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.

I am very happy to report that our Vlad has finally returned to us in Ukraine! For the past 2.5 years Vlad has been living with his grandparents in Oregon and last week he moved back home. Happy sigh. ☺️

At the end of our time as refugees in Germany, we realized that Vlad had quite a lot of anxiety about returning to Ukraine. He was pretty scared when the bombings were happening near our home (we all were!) and he really didn’t want to go home to the war. I don’t blame him! We started to think about what to do for Vlad so that he would feel safe. 

We had long wanted to get Vlad orthodontic care. His mouth was a disaster- teeth were everywhere and no orthodontist in these parts was willing to take on Vlad as a patient. An orthodontist in Salem, OR had met Vlad a few years earlier and told us if we ever wanted to do orthodontics for Vlad that he would love to do it free of charge. We thought that was a super kind and generous offer, but knew it would require Vlad being in the US for an extended period of time and that just didn’t feel realistic at the time of the offer. But as we were preparing to leave Germany we thought maybe we could help Vlad to feel safe by keeping him away from the war for a bit, and also get his teeth fixed! We asked my parents if they would be willing to let Vlad live with them for a time and they said yes right away. What a blessing. Vlad ended up living with them for over two years. We are so, so thankful for that gift of love. ❤️

Vlad thrived in the US. He worked two days a week, joined an activity group for adults with disabilities, and became an active member of his church. He made friends and was loved by many people. To everyone in Oregon who loved Vlad and became his friend, thank you so much. He grew by leaps and bounds and we know that is thanks to the people who loved him and cared for him. He has grown more confident, more independent, and more fluent in American slang. 😆  Wilco Farm Store has lost its most loyal customer. 

Now is the right time for Vlad to be back at home. The war is still happening, of course, but the rest of us feel more confident and have adapted to life at war. Life here is fairly stable at this time, and our team is in a great place to be able to welcome Vlad back with open arms. 

Below is an interview with Vlad. He was very excited to show you all his bedroom and to tell you about his plans now that he is back home. He’s such a man! I think you’ll be surprised by the changes in him. 

“We are not called by God to do extraordinary things, but to do ordinary things with extraordinary love. ” ― Jean Vanier

This final Advent video is about the love of a family. It is about a love that transforms. Oleg and Masha live on the Wide Awake Homestead as the houseparents of Sasha and Anton. They have chosen a life of community and sacrificial love. The transformation and healing of our boys don’t happen in the romantic, miraculous one-time event of taking them from the institution. No, the transformation and healing happen through the safety and security that come through all the mundane, daily things of life: coffee together in the mornings, cozy winter evenings on the couch, hundreds of meals cooked and eaten together, house cleaning, and trips to the grocery store. Healing happens for our boys when they know and feel safety and when they know and feel love. They were deprived of love for so many years and it is the greatest gift we can give them. Oleg and Masha have chosen to spend their lives loving our boys and that steady, daily choice is creating beauty and redemption. In this final week of Advent, let us love with our whole selves. Let us give of ourselves to people who may never be able to repay us in the ways the world would value, and then let the love of Christ fill us all. Merry Christmas! 🌟

Even in the midst of war, we are surprised by gifts of joy. We brought Yarik into our Wide Awake family during the first few months of war and he brings us immense joy every single day. He is Mr. Personality and always the life of the party. God plucked Yarik out of the institution and redeemed his life in a wonderful way, but none of us could have imagined the miracle that was in store for him in his new life. Get out the tissues because this story is going to make you cry tears of joy.

Ten years ago we introduced you to our friend, Boris. Now we would like to reintroduce him to you as our beloved family member. Boris (“Bmo”) has lived with us for 7 years now and is a known, loved, and treasured member of our family. We can’t imagine our lives without him. ❤️

See Bmo ten years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHfxe3cWKkM&t=0s&ab_channel=WideAwakeInternational

Today we enter the season of Advent, the season of expectation. We join with people all over the world to wait expectantly for the celebration of the birth of the Christ.  For our family, our team, our boys, it is a season of great joy. (if you’ve been around for a while you know we are always down for a celebration 😉) But we also recognize that we are in between advents. Christ has come, and he will come again. In the meantime we see glimpses of his Kingdom breaking through- but we also still see so much pain and suffering all around us. “The now and the not yet” of God’s Kingdom. We celebrate with our boys on the Homestead- cozy, warm, and surrounded by love. All the while knowing that an hour away our friends at the institution are enduring great abuse and neglect, living lives of isolation and pain. 

The now and the not yet. 

So we cry out for God to come and make all things right. And we hope. We hope for the day when all of our boys will be free. We long for that day with all of our hearts. And we hope with an active hope- a hope that puts one foot in front of the other working hard every day to make that future a reality for our friends. 

Jesus, our living hope is alive and well with us on the Homestead, with our boys at Romaniv, and with you wherever you may be today. 

We invite you to meet our dear friend, Misha. He is an inspiration to us to never give up hope. To keep fighting the good fight. To keep saying YES to the next thing. 

Let hope arise this Christmas season!

Happy Friday, Friends! Today is officially the first day of spring here in Ukraine and we are hoping spring is actually here, and here to stay. I’m not sure how much snow and ice and melt and rain and snow and ice and melt and rain this soul can handle. We are all aching for spring and will be welcoming it with open arms. Yesterday we fired up the fire pit (see what I did there…) and enjoyed time together in the sun after horse time and it was a glorious glimpse of the spring and summer ahead of us.

I thought it was about time to give you all an update on our brave Ruslan. It’s been 4 months since Jed and Ruslan arrived back in Ukraine from their big American adventure, and almost 7 months since Ruslan’s life-changing surgery. He has put a lot of hard work into his recovery since then and you should hear all about it!

The main concern we had about doing such a major operation on Ruslan was whether we would have the ability to support his recovery once he came back to Ukraine. In the past, we haven’t had the best luck finding quality physical therapy for our boys. In fact, we’ve had no luck at all. PT in Ukraine is mostly passive and we knew needed to find a therapist here who could imagine and dream of a future for Ruslan in which he would thrive, physically, and be willing to join arms with us in making that happen. Also, Ruslan has a very specific, unique personality. He won’t just accept anyone. The PT would need to be willing to form a friendship with Ruslan first, in order for Ruslan to have the motivation to push himself to grow and heal. Everything is relational with our boys, and Rus is no exception to that. He has no interest in hearing from an expert, but he will do anything for a friend. ❤️

So, the biggest miracle I have to report is that we have found the most wonderful, kind, encouraging, gentle, and wise physical therapist. His name is Ilya and he is God’s gift to our boys. Ilya is a peaceful, joyful presence here on the Homestead and most importantly, Ruslan adores him. Ilya comes to the Homestead three times a week and does therapy with Ruslan, and twice a week he also does therapy with Boris. In the future, we hope he will be available to work with all of our boys, but he also works at our regional hospital so he doesn’t have loads of time. But we’ll gladly take what we can get!

When Ilya comes Rus is eager to see him and eager to please him. When he knows it’s a therapy day he waits impatiently all day for Ilya to arrive. They do their work together and then they drink coffee together as friends. It’s a special time for Rus and he is making great strides in his healing! He now walks more consistently on his whole foot (not just on his toes, like before) and Ilya has begun working with him on walking more upright instead of leaning forward so much when he walks. He still very much needs the support of his orthotic and he needs reminders to use his whole foot, but he is getting better and better. When he came home from the US he was still using a walker! We are really proud of him. His healing journey will be a long one, considering the damage done to his hips and spine from years of adapting to his deformed foot, but we are ready for that and feel enormously thankful for the gift of the operation done in California.

I’m also happy to report to you that Ruslan has resumed his work at a local electrical shop! Last year he worked there for a bit but it didn’t go great. He wasn’t emotionally ready at that time. But he is ready now. The trip to the US helped him to grow, emotionally. Our teacher, Inna, goes with Rus to work twice a week for a couple of hours and so far he is doing great!

And the most fun news I saved for last.

Yesterday Ruslan RODE A HORSE. Ruslan. Our Ruslan. The Ruslan who is afraid of everything. The Ruslan who won’t get in a pool or even put his feet in a lake. The Ruslan who absolutely hates trying new things, especially if they involve using his body in a new way. That Ruslan. He rode one of our horses!!!! I never ever imagined Ruslan would ride one of the horses. Drink coffee next to the horses, sure. Brush the horses, why not? But taking a ride? Never in a million years. But he did! And boy was he proud of himself. The great crowd of Ruslan fans watching him from the sidelines was also very proud.

Our Ruslan is a fighter and he is thriving right now in every way. This has been a huge year for him and he has exceeded our expectations. Thank God for his kindness and care for Rusik. Thank you all for your prayers. And finally, a huge shout-out and MASSIVE thank you to Steve, Debbie, Diane, Jasmine, Dr. Nicholas Abidi, and the staff at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz for helping to change Ruslan’s life. We will never forget your kindness and generosity.