Hi Friends!

It’s been some time since I’ve given you the lowdown on who lives where here on the Homestead. I know there are a lot of us here and even some people have similar names, so I can definitely see how things could get confusing. During our last board meeting for Wide Awake I told our Directors that I planned to make this post and even they were happy about it. They hear the names of these people every week and sometimes still find themselves confused about who’s who. Let’s get it all cleared up, shall we?

The Homestead Property. Our Homestead is about 4 acres of property located in a village not far from the nearest city. It takes about 7 minutes by car to reach the edge of the city, so we aren’t super remote. There is a major highway that goes all the way from Kyiv to the border of Hungary and our street is directly off that highway. We would love to be a little more out in the boonies, but this is where God has us, so we’ll just appreciate the convenience of it and try our best to continue ignoring the sounds of highway traffic. 😆

People have asked about our neighbors and what they think of us, our boys, and our work. I honestly can’t answer that. Our neighbors are, for the most part, pretty unfriendly and uninterested in what we do here. There are a few people who are kind and we have built some relationship over the years, but for the most part, our neighbors ignore us and our boys. Our kids have made friends with many neighbor kids over the years (especially Seth), so I know many more children than adults. It’s sad and I wish it was different, but after this many years I honestly just don’t really think about it anymore.

Offices, Out Buildings. Besides the homes, which I’ll write about last, there are several other structures on the Homestead that allow us to do our work.

1. We have three small, moveable offices buildings where our interns and office staff work. Two of the offices are small, one room units, and one is an A-frame building with a bathroom and kitchenette.
2. The barn, chicken coop, and animal enclosure are on the back of the property. In the enclosure are 2 horses: Gloria and Myshka, 2 goats: Suzy and Karen, and 12ish? chickens.
3. Near the animal enclosure is a big old shed/garage/whatever-people-decide-to-call-it building. In that garage are all the tools and equipment for building projects, bikes, an extra refrigerator, dry goods, camping gear, pool gear, sleds…all the extra stuff that doesn’t need to be in houses.
4. Right next to our house is a wood shop that Oleg and Vlad are currently remodeling to make into a nice area for the boys to do work projects. We have used it like that off and on for years, but Oleg and Vlad are working on it now to make it more accessible and organized. This month Oleg plans to restart individual project time in the wood shop for each of the boys!

The Homes. Now on to the part you probably care about the most. Who lives where and with whom? Let’s get to it!

Johnson Family Home. When we purchased the first parcel of land back in 2016 it was the parcel with our house on it. It was an old farmhouse with no indoor plumbing and a hayloft as the second floor. It was stripped down to the first floor walls and foundation and rebuilt into the beautiful home it is today. I love our house! It’s my favorite place and has been such a wonderful space for raising our family. Thank you to all of you long-time faithful donors who helped make this home what it is today. It’s truly a place of peace and comfort for all who enter.

Who lives there? All the people who’s last name is Johnson, plus Boris (aka Bmo) and Christiana. Bmo has lived with us in this home since 2017. We consider him one of our children, he just doesn’t have our last name. 🥰 Christiana is an American member of our team who was a house parent in the duplex for 2 years. Once her role of house parent was completed she realized her time here in Ukraine wasn’t quite done, so she decided to stay on until the summer. She is living with us in the meantime and we love having her! We also have three pets in our home: Bluebell, the 10 year old English Shepherd, Betsy, the 2 year old dachshund, and Lucille, the 5 month old Maine Coon.

Duplex Side A. This side of the duplex is called “Side A” because it’s the side of the building closest to the road. Our team here in Ukraine calls the different sides of the duplex by the last name of the house parents to remind ourselves that it’s a home, not just a work place. But for our purposes here, it’s easier to say “Side A” and “Side B”. Side A of the duplex was completed just before the full scale invasion began in 2022 and was used as a sort of Noah’s ark during the first several months of the war. Several mothers and their adult children with disabilities lived there and during those first couple of weeks we hosted more than 100 people who were fleeing west from Kyiv to safety. In the summer of 2022, after we all returned from our time in Germany as refugees our boys began to live in the home.

Who lives there? Yaroslav, Vova, and the Mosiichuk family (Ruslan, Nina, and Lia). Ruslan and Nina, along with baby Lia moved into the duplex last October. Up until that time we had had different variations of volunteers living with Yarik and Vova. All the volunteers were amazing! And now we finally have Ukrainian house parents, which we have seen from previous experiences is the best case scenario for our boys.

Duplex Side B. Side B of the duplex is the side closer to the horse barn. It was completed back in 2021 and was our first go at community living here on the Homestead. I think for that reason Side B will always hold a special place in my heart. It’s the place where our dream of more boys living with house parents on the property was realized. I love it.

Who lives there? Anton, Sasha, and the Semenyuk family (Oleg, Masha, and Dem’yan). Oleg and Masha were team members who got married in 2022 and then a few months later decided to be house parents and moved in with the boys. Dem’yan was born last June and completed the fam. Oleg and Masha have walked hand in hand with us along this journey for so many years and they are a great example of how to love our boys day after day. Masha and Oleg also have three pets: Bonya the cat, Richie the dachshund (our Betsy’s brother), and Lois the cat. Lois is actually the Homestead cat and has been with us since before the duplex was completed, but she eats at Side B and sleeps there on cold nights.

Both sides of the duplex have space for one more boy from the institution, so we are just waiting until the babies are a little bigger before bringing the next boys out. Please pray for us for wisdom and courage in that!

Building 7. The newest parcel of land was purchased just last year and had an existing old farmhouse on it. We call it “Building 7” just because 7 is the street address. Much like our home, it needed to be stripped down to walls and foundation, but is on it’s way to being the next and final home on the Homestead. It’s a smaller home and will have space for house parents and two boys. At this point we are planning for Max and Lesya to live there with Ruslan. They currently live with Rus in a house close to town, so we are looking forward to the time when they are here in the village with us. Once they are settled there they will be able to bring another boy home to live with them and their two cats, Bella and Carlos.

Dajana’s House. Dajana is our team member from Germany who cares for the horses and does horse therapy with the boys. Until last October she was a house parent for Yarik and Vova on Side A, along with Christiana. After moving out of the duplex she decided to build herself a small modular home on the back of our property so she can continue to live in close community with all of us here on the Homestead. Her project is in process and hopefully will be completed this spring! In the meantime she is living in the A-frame office building with her two dogs, Buddy and Lilo.

So there you have it! That’s all of us and all of our many, many animals. So.many.animals. 😂 I absolutely love living here on the Homestead. There is always someone nearby to talk to, help if you need it, or just be present for companionship. The work we do isn’t easy. It’s not a 9-5 job, but a complete lifestyle. I can’t imagine doing it in isolation! We are so blessed to have the gift of each other.

If you have any other questions about our Homestead, ask away! I hope this helped you get more names and faces straight in your head. Thanks for loving us and for caring about our lives here with our boys. We could never have built this beautiful community without your support. 💙

Wishing you sunny and peaceful skies,

Kim

If you want more a visual, here’s a video tour of the Homestead.

Yesterday we had the most amazing opportunity to witness the birth of our new foal! Gloria, one of our horses who we unexpectedly found out was already pregnant when we purchased her in October, gave birth to a sweet baby boy. New life never ceases to amaze me. It was an incredible day!

We always assumed that Gloria would give birth during the night or in the very early hours. And since we didn’t even know she was pregnant for most of the pregnancy, we didn’t know exactly when to expect the new arrival. Every morning I would look out my bedroom window to see if Gloria was waiting for her breakfast at the fence. If she was ever absent in those morning hours I would eagerly check to see if we had a baby. But…she decided to do it right smack in the middle of the day…and in the middle of the mud!

Jed and I were inside clipping our weiner dog’s nails (I promise we don’t only take care of animals here…😆) when Tonya, one of our team members ran into the house screaming our names. My heart about stopped- something terrible must have happened! We ran down the stairs “What? What happened?” “She’s giving birth!!!!!!” “Who?” (We also have a pregnant goat) “Gloria!!! Come quick!” Apparently, a neighbor was walking past our back fence on her way home from the little village store, saw a horse in the middle of the birthing process, and began screaming her lungs out to get someone’s attention. Tonya heard and we all started running to the barn. It was quite dramatic. 😁 We arrived on the scene to see a freshly born foal lying in the mud, still partially in the amniotic sac! Its legs were stuck in the sack so Jed pulled it away and then we all just watched Gloria and her mothering instincts take over. Ahhhhh it was so beautiful and special. We got to see our new colt stand for the first time on his stick-skinny, looooooooong legs, we saw how Gloria guided him to learn to nurse, and how she protected him from the curiosity of the other horses. All of us who live with the boys here on the Homestead just stayed with them for hours, watching the new life unfold. So much fun. Dajana, our resident “horse person”, is actually in Germany right now and was so upset to miss the birth! We were sending videos, Facetiming, and wishing so badly that she was with us on the special day. We miss you, Dajana!

Once we established that he is actually a “he”, we started the name convo. We hadn’t discussed names at all and I’ll tell you what, two Ukrainians, a German, and a few Americans all agreeing on a name is a great “experience” in honesty, team building, compromise, and kindness… and is about as easy as herding cats. Ha! We had to agree on a name that sounds good in all three languages (German, Ukrainian, and English) and with all three accents. In the end, at 11:00pm, we decided to use rank-order voting in order to make a fair choice. Thankfully, Christiana was once a voting official and was able to guide us through the process. 😂 We each submitted two name ideas and then we each ranked them according to our likes and dislikes. For your amusement, here is the list of names we were voting on:

The List (in no particular order)

1. Ryan Gosling
2. Horse Named Sioux (inspired by the Johnny Cash song “A Boy Named Sue”)
3. Bjorn
4. Johnny Cash
5. Marty
6. Kev
7. Uhtred
8. Josh of the Woods (inspired by our board chairman and US Director of Operations- Josh Woods)
9. Carl
10. Keanu Reaves
11. Clint
12. Woody
13. Seastar
14. Chandler
15. Johnny Go Lightly

And the winning name is….”Horse Named Sioux”!! He will affectionately be referred to as “Horse”. We think it’s absolutely hilarious that that name won. But, in a country where English is not the commonly spoken language, it’s actually quite cute and funny to hear Ukrainians calling him “Horse”. I love it so much. It makes me laugh.

Anyway, we wanted to introduce you to our sweet Horse, the newest member of the Wide Awake Family. He is already and will be well-loved. Welcome to the world, Horse Named Sioux! ❤️

Here is a beautiful intro from our team’s Instagram

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by [ΔᎥм]ГᎥдностᎥ | Dignity Home (@dim_hidnosti_ukraine)

Making our garden accessible, and fun moments from the past couple of weeks ❤️

For everyone following the journey, we’ve done a lot of building during the last 6 years. Jed gives a tour of the new barn, cargo bikes, walkways, and his best attempt at keeping the chicken eggs clean. Enjoy.

www.wideawakeinternational.org

Here’s a little tour of the Wide Awake/Dim Hidnosti property for you. ☺️ I think it helps to see the bigger picture of the Homestead and how it has changed and developed over the years. Plus, exciting new developments are underway! 👏👏
PS: Sorry my voice sounds annoying and Jed’s is so quiet. I’d redo it, except it’s raining…so…no. 😆

Way back before COVID was in our lives (the beginning of last year, or 5 lifetimes ago…I’m not even sure anymore) our family made a plan to visit the US in the summer. We had this great idea to buy ourselves another dog, and then bring him back home with us to Ukraine when we returned in the fall. 

Our dog, Bluebell, is an English Shepherd and the best dog on the planet. We felt like she needed a companion, and was also the perfect age to teach a new pup how to behave. Our friend Paige, breeds English Shepherds and gifted us our Bluebell 5 years ago. She had a new litter of pups that would be the perfect age to travel to Ukraine at the end of the summer. Paige even had a sweet, sable pup that she thought would be a perfect addition to our family and he hadn’t been claimed yet. The stars were aligned- it was time to get ourselves a puppy! 

We purchased our puppy, Auggie, and Paige graciously agreed to keep him until we arrived in Oregon in June. 

Then COVID. (How many times have I written that sentence in my storytelling over the past few months??) 

The borders closed and flights were canceled. It quickly became apparent that we were not going to be heading to the US for the summer. But what about our Auggie?  Well, a wonderful family that are also English Shepherd owners stepped in and agreed to care for Auggie till we could come to the US this winter. Problem solved! We were bummed to miss out on puppy time, but knew he was being well-cared for, and that the time would fly by quickly.  

Then came time to buy our tickets for our winter visit. And…surprise, surprise…COVID! 

Come to find out, many airlines have suspended pet travel during the pandemic, so our options for getting Auggie back to Ukraine dwindled and dwindled till we realized the only way to get him home would be by paying a pet shipping company like $1500. Needless to say, our “pet budget” doesn’t extend that far. Yikes. We were so sad to finally admit to ourselves that Auggie wasn’t going to be coming to Ukraine.

In the meantime, another pup had entered the picture. Our Seth, the saver of all strays, brought a puppy home off the street. This wasn’t the first time Seth has tried to adopt a stray, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. His soft heart can’t bear seeing an animal all alone. We told Seth that we didn’t need another dog because Auggie would soon be coming home (we were still fighting that battle). We tried to turn the pup out, but he wouldn’t go away. He stuck around, sleeping on our porch and even barking at strangers who would pass by! I guess he felt he had found his home. Pretty soon we started feeding him, giving him soft blankets to sleep on, and…it all kind of snowballed from there. At one point I told Jed “If we’re feeding this puppy we need to decide if he’s ours.” There are too many stray dogs around our village to start randomly feeding them all!

We were still tossing around the idea of keeping the puppy when we came to the conclusion that it was literally impossible for us to get Auggie to Ukraine this winter. I asked Auggie’s foster family if they wanted to keep him and they were more than happy to comply! They loved Auggie and had become quite attached to him. Our hearts were at peace. Auggie was with a loving family, and “the puppy” was an orphan. He needed us. The whole situation seemed pretty “on brand” for our fam. Hehe. 😉

That’s the story of how Wendell joined our family. Life in the times of COVID- you just never know which strange turns it will take. Am I right? Our little Wendell will always be a reminder of our strangest year yet.

PS: When we were choosing a name for Auggie, Jed was really pushing the name “Wendell”. No one in the family agreed with him. None of us were fans. Then when the pup started hanging around our porch he started covertly calling him Wendell. I guess Jed came out as the winner on this one.