From Jed:

“You can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you can’t take the trailer park out of the girl.”

Whenever Kim does something silly I like to remind her of her roots.

It’s all light-hearted but the adage makes me think of what it means to work toward the deinstitutionalization of people with disabilities in Ukraine… or anywhere for that matter.

Our dream is to help our friends find the love of a family and the support of their community as they work toward becoming fully human.

We have worked for many years, creating a beautiful space for them to flourish. They now have gardens, classes, coffee with friends, house parents, therapy, church community, fun time, work time, horses, yoga, their own bedrooms, holidays, birthdays, and countless other experiences. What full lives our dear friends now live, together with us in community.

As idyllic as this all sounds, to make this dream a reality we have a team of assistants, house parents, office staff, builders, teachers, cleaners, volunteers, managers, accountants… The organization of all this requires HR manuals, team meetings, performance evaluations, process improvement plans, goal setting, shift scheduling, training, retraining… you get the idea.

The most effective way to manage all of these details is to make institutional decisions so everyone is on the same page, they know what is expected of them, and they can perform their job functions effectively, timely, and measurably. Ok, this is sounding a bit too institutional for an organization focused on deinstitutionalization.

So, how do we keep from falling into the trap of systematizing the lives of our friends with disabilities, because it is more stable, easier to manage, and makes life all-around predictable? How do we not just create mini-institutions?

The truth: sometimes we do start making our friends’ lives more institutional. We catch ourselves bringing our hands to work, but leaving our hearts at home.

Boris is constantly teaching me to slow down and be present with him. Yes, he wants his needs met. But he also wants relationship and I can get so busy solving problems that I forget Boris is a person, longing for relationship, reaching out with whatever communication tools he has, “Know me, help me… give me a #$%^ cookie!”

When I treat Boris like a problem to be solved, my decisions and my relationship with him become institutional. I’ve done all this work to get him out of an institution and then I re-institutionalize him with my heart.

I use an analogy with my team that I learned from a dear friend years ago. He would talk about sending our stunt double to work, so we wouldn’t have to bring our real selves in that day. The stunt double takes all the hits, and never gets hurt, so we can keep on acting like everything is ok.

But with our kind of work, we don’t have the luxury of sending in the stunt double. This a work of the heart, from the heart, and each moment with our friends must be processed through our hearts. Now, we use a lot of thinking and strategizing, but that is only so we can be full-hearted and completely available when we are with our friends.

Another way we work towards keeping our organization leaning forward, open, and leading with the heart is to analyze what we are doing, with our vision in mind. “Why are we here?” When we build our job descriptions and work policies, we try to have a “skeleton of rules” that supports the body (our vision). No extra bones (rules) in the skeleton.

This year we are working on a community covenant that will represent the heart of what we are trying to accomplish and the ways we all agree to work together to further our vision of deinstitutionalization.

For analyzing our work, we use a team-wide process called Appreciative Inquiry. I’ve used this approach for more than 15 years now in my professional work. Instead of going with the old classic, problem-solving model, we sit back and ask ourselves, “What is working well here?” “How do we do more of what we do well and spend less time on the areas where we struggle?” “How do we apply the ways we do things well to all areas of our work?”

I like this approach because it uses everyone’s experience and perspective as we look ahead. Our work is cross-cultural and ultimately effective if our local staff is leading the analysis, development, and implementation processes.

Another way we seek to avoid recreating mini-institutions is by remaining small. Small is beautiful. There are more than 100,000 people with disabilities institutionalized throughout Ukraine. It would be foolish to think we can solve this enormous social issue.

But, we can be a sign of hope, a candle in the darkness, a piece of the puzzle as Ukrainians change the future reality for people with disabilities in their country. By remaining small we can stay close to the heart of what we are trying to accomplish- the deinstitutionalization of people with disabilities. Not just removing them from a physical institution, but fighting to keep our hearts at the forefront of this work, remaining open to the cry of each of our boys to know and be known, to love and be loved.

Over the next three years, we plan to take four more people into our care and complete the final building on the homestead. After that, all our growth will be through partnerships and supporting the replication of this model of deinstitutionalization and family-centered care.

By remaining small, we can put our energy into helping other organizations and people to deinstitutionalize in their communities.

We strive to keep a simple approach that has the support of essential rules needed to function, with our focus on the heart of each person. We are creating a place where our values are not just applied to the work with our boys, but also to our coworkers and community members. Everyone is worthy of Dignity, Love, and Hope.

Staying close to this vision and not getting too big for a britches is how we plan to not only take more of our friends out of institutions but also to keep from re-institutionalizing them with our model of care.

Now, while I can’t get Kim to stop making tater-tot casseroles and listening to Joe Diffie, we haven’t been driving by that double-wide for sale down the road for a few weeks… so there’s hope. (I’m joking!)

Tomorrow, unbelievably, marks one year since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It feels like only yesterday, but also feels like a lifetime has passed since we lived in a land of peace. There has been war in Ukraine since 2014 when Russia invaded the Eastern borders and stole Crimea, but our town remained at peace. We didn’t feel the war in our everyday life. Here on our little Homestead we lived in peace, without fear. Oh, what beautiful, peaceful lives we led. We took so much for granted and didn’t even realize it. Now we are forever changed. This year showed us a lot about ourselves, about our work, about our team and our boys, and about our world. We will never be the same.

Our newsletter should go out tomorrow and I know the anniversary of the war deserves attention, but I just know tomorrow I won’t be in a mindset to deeply reflect. It’s just too painful. I figured I’d get as many of the tears out today as possible. So bear with me as I rip off the barely healing scab on my heart and reflect on this past year.

I sometimes wonder what I did last year on February 23rd, the last day of peace. How did I fill my time? What was on my mind? What plans did I have for the next few days, the next few months? I can’t even remember. When we woke up on February 24th to bombs dropping and our house shaking our old life and plans flew out the window. We had entered a new reality where only the war existed and the rest of the world was as far away as Jupiter. Anytime I think about those first few weeks of war my stomach hurts and tears flow. All the feelings come rushing back: shock, fear, outrage, confusion…How do we live in a time of war? How do we parent our children through this? How do we lead our team through this? How do we keep our children and our boys safe? What is the right thing to do? Do we stay or do we go? If we go we will be physically safe, but how can we leave the men on our team and our boys at Romaniv? If we stay we could die. What if our children die because we stayed- when we could have left? The internal dialogue and conflict were unrelenting. There is no guidebook to living through a war. You just live, one day at a time.

Then there is the time we spent as refugees in Germany. That was a whole lifetime in itself that contains its own pain. To be honest, I still can’t really talk with you about that time. For me, personally, it was the most agonizing, most difficult time of my life. I have no idea which Kim the people in Germany saw…but it wasn’t me. I was not myself and the whole time is like a blur. I know someday I’ll be able to share with you more about that time, but I honestly am just not ready. I’m thankful our bodies were safe and I’m thankful for the people that helped us. I truly am. I have a handful of really beautiful moments there that I will carry with me always. But in general, it was just super rough, for me personally. I know it’s visible in the Youtube videos from that time. I don’t plan to ever go back and watch those. I’m aware I look like death. 😂 Care for the refugee, Friends. They are carrying such deep pain.

Since we returned home to Ukraine in July we have all learned to live in the new normal. We have adapted to life in a country at war and I’m consistently amazed at the resilience of the human spirit. We really are amazingly adaptable creatures. Sometimes I’m even a little concerned at how normal certain things have become that should never be normal for anyone. But, God has given us, our team, and our boys the grace to keep moving forward, despite the war raging around us. We are so thankful for his protection, his grace, and his love for us and this work that he has created.

I have heard people refer to this year as “The Year Russia stole from Ukraine” and boy, they have definitely stolen a lot. They’ve stolen thousands of innocent lives. The death toll isn’t even countable yet in places like Mariupol where Russian troops still hold the city. I’ve read estimates of at least 20,000 civilian deaths in that city alone. One source even estimates as many as 87,000 deaths in the city that a year ago today had a thriving population of over 425,000. We may never know how many lives were lost in that once beautiful city on the sea. The Russians have stolen the childhood of an entire generation. Ukrainian children have seen unimaginable horrors this past year. They spend sometimes hours a day in their schools’ bomb shelters and know waaaaaay too much about different weapons and their capabilities. They know true fear like I never knew as a child- or even as an adult! My heart hurts, thinking of the ways my children have had to grow up this past year. It shouldn’t be this way. Russia has stolen some of the best and brightest from Ukraine. Millions have fled the country and the longer they are away in Europe or the US the less likely it is that they will ever return. Some of the brightest of us have fled, the bravest of us have died, and the rest are left to pick up the pieces. It is a heartbreaking reality.

But- despite all that has been stolen and despite the circumstances that thwart at every turn, we absolutely refuse to let Russia steal our hope. We will not be led by fear. We will not back down. We will not hold back. God is our portion, our refuge, our strength, our hope. The dreams he put in our hearts he will see to fruition- he is even doing that now! Right now, as I am writing this post, Jed is in Romaniv at a committee meeting where they will grant him legal guardianship of Yaroslav and Vova. Today our boys will be ours forever. God is still moving, still making a way and as long as he goes, we will follow.

This year our faith has been tested and defined. Where do we find our hope? Who do we turn to when we are afraid? Do we believe God’s promises to us and our boys? Where does our strength come from? Is our joy reliant on our circumstances? I have failed a million times this past year. I have put my hope in people. I have not chosen joy when things looked bleak. I have relied on my own strength. I have doubted God and his faithfulness. But despite all that, he keeps pulling me back. He keeps showing his love and faithfulness to us, our team, and our boys. He provides all that we need at every turn. He is always there, waiting, loving us first. No matter what may come tomorrow, we will hope in him.

Thank you for loving us and for remembering Ukraine. Victory will come, I’m certain of it, but until that moment we will continue to put one foot in front of the other, saying YES to the next thing God asks of us. Thank you for joining us along the journey. It’s not over yet.

BeLOVE[d]

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]

❤️ 🇺🇦 ❤️

So, what exactly do we even do here in Ukraine?  Wide Awake International has a lot of moving parts and I don’t blame you if you have a bit of a hard time keeping them all straight 😆.  In this episode, I introduce our boys and our team, explain the full picture of what we are doing here in Ukraine, and describe the different focuses of our work here. It’s an info-heavy episode…you’ve been warned!

PS: My brother, the super-talented Matt Bittner, is our new sound designer for the podcast! The music is his and it’s perfect. 

Read about when we adopted Vlad

When we brought Boris home

Bringing home Ruslan and Anton

Bringing home Sasha

Wide Awake Int. Org Chart

Oooooooh yeah. That’s right. We’re starting a podcast!

We wanted to try something new in 2022 and decided that trying our hand at podcasting could be a really fun way to keep on sharing the story of Wide Awake. Because, why not? 😉

I’ve been a longtime fan of podcasts. I think they are a really fun way to learn new things and a really great way to tell stories. I’ll still blog a bit, but the main way I’ll be sharing the story of Wide Awake will be on the podcast. 

What you can expect: 

• We’ll put out two podcast episodes a month. This weekly newsletter will continue, and I will always link to new episodes of the podcast here in the newsletter.
• We will transcribe the podcast onto the blog. If you aren’t a fan of listening and would rather read, we’ve got you covered. 
• The podcast will soon be available wherever you normally listen to podcasts. So make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode!

I think this will be a really fun project for us. I hope you enjoy! 

Wide Awake Int. Trailer Transcription:

“Hi Wide Awake Community! This is Kim, and welcome to the Wide Awake Podcast. I’m so excited to be sharing all of our stories with you this year in a new format.

If you’re new to Wide Awake, if you don’t know us, I’ll let you know that we are in Ukraine and our vision is to bring hope, love, and dignity to people with disabilities. We’re doing that through deinstitutionalization. We’re working to bring our friends out of institutions and into family life because we believe that every person is valuable. and every person deserves to know the love of a family here on Earth.

So, that’s what we’re all about, and we’ve been sharing our story for 10 years! Actually, I just went back and looked at our blog today and guys, I’ve been writing on this blog for 10 years. Ten years!! I started it in June 2011 and I just.. really , it’s no wonder I need a new adventure, a new format! I’m so tired of blogging. 😂 I’m not going to completely abandon it, but I really want to try something new.

Back when we started the blog, My husband Jed and I, and our four kids (we thought our family was so big… yeah, it was so tiny!) were living in Oregon, and we were starting the process to adopt a little boy from Ukraine with Apert Syndrome. At the time, they said for anybody who’s adopting it’s a really good idea for you to start a blog just to let people know how your process is going. So of course I jumped on the blog bandwagon! And if you remember back in 2011, everybody was blogging. It was the thing to do. Everybody was there. And now in 2022 I guess everybody’s podcasting, I’m jumping on that bandwagon!

You know, sometimes something amazing or something super funny will happen here and I just want to tell you about it. But then I sit down to write and it just falls flat. It’s just, it’s just not the same. And so, I’m really excited to share our stories with my voice. And I hope that it will bring new life and an interesting new way to share what’s happening here.

What you can expect from us is we’re going to put up new episodes, two times a month, and we’re just going to tell our story. I’m going to start next week with our origin story. I’m just gonna start from the beginning. How did we end up here in Ukraine in a tiny little village with goats and chickens and cats and dogs, and a lot of adult men with disabilities? I never would have guessed that 10 years ago!

I know some of you have followed us for a long time and you already know how we got here, but I just think it’s really good to go back and remember. I think I actually need that reminder. Sometimes I can get kind of stuck in the day to day, the everyday life stuff of parenting and groceries and cooking for everybody. And I can just kind of lose sight of that passion that we had those first couple years. I really want to relive that. I want to go back and remember how we got to where we are.

So we’re just going to start at the beginning, and then we’ll see where it leads. I’d like to interview our team members. I’d love to hear what you’d like to hear about! Go ahead and ask questions, request topics. 😊 I’d love to know what you’d like to hear. The main purpose of this is just it’s just another way for you to join our life and our work here; to share our joys and our sorrows here. I hope that you’ll enjoy it. I think it’s going to be really fun.

You’ll be able to find our podcast anywhere where you normally listen to podcasts. Of course, you’re going to need to subscribe so you don’t miss anything.😉 Also, if you prefer to read instead of listening, we’re going to try to transcribe the podcast so that they’ll come up on the blog in a written form for anybody who prefers not to hear my voice. I won’t judge you. Ha! So we’ll see here next week for the origin story. And I hope you’ll join us. This is going to be a really fun adventure. Bye!”

It’s a new year and we’re starting out on a new adventure! After sharing our story of YES on the blog for more than 10 years, I (Kim) really needed a change of pace. I’m so excited to share our work and our life with you on a podcast. Listen to the trailer to find out what you can expect to find in this space. It should be fun!

The vision of Wide Awake Int. is to bring hope, love, and dignity to people with disabilities in Ukraine. We are living that out by bringing our friends out of institutions and into family life.

A little over a year ago Wide Awake International and we, personally, left social media. At the time it felt like such a HUGE deal to me. I actually cried quite a few tears about it. I had so many fears about what would happen. Would everyone forget about us? Would we become, somehow, “irrelevant”? I worried what people would think of us and I even worried about money. I thought “How will people who might want to partner with us even know we exist?” But even with all those worries I just knew that leaving social media was the right thing for us. I even felt like it was what God was asking us to do. So after a year of fighting myself about it, in October of last year, we left the platforms for good. (Technically our pages still exist, but I don’t know how to sign in to them and I don’t post new content. They’re just historical artifacts now 😉)

Annnnnd, I’m happy to report that we are still alive! We still exist- even without social media! 😂 I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Kinda.

When we first signed off I felt like I was somehow an outsider to the rest of the world. It just felt weird to not be connected in those spaces anymore and I wasn’t quite sure how to just “be”. Something funny would happen, or the boys would be looking especially precious and I would feel that tug to share them with the world. But then I would remember that there was no way for me to do that, so I would just take a picture and share it with Jed, or with our team instead. Or, I would just be in that moment and not share it with anyone.

Then, after several months of being out of those online spaces, I started to forget that they even existed! I mean, obviously, I still knew about them, but I was so detached that I forgot that other people, in fact most people, still were very much attached. I just didn’t think about Facebook or Instagram, and I guess that’s the space I’m still in now. Social media is just off my radar and I simply don’t think of it anymore. 🤷‍♀️ I decided I like that feeling.

Before we finally made the decision to take the nonprofit off of social media I searched high and low online for someone who had gone before us. I wanted to read about other people in the nonprofit world who went off of social media and I wanted to know how it was going for them. Actually, I wanted to hear that they were “better than ever!” without those tools. Ha! I didn’t really find much at all, much to my dismay. I did find some personal stories of people who went off social media and I found those helpful. So in case you are wondering how things are for me personally, I thought I’d write it out here, just in case any of you are contemplating taking the leap yourselves.

What I’ve learned in a year without social media:

1. I’m not lonely. After moving to Ukraine Facebook and Instagram were major players in my relationships with other people. I had so many connections all over the world and I was so afraid of losing those by leaving the platforms. I did lose many of those relationships. That’s the truth. There are people that I only knew through social media and many of those friendships have not translated to real-life friendships. But that’s okay. The relationships right here in front of me, and the long-distance friendships I already had with loved ones far away are wonderful and fulfilling. I’m not lonely. I’m in-real-life surrounded by love. (Watch out. That might end up being it’s own blog post…)

2. I’m a better person without an audience. Okay, the fact that the social medias are called “platforms” has always rubbed me the wrong way. But sometimes I’d have a really hard day here, I’d post on social media, the audience would tell me how wonderful I was and how they were in awe of the amazing work we’re doing here and I’d feel a bit better- for a minute. Guys, that is so gross!!! What the heck? I’m disgusted by myself and I’m so glad I don’t even have that option anymore. The last thing I need to be doing is standing on a platform for everyone to see me and applaud me. I know myself. I know my weaknesses and failures and what I need is more humility, not more attention and more admirers. A life without social media helps keep my heart in the right place.

3. I’m happier when I can’t play the comparison game. Without social media, I don’t see the highlights of everyone’s spectacular lives. I don’t see perfect moms and perfect houses. I don’t see “missed” opportunities for my kids. I don’t see recipes that require alllll the ingredients that I can’t buy here. I don’t see what I can’t have and I am 100% better off for it.

4. Wide Awake International is doing fine. The people who have loved this work and supported it with prayer, encouragement, and finances were there when we had the socials, and they have stuck with us since we moved off. I think fewer people are finding out about our work here, but we’re choosing to trust God on that one. A cool thing is that our base of monthly supporters has actually gone up 25% in this past year! God’s plans for us and our boys are perfect and He knows our needs. We don’t worry about tomorrow. (Or at least we try not to…😉) And to all you wonderful partners out there- we love you!!! Thank you for your trust, love, and support. We could not do this without you!

5. I’m more present and rooted here in Ukraine. This is a big one. Without social media, my world became so much smaller. The world right in front of my face is so important and full. I don’t need to go searching for meaning in other places. I’m digging my roots deep, right here in my little village and it’s much easier to do that without the socials.

6. Books are wonderful. I already knew that before, but I have read so.many.books in this past year. It’s insane! It’s amazing how much reading you can do when you have nothing to scroll. 😂

7. My trust in God has grown in leaps and bounds. It’s a little embarrassing to admit how much faith I was putting into Instagram, Facebook, and my own skills in beating the algorithm. For realzzz. 🤦‍♀️ Like I said before, God knows our needs. He cares for this work more than we do. He will keep his promises. He loves Ukraine and her people and his father heart breaks over how many of them are locked away. He will see this work through. We do not need to be afraid and we do not have to put our energy into sharing this work in spaces that are unhealthy for our souls.

And on and on. Basically, my heart is at peace with the decision we made a year ago and I’m so thankful we pulled the plug. Also, I said it last year and I’ll say it again: I am not placing any judgment on anybody who’s participating in social media. The decision we made was our own. Who am I to judge your decisions? Nobody. 😊

So, what’s next? We’re researching, considering, and praying about using some other medium to engage more with the Wide Awake community. We have our weekly newsletters and this blog, but those are mostly one-sided and don’t lend themselves to spontaneity. I do miss that about the socials. We’re thinking about a way to be more engaged that would avoid some of the Instagram and Facebook pitfalls. We have some issues with those companies themselves and really don’t want to be in those spaces, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find a space that is healthy for us. If we decide to launch out somewhere new we’ll make sure you all know.

Thanks for all your massive love and support over the years. Thanks for sticking with us, even when we did stuff that didn’t make much sense to most people. We’re a bit nutty. You already knew that, right? 😜

Last week our friends from Hands of Hope in Indiana were visiting us and it was such a great time together! They are some of the partners who have been with us the longest and it is always a joy to see the work through their eyes. Last year they weren’t able to visit because of COVID, so it had been 2 full years since their last visit. Things have really changed in the last two years! One side of the duplex is already a home, the other side is nearly finished, Max and Morgan moved here, we brought Sasha out of the institution, and several other team members and friends with special needs have been added to the crew. It’s an exciting time here in Ukraine, but sometimes I forget that. I get hung up in the dishes and laundry and parenting. When people come and point out how things have grown I gain a new appreciation for how far God has brought us.

Last year I introduced our team on social media, but I’m not sure I ever did it here. I thought it’s high time you had a clearer picture of who’s who around these parts. I’ll also share our org. chart with you so you can see where everyone fits into the puzzle. I’ll intro the Ukrainian side of the team in this post, and then next time I’ll intro the American side. Let’s introduce you to our team!

CEO

Care Team

Services- The Multidisciplinary “M” Team

Operations

Development

Jed, Masha, and I are all working together on development. I do the communications in English, and Masha runs our Ukrainian social media. At some point we’ll need more help in development, but for now we’re making it work with the three of us.

I hope that helps you understand who’s who over here! Next time I’ll introduce you to our Board of Directors in the US. If you have any questions, let me know!

Two weeks ago we heard the news, but it’s taken me a while to write about it. I’m not sure if I’ll find the right words tonight, but I’ll try, because their lives deserve to be honored. They should be known and celebrated by as many people as possible, because they were valuable and wonderful and their lives mattered.

I’m so sad to share that we have lost two of our friends. Vitya and Vova, two of our dear friends from Romaniv, have died and are now with Jesus. We are just so sad. On one hand, we are thankful that they suffer no longer. We know they are now free and they have no pain, no tears, no fear. But on the other hand we mourn so deeply for what they had to endure here on earth. We mourn that they never knew the love of a family and we weep that we didn’t get them out in time. Lots of emotions- a different one each moment. I guess we all remember anew just how important this work really is.

I’d love to share about our boys, if you’d like to know them better. I want to honor their memories by sharing with as many people as I can, just how wonderful they were.

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Let’s start with Vitya. 🙂 I didn’t know Vitya quite as well as I knew Vova. We spent less time together over the years because Vitya didn’t move to the Isolation Hall until the last couple years of his life, and the Isolation Hall is where our team spends the majority of our time.

Before he was moved to the Isolation Hall, Vitya was in the same group as our Anton. He was nonverbal, but he could most definitely communicate! He was really very smart. I think anyone who visited Romaniv with us will remember Vitya. He was always ready with a handshake or a hug. When he smiled his eyes would close soooooo tightly! Vitya loved to dance and when we did our weekly dance class, back in the day, he was in absolute heaven. He had big emotions and was either very happy, or very sad, but his face showed it all. Vitya loved to pray. Any time we were going to have snack, or anytime a class ended, Vitya made certain that we stopped to pray. I will always remember that about him.

A couple of years ago Vitya was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, and as his symptoms progressed he was moved to the Isolation Hall. He would fall often and just didn’t understand how to keep himself safe. We really saw him decline before quarantine. It is good and right that he is suffering no longer. But oh, we loved our Vitya and will miss his smiling face and tight hugs. I really can’t imagine Romaniv without him. He was a star and our team will never, ever forget him.

And now on to our precious Vova. Deep sigh.

I can’t help but cry as I write this. It’s heartbreaking to know that our Vova is gone. He is with Jesus, and I’m so so happy that he is free and safe and loved. We all feel that joy. But Vova’s death is a tremendous loss to our team. We planned that he would be the first to move into the second side of the duplex. We dreamed of his future as a part of our big Wide Awake Family. We imagined how he would grow and change and thrive. We wondered how he would transition and if he would maybe ever speak. We fully intended to set him free here on earth, but it will never be. He left us before we could show him that love and our heart break because of it.

I remember the first time Jed and I ever saw Vova. It was when we visited Romaniv in the spring of 2012. We were in Ukraine for the first time, scouting it out and listening for how God would have us respond to this great need, this great injustice. We visited Romaniv with Mission to Ukraine and knew at once that those boys were our people. That first visit was a bit overwhelming, but Jed and I both remembered Vova. He stood out to us because he was in such terrible condition. I’ll be honest that my first emotion upon seeing him, was fear. He was self-harming and blood was running down the side of his face. He was groaning and rocking, fiercely avoiding all human contact. He was just existing, cast away by society. His days consisted of rocking, and searching for string to swirl between his fingers.

I remember his sounds and I remember my fear. But that was not the Vova we eventually came to know. That was just a shell of a man. Our Vova had a deep laugh and an infectious smile. If you could get Vova to smile, then your day was made. Our Vova was curious. He didn’t always love to be touched and he didn’t always love to interact, but I think I can safely say that by the end of his life he had learned that some humans could be loving and good and safe. I pray that he knew he was loved by us. I know that I know that Vova knew he was loved by God. I just have to trust God’s faithfulness on that one. He promised to be a father to the fatherless, so I trust that Vova felt and knew that love. To be honest, that’s a leap of faith because Vova died from something preventable and treatable. He lived a life of abuse and neglect and in a way, he never even got to begin living. I find myself asking God a lot of questions, but in the end I choose to trust that he was near to Vova in ways we couldn’t see.

Our team visited and loved Vova for 6 years, and during 4 of those years the interns were also working closely with him on developing functional skills. It seems to us that out of all the boys in the Isolation he is one of the ones who benefited the most from that time of relationship. He really did change over time. It’s beautiful to look back through pictures and see the change in him.

The loss of Vova was a big shock to our team and we mourn him because he was loved. We will miss our friend. We are honored and thankful that we were able to know him and be witnesses to his life. As we start to bring more boys into the duplex we will remember our friend and our great love for him. His life mattered. You were loved, our Vova. You mattered to us. I’m sorry we couldn’t get to you fast enough. We will never forget you.

I’ll leave you with Vova’s laugh. This is how we want to remember our friend. Happy, curious, and gentle. Precious, and of immense value.

You know how it is when you get so close to something that you can’t really see it clearly? What’s that saying? “Can’t see the forest for the trees”. Yeah, that’s me. I get so involved in the details of our day to day work, that it’s hard to pick my head up and see the big picture of what God is doing. I get bogged down in diapers and feeding people and the team schedule and documents, and can easily forget what we are actually aiming for in Ukraine. I mean, of course our work is our ministry is our life- all wrapped up in one, so I’m always “doing the stuff”, but sometimes I can kind of miss the heart of it when the details overwhelm.

It really is necessary though, to pick my head up every so often and remember why we are doing what we are doing. It’s important to pull back a bit and recognize the bigger picture of what God is doing. A good way to do that is to leave our life for a few weeks and watch the work happen from a distance. 🙂 We aren’t in Ukraine right now and we don’t have much control over what happens there while we are gone. We get to sit back and watch our team do their thing from a distance. The only glimpses we get of our Anton and Ruslan are videos and pics from the team- and that bit of distance, well, it does wonders for the heart.

From a distance I can see more clearly how far our boys have come. Man, I’m so proud of them! I see them safe and loved and I see a team that is working so hard to help them in any way they can. I see a group of people committed to changing their country and I see their dedication to do this thing right. I see them building something amazing. I see how God has provided everything we’ve needed right on time, and my faith is built up again as I remember that He will continue to be faithful in the days ahead. We have some very pressing needs coming up soon, so this increase in faith is much needed. (And, it has to be said that I definitely have not arrived. I still lose sleep over those pressing needs…but I’m deciding to trust Jesus in those wee morning hours instead of losing more sleep)

From a distance the rough patches in my heart begin to soften again as I rest and regain perspective. If you have been close to this work at all then you know that my relationship with our Ruslan has been a difficult one. We know that we know that God asked us to take Ruslan out of the institution. We don’t question that. But, it has not been an easy road for me at all. Ruslan struggles with his relationship with women- not in an unsafe way, but still in a very real way, and his feelings for me are a jumbled up mess. We realized after he had lived with us for over a year that it would be much better for him to live with only men, or with a much older woman. That played a part in the decision for him to move from our home last February. That, and then his increased need for independence and anxiety living with a large family. It just made a whole lot of sense on a lot of levels for him to move to an apartment.

Even after Ruslan moved out of our home, I still struggled with my feelings toward him. It was just so hard for me to live with him, and my heart felt let down, guilty, and ashamed of how difficult it was. I felt shame for a long time that I was “unable” to live with Ruslan any longer. I know there was no reason to feel shame and guilt, but those feelings were/are still there. I had many months of questioning God and asking him why he asked us to choose Ruslan when he knew we would not be able to keep him in our home, and when he knew how hard it would be for me. It’s been a journey. But, getting just a bit of distance has really helped my heart.

Earlier this week I was writing an update to Ruslan’s prayer team and I compiled a video of him, showcasing his love for music. In one part of the videos he is singing his favorite worship song and just going for it. He is worshiping with his whole heart and when I watched it my heart just broke. I remembered again where he came from and my heart softened again as I thought of all the terror and abuse he has endured in his life. I felt just so darn thankful that God asked us to take him from that horrible place. I can’t imagine him there!! He belongs with us. He is ours. Yes, living with him was the most difficult time of my life. Yes, I still don’t understand fully God’s purposes in it. Yes, I still have some places in my heart that need healing, but 100 times YES I am thankful that our guy is free. My heart needed that view from a distance.

When I look at our work in Ukraine from a distance I get so excited about what God is doing. Guys, it is amazing. It is freedom work. It is justice work. It is life-saving work. I’m just so pumped to be a part of it. It’s good to feel that again. 🙂