😉

Oh man, arriving at the Vineyard in Kiev was like comfort food of the best kind. I think Jed and I both let out all the breath we’d been subconsciously holding since we touched down on Wednesday. We are family there. And the crazy thing is, we didn’t even feel like guests this time. It was grand. Ezra got to play soccer and wrestle with our friends, Addy made a little friend named Ruslana, Seth got his fill of cookies and juice, and Hava got carried to her heart’s content. Kiev Vineyard speaks our love language very well. At Salem Vineyard (our home) the kids have a few guys that they love to harass and wrestle every week at church. It’s one of the highlights of their week. Their favorite wrestle/tickle/tease church friend is Jesse. As we left Kiev Vineyard I heard the kids discussing “Hey, let’s make Elvin, Max, and Sasha our Jesse for now, okay?” 🙂 We love you Jesse!

Learning Russian from a new friend

After church, we headed by bus and then by foot to our favorite Sunday lunch spot: Puzata Hata! Woot! While at Puzata we got to meet up with an adoptive family we’ve been in touch with for several months now. God actually worked it out that they arrived in Kiev the same day as us last week and they’ll be there for several weeks adopting a sweet baby. They are dreamers like us and we were SO HAPPY to meet! We’re hoping to spend more time together in a couple weeks. Thank you friends for coming to meet us! All our mutual stalking paid off! Hehe

We lingered at lunch/dinner for several hours and finally decided we better start our long trek home. We went back to the bus stop by the metro and the kids were SOOOOO excited to finally use their escalator skills. Oh yeah, all our practicing paid off and the kids handled the escalators like champs.

Ready to get on the metro!

The bus ride home to Zhitomir was a bit of a doozy. It was pretty warm (I’m a hot person. If you didn’t know. It’s my cross to bear.), but there was a Ukrainian variety show on which kept Addy and Ez occupied for quite a bit of the drive. Seth and Hava fell asleep almost instantly, but they were on our laps, and at some point, Jed had the nerve to shift his position, and all hell broke loose. Seth was half awake, half asleep, and started screaming for some unknown reason. We couldn’t fully wake him up and he continued to scream for a looooong time. It was super painful…I’m sure the rest of the bus really loved us at that point. Oy.

By the time we arrived back in Zhitomir all the kids were asleep and we didn’t have the heart to make them walk the 15 minute walk back home, so we hired a taxi and somehow managed to tell him where we lived. Success!

All in all the day was fantastic. We had lots of laughs, lots of hugs, and lots of adventure. Thank you Jesus for family in Ukraine.

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kimnjed November 18, 2013 7

FamilyHomeThe MoveThis Ukrainian Life

Our House!

So, I’m just sitting here in my little Ukrainian house, the kids are asleep, and Jed is off to watch soccer at a friend’s house (He doesn’t waste time with the man dates! Hehe) Life is good. We are blessed and happy.

Wanna see our house? YES! I’m pretty proud of us because we actually accomplished quite a bit today, despite the fact that the kids woke up at 4am. Oh, you say that just gave us more hours to work, so of course we should have gotten a lot done? Well, I say it was evil and instead caused us all to take a three-hour nap at noon. We couldn’t help ourselves! Jet lag is a beast.

So, the house is still a work in progress, but I’ll let you have a peek at our new digs. We feel quite comfy here and are so super thankful. Here goes nothin!

This is our street, headed toward our house- the white building on the right.

Here’s the front of our building. I think there are like 4 houses (flats) that are all a part of this building…not quite sure though. We enter around the back.

This is the path to walk around to our pad. 🙂

These steps lead to us! That balcony right above is our balcony. Everyone come on over!

Welcome! Here’s what you see when you walk on in. (Minus the huge grins on our faces, so happy to have you! Also beware of tiny, leg-grabbing people ready to jump out and grab you…they’re vicious I tell ya)

Oh, you like the purple kitchen, do you? Well, we girls like it too. The boys aren’t so sure.

Too bad we don’t have a microwave manual…not that we could read that either…hmmm

Here’s the place where all the goodness happens. When you come over we’ll eat loads of deliciousness at this big ‘ol table! That’s assuming I figure out grocery shopping and can buy the right ingredients for the deliciousness. Seth wants me to tell you he has his eyes closed. FYI 🙂

Here’s the view from the dining room table of Jed leaving me to go on a man date. 😉

So, to the right of the front door is the kitchen, and this is what’s to the left. There’s the bathroom, and the living room.

Here’s our AWESOME bathroom! This is the biggest bathroom we’ve ever had. For some reason I find it very cute and bright. Is that weird that I love my bathroom so much?

Our little washing machine is in the bathroom. When Addy saw it she said It’s just my size! Yep, that’s about right. Ha! We don’t have a dryer so this girl’s gonna have to learn the art of hanging clothes to dry. Sweeeeet.

Here’s another time when a manual would be helpful…

This is the room that we’ll use as a living room. I think we’ll move out one of the beds to make more space, throw some cushions on the others, and call ’em couches.

The view from the other side of the room, complete with Jed looking creepy. He makes me laugh. I just love him!

Still with me? Now let’s head upstairs so you can see the guest room. Hint hint…

This is the biggest room, so it will be for the kids. We can’t fit 4 beds in it, so we need to buy some bunk beds. Until then, just the girls will sleep in here.

That white door leads to a shower.

THIS, now THIS is the guest room! Isn’t it fantastic? 😉 The boys will sleep in here until we get the bunk beds.

Here’s our cute little upstairs bathroom. So itty bitty!

Here’s our enclosed balcony. Pretty sweet eh? Right now we’re storing empty suitcases here. Yeah, when we brought 12 SUITCASES we didn’t really think through what we would do with them after we were done traveling here. Anyone need a spare suitcase? Emma- notice my sweet hanging skills???

Our view during the day…

And now for the armpit of the house…

Our bedroom!!! Yep, we’ve still got some work to do…

Isn’t the house SO GREAT??? It’s a miracle. It’s so clean, plenty big, under our budget, a three-minute walk to MTU, and furnished. We are so happy!

When we knew we were going to live in this house we were excited, but I had one worry. I was worried for my kids. There are no parks nearby, and I was so concerned about how we would find friends. Do we just walk around until we hear kids and then head in that direction? It was a worry for me, but we really felt like this house was God’s gift to us, so we knew He had/has our kids covered.

So, yesterday morning we woke up, looked out our balcony window to check out our view, and you’ll never guess what we saw.

A PLAYGROUND!!!

Would you believe they installed a playground right behind our house on our first morning here?? INCREDIBLE. We were laughing, and I’m pretty sure I cried. Now THAT is God’s gift to my kids, but also a gift to this mommy’s heart. Where there is a playground, there will be children. It just goes to show us that God has gone before us and taken care of every single detail.

One of our friends felt like God showed her that this move to Ukraine would be like Christmas Day for our kids. Like they don’t know what they are getting, but that God has great gifts here for them. Well, gift #1 was delivered on our first morning and I am in awe.

It just keeps getting better and better. Saying yes to God is so much fun!!!!!

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kimnjed November 15, 2013 20

EncouragementFamilyThe MoveWide Awake InternationalYes

How it Went Down

We are here! We are here! Holy, moly, the outpouring of support has blown us away. We feel so loved and spoiled! Our friends and family rock. So many Viber messages, so much facebook encouragement, so many emails. Thank you all for loving us so well.

Here’s how it went down.

Portland:

We said goodbye to my family and it was p-a-i-n-f-u-l. Picture Addy clinging to the window, sobbing as our family walked away and you’ll be able to picture the level of sadness. Our family has so fully released us to this and we know it is hard. I can’t imagine how we could even do this if they didn’t let us know that they are behind this 100%. Thank you dear fam for letting us go. WE LOVE YOU!

We were feeling rather pathetic, so we hurried off to distract ourselves with a long security line. That line made us want to poke our eyes out, so the other sadness was forgotten for a bit. It felt like all we had ever known was that line and our 4 roller carry-ons + 5 backpacks + 1 guitar. All time stopped and we were lost in the vortex of shoe-taking off, pocket-emptying, luggage-heaving, and luggage-scanning and re-scanning. Did I mention the miracle that we got to check all 12 bags ALL THE WAY to Kiev, and 7 of them were a couple pounds overweight and they made us pay nothing? Oh the cheering that rang out at the American Airlines ticket counter!! Did I also mention that TSA officers have a knack for opening the bags stuffed with loose legos? Yep, they chose the lego bags without fail. Hehe…it was like an explosion of legos every time. Annnnnd it never stopped being funny.

Flight #1

This flight was pretty uneventful. As we were heading down the runway I explained to Havalah that we have to go really fast before we go up in the air. She said “Oh, when we start to drive really fast will our hair blow back?” 🙂

Chicago:

TSA really had a ball with our luggage this time. They must have scanned Ezra’s backpack 4 times. I think the nerf gun bullets were the culprit…or maybe the scary shark toy? I guess it will always remain a mystery.

We ate some yummy food, took a train, changed terminals and we were off again!

Flight #2

This was the biggie. We were flying from Chicago to Istanbul and it was a 10 hour doozy. The kids did AWESOME!!!! They really couldn’t have done better. We watched movies, ate, and slept. I won’t bore you with all the details…

Istanbul:

Before we arrived in Istanbul we explained to the kids that when we got off that plane we wouldn’t be in America anymore, so they needed to expect things to be different. The first sign of different was when we went through the security check. O.M.G. As Havalah went through the x-ray scanner deal-io the TSA officer (a woman) grabbed Havalah and started smothering her face with kisses. HAHAHA!!! It was so awesome. She was going on and on in Turkish, grabbing, kissing, talking, more kissing. At that point we were certain we weren’t in Oregon anymore. Seth got the same smooch treatment and we were on our way. I’m not sure they took note of anything in our bags, they were just too enamored with our kids. I loved every second of it, and Hava and Seth didn’t seem to mind it much either. 🙂

Flight #3:

This flight was less than 2 hours long, so I don’t have much to say about it. Quick and painless, and before we knew it we were in Kiev! The feelings as we touched down in Ukraine were like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Jed and I met eyes and were like “Holy cow. We did it. We made it. God did this. After 3 years of dreaming, we are here- with our kids. WOW.”

Kiev:

Once we got down to baggage claim in Kiev we were in good hands. We looked out the glass doors and could see a group of our dear friends from the Kiev Vineyard waiting for us, waving and smiling. YES!!! All we had to do was get our bags from the carousel to the door and then we had many hands hugging us and helping us. Praise God for the Body of Christ. Praise God for family in Kiev. We love them so much!

Want to know the biggest miracle of all? ALL 12 BAGS MADE IT TO KIEV. Jed and I were literally whooping with joy when we grabbed the last bag off the carousel. It was definitely a moment to celebrate. 🙂

Our friends helped us to the van we had hired and we were off on the road to Zhitomir! All the kids except Seth fell asleep on the two-hour drive, so that was easy peasy. When we arrived at the house our friend Oleg was waiting with keys to let us right in. He even brought food for breakfast this morning! All our friends here made us feel so loved and welcome. Then we logged in online and all our friends from the US were cheering us on like crazy! It’s like one ginormous hug fest and we are loving every second of it. Thank you, dear ones, both near and far.

All in all, the travel couldn’t have been more perfect. Tomorrow I’ll show you pictures of the house, so stay tuned! Woot! 😉

We are so unbelievably thankful that God has brought us this far. He has covered every single detail. It just goes to show you that the children we’ve come to serve are so stinkin’ dear to His heart. He will stop at nothing to have His way. He will stop at nothing to bring light into darkness. All of this is for His glory. He continues to pave the way and we simply can not wait to see what He has in store next. He is changing the atmosphere and softening hearts. He is opening eyes and we are humbled to be His hands and feet in this place.

To God be ALL the glory for the great, amazing, fantastic, unbelievably good things He has done.

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kimnjed November 14, 2013 7

FamilyThe Move

45 Days

We leave on a jet plane in 45 days. Holy moly. How in the world? I can’t believe it. Did I mention one-way tickets? Anywaysssss….

In honor of 45 days remaining here in the good ol’ US of A, here are 45 thoughts.

1. It’s pretty cold here in Montana. When we left for this road trip on September 13th it was kind of hard to guesstimate how the weather would change before our return to Oregon on October 6th. Let’s just say that by not packing any long-sleeved shirts for my family I was less than successful at guesstimating correctly.

2. Staying with Jed’s fam is so fun. The kids and I get 10 whole days with Jed’s sis Jessy and her family. I love my sister. I am happy. 🙂

3. Last Thanksgiving we brought 6 boxes of books and keepsakes to Montana to store in a garage. Today we found the boxes and went through them and I found a box full of books I’ve been looking for!!! It was like Christmas! Those books were never supposed to come to MT. Oh happy day!!

4. We’ve eaten a whole heckofalotta ice cream on this trip. (and by “we”, I mostly mean “me”) My body is very, very angry with me. So are my jeans.

When we left Great Falls we had to say goodbye to Jed’s wonderful grandma. She is the biggest prayer warrior I know. She prays for us every.single.day. We are so blessed to be her kids. Sniff sniff…

6. I’m still curious how our visa situation is going to work out. I know God’s got it, but it’s a tad hard not to worry. If you want to pray about that it would be really awesome of you.

7. If you haven’t seen the movie “The Way, Way Back” you are missing out. I think it might be one of my all-time faves. I keep telling everyone about it. Go watch it, okay?

8. There’s a vintage clothing store here in Billings that I adore. So many skirts, too little time.

9. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it will be like to raise our kids overseas. We’ve always wanted to raise our kids out of the US for at least part of their childhoods. I wonder what it will be like? I wonder how it will shape them? Exciting stuff!

10.

My kids are in cousin heaven right now. Just so ya know.

11. Jed leaves tomorrow for Colorado Springs to a Vineyard Missional Leaders Summit. He is so excited to build more relationships with missions peeps in the Vineyard. We are blessed he gets to go. Super coooool.

12. Yay for Fall!!! Yay for pumpkin goodness! Yay for afternoon coffee! Yay for gray skies and drizzling clouds! Yay for less sunshine beating down on my too-white skin!

13. Another thing on my brain a lot lately is our family’s evolving philosophy of education. I’m liking it A LOT.

14. I think I feel a home school post brewing!

15.

We miss our boys at Romaniv. Our hearts ache to get back to them.

16. The friends and supporters of Wide Awake are amazing. Thank you all for sharing the word, praying for us, loving us, and loving the children of Ukraine. We truly don’t feel alone on this mission and are so giddy to be partnering with you.

17. Yesterday alone, three different friends from home texted me and included a conversation about Dairy Queen in the texts. Does that mean I have a problem???

18. Only 45 days of Dairy Queen left. Hold me.

19. Twitter baffles me. I don’t understand it, yet I feel like I’m a fairly bright person. Thank goodness for my dearest Sarah who can tackle the twitter beast for me. I owe Sarah a blizzard.

20. Today Seth and I had our first real (for a 3-year -old) convo about adoption. We were looking at pics of when Havalah was born and when I put Seth down for his nap he said “Remember when I come out your tummy too Mommy?” I told him about when I came to the hospital and asked if he could be my baby. Precious, precious moments. We are so blessed to have our baby.

21. I love adoption. Beautiful.

22.

My mom’s class sent us a Flat Stanley to take on the rest of our road trip. The kids are pretty excited!!

23. Running

24. Out

25. Of

26. Things

27. To

28. Say

29. Tonight we get to share Wide Awake at City Church of Billings. A group of people who love Jed and his sis are coming to hear what all the fuss is about. Yay for bringing Wide Awake into Montana territory!

30. Another thing mulling around in my brain: I wonder which friendships will survive and thrive when we move away, and which ones will kind of fall off the map? I wonder if we’ll be surprised at which ones keep on keepin’ on? I wonder if I’ll do a good job at loving my friends from far away? I hope I do well.

31. I never really knew what all the fuss was about concerning CS Lewis. I never thought I was smart enough or “deep” enough to read his works. I’m just now really discovering him for the first time and I get it.

32. Read this: http://www.inhisname.org/give-all.html

33.

I got to go on a date with this guy today. I’m the luckiest wife eva.

34. As of today I’m officially unemployed.

35. Jed’s last day at work was the day before we left on this trip.

36. That means we’re both unemployed. Scary. Weird. Relieving. Scary. Faith-building. Eek!

37. Salem Hospital was good to me. I worked there for all of the 12 years I’ve been an RN, minus a brief 9-month stint in Corvallis. My boss for the past several years was the BEST.

38. The girls in this family need serious hair-trimming attention. Good thing Jessy can do it for us.

39. I’m not sure Havalah’s hair is capable of growing any longer than it is right now.

40. I’m not sure Havalah’s body is capable of growing any bigger than it is right now. 😉

41. Speaking of hair. We just took a jaunt down memory lane, recalling the time when Addy got a mullet. Hahahahahaha! That’s what you get when you go to Great Clips in Montana. Kidding, kidding! (sorta)

42. My view right now:

43. And now…

44. And now!

45. I’m surrounded by cuteness and life is gooooooood. 🙂

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kimnjed September 27, 2013 6

FamilyThe Move

Along the Way

Welp, we’re in Montana now. 🙂

We arrived in Great Falls on Friday after a loooooong day of driving through nowheresville Idaho, a drive through part of Yellowstone, a stopover at a very cheap interesting motel, and another morning of driving. With all of us stuffed in a car, quarters are preeeeetty close and comfy. We’ve been listening to the audiobook of Pinocchio and it’s so funny! I’d only ever seen the Disney cartoon and the book is of course so different and so weird. With Pinocchio, a steady stream of Pimsleur Russian, and our favorite albums we don’t get too terribly bored. All that said, we are super happy to be out of the car and in Montana spending lots of quality time with the cousins and Jed’s grandma. We are so blessed!

Here’s some pics from along the way:

Seth calls this his Mickey Mouse pose. Hmmmm?

Havalah and her Playmobils. Inseparable.

Showin’ off the faves.

Addy is my VERY close car companion… 🙂

We ate in a covered wagon! Note the creepy animals…only in good ol’ Montana!

Ridin’ a bear in West Yellowstone

Look! Elk! (Sorry about the stranger in the corner…I’m not in a photo editing mood)

BOYS!

GIRLS!

Listening to the accordion with the cousins at GG’s

Girly cousins. Addy looks just a wee bit frightening!

The little boys. Cuteness!

Either on Tuesday or Wednesday we’ll head to Jed’s sister and her fam in Billings, MT. This trip has been super wonderful so far! Jed is feeling quite a bit better, so thanks for the prayers!

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kimnjed September 22, 2013 0

FamilyThe MoveYes

Road Trip! Yakima and Hermiston

Road Trip Stats:

3 days

3 states

3 rounds of ice cream

3 delicious batches of homemade cookies

3 awesome times of sharing

2 church families we absolutely love

2 amazing host families spoiling us rotten

1 near-missed tornado warning

600 miles

countless hugs

countless welcoming smiles and open hearts

So as you can see, so far so good!

We had amazing times in Yakima and Hermiston. We seriously love those churches! It’s incredible how God can knit your hearts with people when you least expect it and when you really aren’t even looking for it. We feel such a great love for those 2 church families. The excitement, encouragement, and support they have showered on us has been so humbling and heart-filling. THANK YOU our dear friends! We left both places feeling loved and spoiled. 🙂

Don’t be judging the food choice…it’s a ROAD TRIP!

On Friday night in Yakima, we led worship and then Jed shared about the goodness of God. After the talk, we had a Q & A time with some medical professionals interested in how they can help. I can’t even tell you what it does to our hearts to see others grabbing this vision and running with it. To have someone come up and tell us they’ve been thinking about Ukraine ever since they last heard us speak and they know they just have to respond. “Wait, you thought about what was shared after we left??? YESSSSSSSS!!!!” 😉 We got to have breakfast with the fun and fantastic Lee Family and I forgot to take pictures. Lame! I guess you’ll have to use your imagination on that one. Thanks, friends!

In Hermiston, we got to stay with the Douglass family and invade their space. It was the bessssst. Man, we love those guys. Mark and Lois adopted their son Nik from Ukraine a couple years ago so we have a special bond there, plus they are just awesome, plus their boys are tons ‘o fun, plus they all love our kids, plus they fed us delicious food and let us jump on their trampoline and eat their ice cream and swim in their pool. We had a comfy cozy family time with them that we’ll always treasure. Thanks, dear Dougli!

We got to share Wide Awake with Oasis Vineyard in Hermiston on Sunday morning and a good time was had by all. That probably had more to do with the delicious potluck than anything else. 🙂 Why does it all have to be about the food, you ask? Well, I just really like food…that’s why. Heeheeeee…

Now we’re in Boise at an awesome host home with such kind hosts, it’s just great! We shall see what good times await us here.

Thanks, friends for praying and following along on our journey. If you could pray for Jed we would really appreciate it. He’s got a cold/cough that he just can’t seem to shake. That’s made speaking and leading worship a tad interesting! He really doesn’t want to be sick and I really want him to be able to fully engage in this trip without feeling sick and tired. Would you pray with us for his healing? Thanks!

Bye for now!

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kimnjed September 16, 2013 0

FamilyHomeschoolingThe KidsThe Move

Readying the Troops

Preparing to move overseas is quite the task. It’s such a big task that we really have no idea how to tackle it. Day by day, we just do the next thing that is in front of us- praying that when moving day comes along we’ll be as ready as can be. I’m not necessarily talking about packing and all that (although I have no idea what I’m doing in that area either), more about preparing our hearts and minds for how our lives are going to change.

When we very first started this process some very wise missionaries told us to do whatever we could to prepare our hearts and lives while we are still here in the US. “Get your marriage right, work on those selfish areas in your heart, help prepare your kids’ hearts”. Basically we were encouraged to do whatever we can do NOW while we are in a familiar situation and we have a great church and tons of friends and family around who love us. Because although we will still have loads of rough edges to smooth off when we get to Ukraine, it’s in our best interest to allow the Lord to do some of the smoothing ahead of time. Lord knows things will get a lot rougher in some areas once we get there! Ha!

Lately I’ve been thinking more about how to prepare our kids for this major life change. I want to be intentional about preparations with them, because otherwise I know it simply won’t happen. I know myself. 🙂 Like back in February when we first spoke at a church to share the vision, we were on our way to the church and I finally thought to look back at the kids and ask them if they understood what we were doing that day. Addy understood, but Havalah and Ezra were unsure (Seth was just along for the snacks- as usual). It was in that moment that I realized that although they are absorbing a lot just by living in the same house and hearing conversations, we must intentionally talk with them all through this process so their little hearts aren’t left behind.

Here are some things we have started doing to help our kiddos along this journey. I’m writing them down partially to keep myself accountable, and partially to encourage other parents to be intentional with your kiddos. We can’t assume our kids will learn what we want them to know about faith and their walk with Jesus by osmosis. We have to have intentional conversations. I am sure a work in progress in this area, so I don’t claim to be an expert of any kind! But, you never know who needs to be reminded of that truth. So here ya go!

Language Study
I started including Addy, Ezra, and Havalah in my language study. Duh. That should have been a no-brainer, but I honestly was waiting to find the perfect “kid” language curriculum for them. Instead I finally realized that I started at square one and they can just join me where I’m at! Some knowledge of the language is better than none at all. We study Monday-Friday for maybe 25 minutes or so, and then I let them go play while I do a bit more. THEY LOVE IT. They are such smarties too! Addy has an awesome memory and Ezra has a great ear for the language. It’s funny the words that stick out to them. I’m not sure how helpful it will be to know “cockroach” and “frog” in Russian, but they’ve got those ones down perfectly! 🙂

We use Transparent Russian for our language study. We bought it many months ago and chose Russian over Ukrainian because the part of the country we ultimately would love to end up in is mostly Russian-speaking, and our tutor we had hired was a native Russian speaker. Now I wonder if we made the right decision, but ah well. I think either one is a great start. The complete program isn’t available in Ukrainian anyway, so it is what it is. 🙂

Transparent has grammar study, audio helps, and an awesome vocab-building tool called “Byki”. Byki is the only part I use with the kids. We study our computer flashcards and play little games with the words we’ve learned. They are seeing the words, hearing the words, and saying the words. It seems like the language study has given them more ownership in this process and I love that more than anything.

Sharing
We’ve been lining up speaking engagements at different churches and small groups and have been wondering how to involve our kids more in that process. Yesterday we had a great answer to prayer in that area! The kids and I were invited to share about Ukraine at chapel for a local Christian school where my mom is a teacher. It is missions week for the school, so every day they are learning about different countries and the work being done there. We opened up the week by sharing about Ukraine. Addy and Ez helped me prepare the lesson and even shared part of it with the kids! I was so very proud of them!!!

Ezra and Havalah…ha!

Addy talked about where Ukraine is located, what kind of foods are popular there, what the homes are like, and showed pictures of the capital and important monuments.

Ezra talked about language learning, showed a picture of the Cyrillic alphabet and talked about the sound differences and shared some words he’s learned.

Havalah had planned to show her nesting doll, but got nervous…I pretty much knew that would happen! Ha! I could see how proud they were to share about Ukraine and it made my heart glad. I think this was a big leap toward them taking ownership of this mission. We were very thankful for the opportunity to share with other children!

Prayer and Discussion
Ever since we first learned about the need in Ukraine we have included the kids in prayer for the people of Ukraine.

There have been seasons when we have been more faithful in that than others, but over all it’s been a constant in our family prayers. The kids have certain orphans they pray for super faithfully, and most of those children have been, or are being adopted!

That has been a great faith-builder for them! Now I see we need to start expanding our prayer time with them to include the caregivers, other believers in Ukraine, and the people we’re going to meet and grow to love there. I want to start praying with them that God will provide them with friends they can love and enjoy life with. Addy and Ez are particularly nervous that they “won’t have any friends”. I know it’s not God’s heart for them- so it’s time to start praying and believing that He will provide friends.

Sometimes I get nervous and think “What are we doing? Are we ruining our kids’ lives by taking them away from friends and family??” But then I think back to all the words God has spoken to our family along this process. This move is something He has called our whole family to- not just Jed and me. Life in Ukraine is something He is preparing for our whole family. When our loving Father created Adelina, Ezra, Havalah, and Seth He knew what life He was creating them for. He knows how this will grow them and make them into the men and women He has designed them to be. When I was pregnant with Addy a word was spoken that “This baby will be a bridge to people who don’t know Jesus”. I am so excited to watch God fulfill that through Addy. I can’t wait to watch each of our kids blossom and come even more alive as we walk into the destiny God has created for every.single.one. of us.

kimnjed March 12, 2013 5