Well, Folks, things are gettin’ crazy around here. Russia has attacked Ukraine and we are at war. How is this happening? 

We actually recorded this episode last week while things were a bit quieter, but I think today’s events make it even more relevant. In this episode, my daughter, Addy, and I discussed the joys we find in our work and life here in Ukraine. From creating community, to dance parties, to wardrobe malfunctions, our life here is rarely boring. 😆 I hope our chat brings you some laughs and encourages you to find joy wherever you may be. 

• Joy-filled moments with our community

Original music and sound design by Matt Bittner

Dear Friends,
Thank you for all your love and care for us during this uncertain time. We are still in Ukraine, on the Homestead, and we are safe. There have been rumors that some kind of invasion could happen today, but so far all is well. Assistants are with the boys, I took the kids to school, and am now sitting down with coffee to write to you. It feels almost like a normal morning, except Jed is on the phone right now with Ruslan planning the route for picking up all of our families in the city, if there were to be an invasion. And the kids’ school wrote that they are stepping up emergency drills with the kids. Sooooo…almost normal? 🤷‍♀️

We are watching the news very carefully and have made plans for every scenario we can think of. What will we do if we lose cell service?  What will we do if we lose internet?  What will we do if public transportation stops running? What will we do if there are Russian troops actually in our city?  We have done our best to prepare, and now all we can do is live our lives and see what happens. 

✅ On Monday we bought :
50kg of buckwheat
10kg of sugar
50kg of rice
20L of oil
50kg of oats
60kg of carrots
120kg of potatoes
40kg of onions
60kg of beets
5kg of garlic
Salt
So we’re all set to feed our crew of 40ish, should we all need to hunker down here in the village.

✅ Yesterday we filled all the vehicles with diesel and have plenty of fuel on reserve that Ruslan has been buying over this past month.

✅ Yesterday we finally purchased 3 generators (one for each home) and tomorrow they will be installed.

✅ Today we will hopefully hear that Sasha’s passport is ready. It’s past the date when it should be ready, so we hope to hear good news today on that front. 

✅ All important documents for everyone are compiled and scanned onto thumb drives as well. 

We are as ready as we can be, and I have to tell you we feel at peace. We really don’t feel afraid. We know we are exactly where we are supposed to be, and we will stay here as long as God has us here. We aren’t being hyper-spiritual about it, but also, we are not going to panic. Moving our huge group is too much of an undertaking to do it just for rumors. We will wait and see if it is actually necessary to leave before we make any big moves. We are committed to being here. Ukraine is our home and we are committed to our Wide Awake Family. 

We wanted to thank everyone who has reached out recently and shown their love and support for us and our team. We feel absolutely loved and cared for by you. Many of you have asked how you can help and our main answer has been “pray and donate so we don’t have to worry about money, should an emergency arrive”. You have stepped up in amazing ways. In the past month our partner churches in the Pacific Northwest, plus many generous individuals have donated $20,000 specifically towards helping the Homestead become more energy independent. Thank you thank you thank you!!  We are blown away by your giving hearts. Having the generators in our possession brings us a lot of peace of mind. 

Grant is still coming and is scheduled to arrive next week. We have plans for how to get to him if the airport is inaccessible or if commercial flights are not allowed to fly in Ukrainian airspace. He told us “I’ll walk to you guys if I have to.” 😆 We are eagerly awaiting his arrival and are thankful for his commitment to this work. 

Please pray for Vasya. He is the husband of our team member, Nina. He is stationed on the front in Eastern Ukraine. He has been stationed there off and on since the war began in 2014. But of course, now it feels quite a bit more stressful for Nina to have him there. Pray for Vasya’s safety and for Nina’s heart to have peace. Thank you.

President Zelenskyy made a great speech on Monday and declared today, the possible day of attack, as the “Day of Unity”. Ukrainian flags will fly and everyone is encouraged to show their support of Ukrainian sovereignty. I encourage you to read his speech and dare you not to fall in love with Ukraine even more. 

We will let you know if our situation changes. Please continue to pray and reach out. Never apologize for writing to us and checking in! We are not annoyed, we are only thankful and we feel the love. BeLOVE[d]

❤️ 🇺🇦 ❤️

You’ve read the news, you’ve heard all the rumblings about Ukraine and Russia, and we figured it was time to pipe in from our end. What is even going on around here???? 

In this episode I’m joined by Jed, my husband and co-founder of Wide Awake International. He’s way smarter about all things politics, so rather than bumbling through things I decided to have him talk about it. We talk about some of the history leading up to the current threat of Russian aggression, how it feels to live here in Ukraine in this moment, and how we are planning and prepping for all kinds of different scenarios.

I hope this episode gives you a little perspective and eases the minds of our mothers. 😂 Enjoy!

The Kyiv Independent article: “Ukrainian Voices are Missing from the Drama Over Ukraine’s Future”

Euromaidan Press (another source of Ukrainian news)

Netflix Documentary: Winter on Fire

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.

All you all fed up with Turkey? (hehe..get it?)

I won’t bore you with a big, long Thanksgiving after-the-fact post, but instead will just sum up the last few days with pictures. Some of which, are Thanksgiving pics!

Our turkey was butchered days before we ate it. Cool, right? Jed did a darn fine job cooking it, despite the lack of true oven settings. Remember this?

Cornbread stuffing prep!

Ukrainian potatoes are wow. SO DIRTY! Ha! I’m amazed at how clean the produce is in the US. It’s a hilarious difference I never notice before.

Jed and his turkey…

Tanya, Addy, and I ventured out to the big meat market in search of salo, pig fat, to baste the turkey. Awww yeah!

The makings of Pumpkin Pie Vareniki: the discovery of the century.

YUM.

On Thanksgiving Day we went to the big market to buy thick tights for the kids. All the kids here where them under their pants. Cozy!

Pre-feasting visiting

And…the best part of our day! We had some very special guests join us for Thanksgiving. Vitaliy, Yulia, Eugene, Oleg, and Tanya were the best guests. We are so thankful for our friends!

Today we took the kids out for a special lunch after church 🙂

Pizza was pretty tiring. Seth fell asleep on the bus on the way home!

There you have it! Sorry I don’t have a lot to say, life is full and good. 🙂

Please pray for Ukraine. There are huge protests happening in Kiev right now, and others around Ukraine. The President was supposed to sign an agreement with the EU this past week that would have aligned Ukraine more closely with the EU. At the last moment, he did not sign and decided to align more closely with Russia instead. Many Ukrainians are very disappointed, to say the least. They felt that this agreement with the EU was a step toward progress for this country. People are disheartened and disappointed in their government. There is unrest. Please pray for God’s kingdom to come here and now. Pray that more and more hearts turn toward the Father. Pray that God’s will be done in Ukraine and among its people.

Downtown Kiev tonight

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