Hi Friends!

I hope this finds you well, with a smile on your face and a spring in your step.  🙂  Things are chugging right along around here.  We’ve had a great week so far.  Lots of normalness, lots of laughs, a few tears, and plenty of coffee to fuel it all.

Last week we celebrated Seth’s Adoption Day!  The actual day was while I was in America, so we held off on the festivities till we could all be together.  Every year we take a day to celebrate that God brought Seth in to our family.  He’s only 4, so in the past we have done it more for our other kids, so that they would see the value in adoption and understand how special it is.  This was the first year Seth cared about it.  He still doesn’t fully understand what it means, but we often tell him the story of how he came to be our son, so it’s just a matter of time before he “gets it”.  All he gets right now is that it’s a special day just for him.  He chose to go out to pizza and bowling, so we did!

Oh how I love our boy.  Sometimes I can’t believe he didn’t grow inside my belly.  Just like our bio kids, I feel like Seth is an extension of me, like a piece of my heart is walking around outside my body.  I love my baby.  🙂

Funny Story:

Have you ever heard of “No-Poo”?  Despite it’s name, it has nothing to do with toilets.  “No-Poo” is a method of hair cleansing without shampoo- get it, no “poo”?  Shampoo strips the scalp of much of it’s natural oils that are so good for your hair.  When you strip your scalp of it’s oils, then it thinks it needs to produce more oil, then you strip them all again, then your body makes more, and on and on.  Anyway, I have been a no-pooer for a couple of years now and it’s the best ever.  I use baking soda to wash my hair, and apple cider vinegar to condition it about once a week.  It works well for me, but sometimes I feel like the soda is a bit harsh on my scalp.  In fact, hardcore no-pooers will never recommend baking soda.  But honey and aloe and all those expensive treatments aren’t realistic for me.  Baking soda is cheap and accessible, so there. I read somewhere that washing your hair with egg yolk once a month is a good way to give your scalp a little break.  So, being the weirdo/fierceless warrior/hippy that I am, I decided to give it a whirl!  Why not?

I read in the instructions that you need to make sure to only use the yolk and not the white, and to make sure the  water isn’t too hot.  Wellllllll….yeah.  I separated the egg well, or so I thought.  The water wasn’t tooooooo hot, or so I thought.  I got out of the shower and yeah, scrambled egg head.  There’s nothing more romantic than a husband who will patiently pick cooked egg out of your hair.  I’ve got a winner, folks! Now if the Denny’s jokes would just stop.  “Oh sweetie, you smell so good, now I just need a side of bacon!”  Ha.Ha. Shut up.  😉

I may smell like a diner, but my hair is soft and shiny, so I wouldn’t call it a complete failure…not completely.

We are so thankful for new volunteers! Praise God!

Sweet Aaron needs a mama. Do you know her?

Sweet Ben also needs a mommy and daddy. He is not thriving. Please share our boy!

Stephen is waiting for a family too. Oh my sweet boy. He loves to run and spin. Treasure.

Addy is such a great helper at Romaniv. The boys love her! The feeling is mutual.

Hava took this last picture.  I just like it.  I love cuddling in with my kiddos and reading a good book.  I’m not a “playing” mom.  I don’t like to play toys with my kids.  I’ll play Just Dance on the Wii, or jump on a trampoline, or bake cookies with you,  but please, for the love, don’t ask me to play Barbies.  I just.can’t.do.it.  What I love most, is reading to my kids.  Find us a good read-aloud and it’s all over.  I hope they will treasure the memories of us all cuddled up reading a good book.  I know I will.  🙂  (I hope they won’t mind the mild scent of brunch)

Last week Ezra and I were in the good old US of A! We had to go there for some document stuff and had a grand time!  It was the first time either of us had been back since we moved to Ukraine 17 months ago.  I was nervous to go, wondering if I would feel out of place, or too “changed”, but all my worries were for not.  It was a special time and our love tanks were absolutely filled to overflowing.  

*I was horrible about taking pictures.  My bad.*



I felt a lot of feelings throughout the trip.  Some were expected, others were not.  At church on the first Sunday I was so happy to be there I could have cried- and maybe did, just a little.  There were so many mixed emotions coming and going that my insides felt like a huge tangled up knot.  Then a wise and wonderful friend came to me and wisely advised me to stop telling myself what to feel and what not to feel.  

“If you keep telling yourself what you should and shouldn’t feel you’ll miss out on all that God has for you this trip.”  

Truth.  I decided in that moment to just let myself feel what I felt and to let go of the reigns just a bit.  I’m a control freak and I avoid vulnerability, but letting go of that control made for a much cooler trip.  





Curious things we noticed while in America:

-The streets are HUGE. Wowzers.  The lanes are so ginormously wide!!!  It felt like every street was a freeway.  

-Driving is amazing.  I forgot how freeing it is to get behind the wheel and go wherever you want to go. 

-The sidewalks are empty.  Ha!  On our first full day Ez and I walked to the DMV because I needed a replacement drivers license (my wallet was stolen last summer).  After I got my license we walked to my friend’s house who was generously loaning us a car.  As we walked along in the beautiful sunshine Ez said “Where are all the people?”  Haha.  Seriously though, walking along a sidewalk totally alone in Ukraine is a very rare thing.  

-The DMV is more efficient than I ever realized.  Don’t agree?  Just try to get a document replaced in Ukraine and you might change your tune.  🙂  

-Everyone is SO FRIENDLY and SO SMILEY!  Woah Nelly.  It felt like every barista and every gas attendant and every cashier was my new BFF!  Sooooooo not Ukrainian.  When we were going through customs in Portland, the lady who was taking the declaration sheets asked Ez “What grade are you in, buddy?  Hey, do good in school, okay bud?”  He barely nodded.  I reminded him not to be rude and he said “But, Mom, I don’t even know her!  Why was she smiling so much????”  Oy.  Ha.  Seeing all the smiles was AMAZING.  🙂 🙂 🙂 

-Everything is sparkling clean.  Serious.  You could eat off the floor of Target.  I didn’t, but, yeah the cleanliness, wow.

-People  popped out of the woodwork to tell us they pray for us every day.  I had no idea.  Blessed my socks off. 

-So many people love our Boys fiercely.  The Boys are like rockstars.  I pray God speaks to their spirits and gives them even a glimpse of how deeply they are loved by multitudes of people.  Thankful. 

I think the biggest thing I felt on the trip to America was a feeling like I was letting all my breath out.  It felt like I’d been holding my breath for the past year and a half- without even knowing it, and I finally just exhaled.  You see, in America I undestand EVERYTHING.  I understand every conversation, fully.  I understand every sign, completely.  I understand every bit of culture.  I understand the body language.  I understand cultural jokes.  I understand family norms and social norms.  I understand traffic laws.  I understand what is expected of me in just about every single situation.  In the whole two weeks I was there I never had one bit of tension  inside like “Uh oh, what am I supposed to do here….?”  

Not so in Ukraine.  I think when people think of living in a different country they mostly just think of the spoken language  issues- like vocabulary.  I know that’s all I thought of!  And yes, of course that is a HUGE HUGE HUGE learning curve and a HUGE HUGE HUGE obstacle.  But there is even so much more that has to be learned than just how to say words.  You have to learn the systems of how things work.  

How do you buy food at a store?  How do you buy food at a market?  How do you do banking?  How does the transportation work?  How do I behave when I enter this public building?  What do I do when I meet a new person?  What is expected of me?  How do I read that sign?  And if I can’t read it, who do I ask for help?  How do I send and receive mail?  How will this social gathering go, and what will be expected of me?  What if they ask me something and I don’t understand?

Sure, you can ask questions, but often you don’t even know what questions need to be asked.  There is so much that is unspoken in culture.  I can’t even tell you how much that affects daily life.  Culture is everything.  People don’t explain certain things to foreigners because it is such a cultural norm that everyone conforms without a second thought!  Everyone except us.  🙂  We don’t even know what we don’t know.  Sure we know more than we used to, but I’m still terrified of the post office.  So yeah, we’ve got a ways to go.



I realized that I have become so used to feeling unsure (about what to do, what to say, how to act), that the insecure-pit-in-the-stomach feeling I get when I go most places in Ukraine has become normal to me.  Oh guys, I feel dumb so often.  Hahaha.

BUT, in America I remembered that although I often feel dumb and unsure and not confident, that is not who I am.  I am bold.  I am strong.  Christ in me is bold.  Christ in me is strong.  He made me brave.  I’m actually a fairly smart person! 🙂  I can’t even tell you how that felt- to be able to turn off the insecurities and just BE ME.  I saw it changing Ezra too. 

We both came back to Ukraine reminded of who Christ is in us.  We came back braver and stronger.  We needed that.  

So yeah, it was awesome.  Part of me didn’t want to leave, but another part of me couldn’t wait to get back.  I have a feeling that is a tension we’ll live with as long as Ukraine is our home.

We have people who love us on both sides of the world.  We have home on both sides of the world.  I can love both places and long for both places.  I’ll just go ahead and stop telling myself what I should feel.  🙂





If you’ve been reading this blog long enough you know that learning how to mother my kids in a new culture has been a big fat challenge for me. It was something I worried about before we moved, and it was THE something I worried about once we landed. Isn’t worrying awesome? It’s just so productive! Not.

It’s just that parenting is hard enough, and then you throw in lots of factors that make our family really “different” and things get downright confusing! I’ve found that we don’t really fit anywhere these days, when it comes to parenting. We don’t fit Ukrainian standards because, well, simply put, we aren’t Ukrainian! We can speak the language (work in progress) and buy the right clothes and eat the right food, but at the end of the day, we’re still Americans. We think differently than Ukrainian parents and we were raised differently than our Ukrainian peers. Culture is so HUGE. There are things we do similarly to Ukrainian parents, but we are also quite different. We could try to be the same, but at our core we’ll always be different- and that’s okay.

But- now we don’t really fit American standards either! For one thing, we don’t live in America, so that changes a whole heck of a lot right there. Many things that are expected for a “normal” childhood in the US just aren’t available or possible here. Our kids are having a completely different childhood than Jed and I had. It’s difficult not to have the same expectations in my heart for them, because all I know is a typical American childhood…yep, not gonna happen for our crew. And that’s okay!

It can feel very “Lone Ranger”ish, parenting so far away from our home culture. I don’t have mom friends I am close to here who are parenting kids around the same ages of ours. I miss the support of others who were going through the mothering stages alongside me. I miss bouncing ideas off each other over coffee and gaining wisdom from others. I miss my kids having friends. I miss having moms around me who are “one step ahead” on the journey. I miss watching them and learning from them. Most mothering and parenting books are really hard for me to read here. It can be discouraging because so much of what is written is based on the assumption that you live in America and have all that is available there, or that the mom’s only focus is on the home and she has no outside responsibilities.  It’s hard to explain, but when I read those books in the middle of this life we are living, it almost seems like they are books from another planet.

Honestly, parenting in this situation (or any situation) is just stinkin’ hard work.  Awesome, but still stinkin’ hard. Am I right?  People ask “How do you do it all?” Um yeah, I don’t. I can’t. Things fall by the wayside. My house is messy. I just paused writing to tell Seth not to throw knives- truth. My kids get lonely. Laundry piles haunt my dreams. I lose my patience daily (or hourly). Homeschooling can get sporadic and is often unorganized. I get lonely. I read mommy blogs (why do I do that?) and feel guilt that I don’t do crafts with my kids.  I want to get up early but instead I stay up too late at night.  I don’t follow through. And on and on and on.

So, yeah I can’t do it all, but I’m sorta, kinda starting to come to grips with the fact that the Johnson family is on our own journey and ours doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s journey. There is beauty in this particular journey and it’s pointless to waste time wishing it looked differently. I mean, this is the journey God created us to walk. Sooooo I should probably learn to be good with it.

Our kids are loved.
Our kids have each other. They love each other.
Our kids are learning to love and value those who the world has cast aside.
Our kids are learning a new culture and a new way of doing things- and their world is bigger because of it.
Our kids are learning what it is to say YES to Jesus.

I finally feel at peace in mothering, probably for the first time since we moved! I have seen little glimpses lately of the fruit and I see that our journey is beautiful in it’s own way.

-Addy announced to me yesterday “Ezra and I are just best friends lately! We just love each other! We’re hoping to keep this going on for as long as we can.”
-When it was dark out, Seth reached out to help Hava down the stairs to our yard. “I know the dark steps scare you Hava. Hold my arm.”
-Hava asked “Mom, which Romaniv boy would you choose first to come live at our house? I couldn’t choose, they’re all just so cute!”
-Every time we come home from Romaniv Ezra wants to see the pics of the boys right away. He loves them.
-Seth said “Mom, I can share Boris with daddy because he needs a daddy too.”

I write all this to say, own your own journey. God’s Word and God’s grace apply to every life situation- regardless of location. Parenting books and parenting seminars are great (I would love some of that right about now!)- but what is the greatest is saying YES to God when it comes to your children. Don’t compare your journey to your friend’s or your neighbor’s or some random blogger’s. The details of their lives are not the details of your life. Their journey is not your journey. Their kids are not your kids.
(Preaching to myself, FYI)

Teach your kids to say YES to Jesus by saying YES to Jesus yourself.
The rest is sprinkles on top. 🙂

Eleven days since I last came to this space. Wow! Days are flying by.

Since I wrote the last post about being still and trusting that God is on our side we’ve gone through some stuff that made living out those words pretty stinkin’ hard. Sheeesh. This fighting for the orphan thing is rough stuff! But, worth it. But still rough. 🙂 There are seasons of heartache and seasons of joy in every life, right?

Our family as a whole is doing just fine. Our work may be heartwrenching at the moment, but our family is good.

Here’s what’s been up with us:

• This is the last week of school for Addy and Ez, and then Christmas break! Their schooling plan will change after the new year, so stay tuned!
• Havalah and Seth go to a private little kindergarten (Hava won’t let me call it “preschool”) twice a week while Jed and I are at Romaniv and they love it. Today when I picked them up the teacher said they understand her so well and that Hava speaks a lot of Ukrainian in class. Yay! Comin’ along, comin’ along.
• We are right in the middle of renewing our registration. We have to renew every year in order to keep our temporary residency. Stamps, stamps, and more stamps…woot! Ukraine loves stamps.
• My cousin, aunt and uncle will be in Uzhgorod (a city in western Ukraine) this weekend and we are trying our best to get there for a visit. We were waiting to see if we could get our residency paperwork done in time to be able to leave town, and we finally got done yesterday…but now there are no available train tickets! The lady at the ticket counter told Jed to come back and check tomorrow morning. The train is really our only option. A bus ride would be at least 12 hours over rough roads and Hava gets super carsick on the short, smooth, two hour ride to Kyiv! We can’t torture her like that. The train ride is 16 hours…yikes, but worth it to see family. 🙂
• Next week is Christmas!!!! We’ve been rockin’ the Christmas music pretty much nonstop around here. This will be our first Christmas alone, just the 6 of us, so that will be really different. Last year Jed’s parents were here visiting. Did you know Ukraine doesn’t celebrate Christmas until January 7th? Fun fact.
• Our favorite Tom and Emma are coming for a visit on New Year’s Eve! They’ll be with us for a week and we’re counting down the minutes till their arrival. Eeeeeeek! Tom and Emma visited last February and it was so amazing to have them with us. Best Christmas present ever.
• My mom secretly asked a bunch of people to send us Christmas cards. Oh my word!! It has been such a special treat! I really can’t tell you how special it is when we get mail. Our whole family screams and hoots and hollers and jumps up and down. Seriously. We love mail! Thanks Mom 🙂 And thanks everyone who has sent us cards. It makes our day. Big time.
• We’re working on a couple special Wide Awake videos for Christmas. In the videos we’ll introduce you to two of our special boys. I can’t wait to share them with you!
• I’ve been working hard to get all the details figured out for the boys from Romaniv who are available for adoption. After Christmas we will start really advocating for them and I’m so hopeful we’ll find them families. Stay tuned for that too. Children were made for families, not insitutions. 🙂

Welp, I guess that just about does it.

Maybe next time I write it will be from Uzhgorod…if we survive the 16 hours on the train, that is! Ha!

This living-overseas-everythingisnew-missionary-stillawifeandmomfirst-immersion thing can be quite the doozy at times. It’s a rough and wonderful road. Sharing about it though, is fine line to walk.

I want to be real and honest.

But I don’t want to be a complainer.

I want to be me.

But how to “be me” from behind a keyboard?

I want to be respectful of people here in Ukraine.

But there are things here that are difficult for us, since this is not our home culture.

I want to be respectful of the people back in the US.

But I also want them to be challenged and encouraged to think and dream bigger- and act.

I want to share all so people know how to pray.

But I don’t want to share all because I know many Ukrainian friends read this blog and I don’t want them to worry about us or feel bad for us.

I want to share about our Boys and their need and their worth. I want to share about their lives and things that break our hearts and should never have to be endured by a human.

But I don’t want to share too much because I don’t want to disrespect them or exploit them or break relationship with the Directors at Romaniv.

Fine line. Tight rope walking.

I say all that just so you know that when I write things on this blog I don’t take it lightly. There are many people to consider and many points of view to consider. Many times I write to clarify things in my own mind and heart. Sometimes I don’t really understand my own feelings until I type them out. It’s kind of like a form of therapy for me. Lucky you, my dear Readers! Ha. I also always want to be honest about this journey. Maybe it could help others who are setting out on a journey like ours. I know I love reading honesty from those who have gone before. Somehow it settles my heart to see they struggle with things similar to my own.

Lately I’ve been trying to figure out my heart and feelings surrounding the balance of being a mother and a friend and a cross-cultural-worker here in Ukraine. When we first arrived here Jed and I both jumped right on in to work. We both volunteered at MTU, probably pretty equal amounts. Whoever wasn’t at MTU was home with the kids. It was an important time for us to figure out where we fit into everything here, and to see where God wanted us in the mix.

Then we had the summer, which was basically a whole family affair (which was AWESOME…). And now we have reached the fall, and we have a new norm. I think this new norm will be the norm for some time to come. I LOVE the new norm, but my overachieving, worker-bee, people-pleasing self won’t let me be completely at peace about it and I don’t know what that means.

The new norm is that Jed does most of the work outside the home, and I am home a lot more with the kids, reminiscent of our lives back in Oregon. Of course we both go to Romaniv twice a week, do language tutoring together, and we both work together on our youth nights for graduates, but most of the rest of the work is Jed’s. I get to focus more of my time on the home, the kiddos, and being Mom and Wife. I am in love with this. I know the kids need it and they thrive when I am home more. Focusing more time on our home and our family brings me great joy and fulfillment. When I’m gone from home a lot I feel scattered and yucky.

So, I know this is a good set-up. I know this. But then I start to question myself.

I don’t question if it’s a good thing that I’m home more. I value motherhood and I think stay-at-home moms rock. I have always dreamed of being a stay-at-home mom with no outside work committments, but that has never been what God had for me. It’s not the focus at home that I question, it’s the time spent not focusing outside the home that has me evaluating my heart.

Do I have such peace at home partly because it’s easier to be home than out in the culture that is still difficult for me? Do I have such peace at home because I feel smart at home and I mostly feel dumb as soon as I walk outside my front door? Hahaha…not kidding…hehe. When I’m at home I have this feeling like I should be outside getting to know my neighbors, or taking the kids to the playground so they can have more exposure to language and I can brave it with neighborhood moms. But as it is, I already feel like I’m not investing enough time in to the relationships here that I already have. It’s like that guilty Oregonian feeling you get when the sun finally comes out. You feel like because it’s sunny you should be outside NO MATTER WHAT. Because you never know when you might get sun again! Well, what if I don’t feel like being outside that day? What if I have inside work to do that day? Too bad. If I stay inside on a sunny day in Oregon I am riddled with guilt. (Is that just me, or do other Oregonians catch my drift?) (PS: I think I have some guilt issues)

I’m used to watching over all the friends in my life and making sure everyone is okay and included and taken care of, but I don’t have that role here with friends. Here, we are investing that time in to our Boys, and frankly the work at Romaniv can be emotionally and spiritually exhausting. I love those Boys more than I could have ever imagined and am fully committed to them and their well-being. It’s just that with being a wife and with our kiddos at home and then our kiddos at Romaniv…I don’t have a lot of reserve left on a day to day basis. I love my friends here so stinkin’ much. I just don’t feel like a very good friend here in Ukraine and I hate that feeling…but I feel helpless to change it.

Are all these feelings okay? Or am I relying too much on myself? Maybe I’m being lazy and selfish? It’s like I still have a short-term missions mindset that I have to give up every spare moment to the work and ministry here, but we are here for the longhaul. There will be no longevity if I live this life like a short-term missions trip. I know that, but I still battle. How to find the balance of time and energy spent?

Anywaysssss…balancing focus on the home and focus outside the home and all my feelings surrounding that is exhausting. I know what the answer is: walk in the Spirit. Be available to God and when He says to act, act. Be fully at home when I’m home, but also be aware and listening for the whisper to go outside and talk to the neighbors. Be aware of my friends and listen to promptings in my spirit for when I need to reach out. Stop being a people-pleaser and only live for an audience of One. Say YES. I know these things, it’s just all easier said than done.

So, there you have it: my Monday afternoon therapy session. Ha! I just think it’s important to be honest about this journey. Then you can all know how to pray! 🙂

Oh this road, it’s so unpredictable. Thank you Jesus for walking by my side.

We are rapidly approaching our one year anniversary of life here in Ukraine.

Has it already been one year?  Has it been only one year????

So much has happened in this past year it feels like a million lifetimes have passed since we touched down in Kyiv that cold November night.

Before we moved we’d been warned by other missionaries and in missionary books and missionary blogs that the first year overseas is a beast. We tried to prepare ourselves for that, but how can you really prepare, emotionally and spiritually, to leave everything you have ever known and held dear- and start over? How can you prepare to go from being a pretty smart person to feeling pretty much dumb pretty much all the time? How can you prepare for what it will be like to watch your children hurt and struggle and feel lonely? How can you prepare to go from being a vital part of a vibrant community of like-minded people to living on the fringes of society?

You just can’t. You can try, but you just can’t be prepared. You just have to jump and trust that your loving Father will catch you.

This first year has been the hardest time of our lives. It has stretched us and jostled us and turned us upside down.

And yet…

How can you prepare to have your heart invaded by 80 boys tucked away in the middle of nowhere? How can you prepare for the joy of knowing young men and women with special needs who can light up the room with a single smile? How can you prepare to watch God fling open doors that have been shut for years? How can you prepare to feel the absolute smile of God and joy of the Father as you walk right down the center of His will? How can you prepare to watch young men and women loving your children with utter abandonment?

You just can’t. You can try, but you just can’t be prepared. These things are what you experience in that catch of the Father.

My heart came to a new place this past week. I was washing the dishes and thinking about our upcoming Ukraine-iversary, and I realized that I’m good. I’m okay. We will most likely live here for a very long time, and I’m okay with it. When we moved here we sold everything except what we packed in our 12 suitcases (and a couple tubs in storage). We came here with the mindset that this is our new home until God says otherwise. We knew then that if we came for a set amount of time we would forever be looking at that deadline and we wouldn’t settle in for the long-haul. We know that about ourselves.

I can’t know the heart of God, and His ways are higher than mine. Maybe He’ll have us leave here next month, but I highly doubt it. I can’t say I know the future, but I can say that the dreams God gave us are big HUGE dreams that are going to take a loooooooong time. So, as things stand now, I expect us to live in Ukraine for many, many years.

We are here for the long-haul, and I’m good. I’m sad, but I’m good. Thinking about the long-haul a few months ago only made me cry. I’ll be honest. Now it makes me cry and it makes me smile. It makes me cry because I miss my family and my friends across the ocean. I saw pictures of a bunch of my family all together last weekend and I bawled my eyes out. I should be there with them. How can I not be there with them? How can we raise our children so far away from family? How can we bear all the missed holidays, all the missed birthdays, all the joys of daily life? Christmas is coming. How will we bear it? I don’t know and I don’t even want to think about it. I guess I have to trust that God will catch us then too. It’s so hard, but we just have to trust Him that He will fill those empty places- for us and our family in the US.  That part is incredibly hard.  I can’t even tell you how hard.

The long-haul also makes me smile. It makes me smile because of our dear ones here. How could we ever leave our Boys???? How??? How could we leave and not be a part of their lives? How could we walk away and not know what happened to them, where they lived out their days? How could we stop fighting for them? And what about our young adults with special needs? We love them! How could we leave? And what about all our friends? Our church? Leaving here would be just as devastating as it was to leave Salem. I’ll even dare to say it would be more devastating deep down, simply because our loved ones in America are daily loved and care for by many, but our Boys are not.

Sigh. There just aren’t any simple fixes. It’s just painful and joyful and trustful and tearful. All we can do is trust and keep hold of the hand of our Father.

So, I’m in a new place. I’m in a place of seeing the long road stretched out before me and feeling okay with walking in that direction for many more years. There will be plenty of tears and joys along the way, I’m sure of that. But oh the peace that comes from saying YES to Jesus- one step at a time. There’s just nothing like it.

I can’t believe it was a week ago that we left for Lviv! The week had flown by. We’ve been having a great time exploring and taking in the beauty of the city. Being in Lviv is almost like being in a completely different country. Sometimes it doesn’t even seem like we’re still in Ukraine. The center, where we spend most of our time, is like any other old beautiful European city. It’s an awesome place to get away and have fun as a family. We needed this. 🙂

This is the Opera House. Seth wasn’t in a picture mood.

This is a beautiful old palace that was turned into an art gallery. Fancy!

We climbed the tower of City Hall to get a great view of the city. 420 steps!

We found a Tex-Mex restaurant owned by an American. So yummy!!! You definitely won’t find that in Zhytomyr!

The best sight for me in Lviv: cool handicap accessibility assistance buttons!

I love this so much. Not only is it helpful, it’s cool. Superheroes.

Hi!  Wow, it’s been quiet around here!  BUT, for good reason.  Grams and Papi (my parents) are here visiting!  YAY YAY YAY!!!!!!!!!  So, I’d apologize for the lack of blogging, but I’m sure you all understand.  The last thing I want to do when I have my family here is sit down at the computer.  HA!  There’s so much to show them, so many people for them to meet, so many foods to try, so many Seinfeld episodes to watch together….time is precious.  But, they’re still sleeping this morning, so I thought I should take the time to share about their visit so far.

Grams and Papi arrived last Sunday evening and they had a BIG surprise in store for our kids.  They brought along our 10-year-old nephew Isaiah!  Oh man, I can’t even tell you how many times we almost blew their secret.  But, we somehow managed to keep our mouths shut and when they walked out of baggage claim with Isaiah in tow the kids freaked out appropriately.  They have been having a BLAST with their cousin.  Addy and Isaiah are just a few months apart in age and have always been close.  So, this was just about the best surprise our kids could have gotten.

Here we are at the airport for pick-up. Addy must have jumped up and down continuously for about 20 minutes when she saw Isaiah. 🙂

Catching up on long-lost Lego play

So far we’ve taken them all over Zhytomyr, and yesterday we spent the day in Kyiv.  My dad has all the Kyiv pics, so I can share those later.  I can’t even tell you how much it means to us to be able to take them around our new home.  Now they can picture the people and places we talk about when we Skype.  Now they understand our life a bit and it just makes all of us feel better.  🙂

Isaiah has done so great here!  What an awesome traveler!  He’s tried all the food, walked many miles, and even learned a few words in Ukrainian.  He’s been a bit homesick the last couple of days, but that’s not bad for a 10-year-old being so far from home.

Ezra is so special…

We had smoothies at our favorite little cafe

My eyes disappear when I’m really happy 😉

This was probably my favorite day. We took them to our bazaar and we just had a great day. My dad took pictures of blushing Babushkas. Lots of laughs.

We went to the local park with a few rides. The kids couldn’t wait to show Grams the rides since they knew she loved Disneyland. Hahaha! Not quite Disneyland…but still fun. 🙂

Can you tell Ezra’s been watching The Sandlot?

This picture was taken after church on Sunday. Aren’t they cute?

Approximately four minutes after that last photo we were caught in a TORRENTIAL downpour. You can either laugh or cry…right?

 The highlight of the visit so far, for me, is last Friday.  My parents got to come to Romaniv with me.  I’ve been wishing and waiting for that moment since we first visited Romaniv in 2012.  This is the reason we are here.  It is so important to me that my family really “gets it”.  They have always been supportive of our move.  Although they are sad we live so far away, they never told us no.  They knew this was what God had for us, but that doesn’t make it easy to have your kids all the way across the world.  

I needed them to see the faces and hug the bodies of the ones we came here to serve.  I needed them to see why with their own eyes.  So, Friday was my dream come true.  

Friday was also Addy’s first time to come help on the team.  She did great!  She has really taken ownership of the work at Romaniv.  She has memorized the names of the boys and listens when we describe their personalities and needs.  She has been begging to come help this summer, and the Directors said it was fine.  How special that she got to go with Grams and Papi!

Isaiah and my dad leave on Friday and my mom stays for ten more days.  I’m trying to treasure every moment without thinking too much about the fact that they leave so soon.

Could you pray with us?  Although we’ve had a great time, both of my parents have been sick on this trip.  🙁  My dad got a bad head cold that seems to be improving, but he still has a lingering cough.  Ukraine has not been kind to my mom’s stomach.  Yesterday in Kyiv she was pretty miserable and today she seems even worse.  It’s such a bummer!  I really want them to be well so we can enjoy these last couple of days to the fullest.  Thanks for your prayers!

Anyway, I just can’t say enough about how much it means to have visitors here.  I know it’s expensive to get here and not exactly a vacation locale, but it blesses us SO MUCH when people come and see our new world.  We have had the best time.  I don’t want it to be over!!!!  🙂

Many moons ago, waaaaaay back in July of last year (not actually that long ago, but now it seems like another lifetime ago) I had the extreme pleasure of attending the Vineyard National Conference in Anaheim.  Oh the bliss!  I got to go with some of my favorite people on the planet, and Christen, Abby and I even got to go to Disneyland for a day!  I’m telling you, it was the stuff dreams are made of  🙂

One of the best days of my life. No joke. I love those girls!

Anyway, at that conference I got to connect with some awesome leaders in the Vineyard missions world.  One of them, the oh-so-wise Jerry Reddix, had a sit-down with me and shared some invaluable wisdom.  He talked with me about being really intentional with our kids in this new season of our lives.  He talked of rituals and routines that will help their little hearts to feel settled, even when everything around them is completely new and different.  He talked about a Daily Examen.  I look back on that conversation now as one of the most valuable I had before moving to Ukraine.  Jerry, if you ever read this, THANK YOU!!!!!  Your words were just what this family needed.

Jerry encouraged us to read a book called Sleeping With Bread: Holding What Gives You Life.  It’s a small, easy-to-read book that describes how to implement the Daily Examen with your family.  We aren’t Catholic, but the Examen isn’t just for Catholics.  Basically, the idea is to end your day by asking each person in your family to share about their day.  Think back, reflect on your day, and share the most life-giving moment, and the most difficult moment.  In our house, we say “What was the best part of your day and what was the hardest part of your day?”  We each share, and then at the end we pray and thank God for the great parts of our day, moments where we experienced His presence, joy, and love.  Then we talk to Him about the difficult moments and ask Him to help us with whatever made it difficult.  Simple, yet beautiful.  In the book, it phrases the questions as “What are you most thankful for today and what are you least thankful for today?”  At first, I was like “Woah…I don’t want my kids talking about what they aren’t thankful for!”  But really, why do we have to ignore the difficult times?  We aren’t dwelling on them, but voicing them and inviting God to be present in our difficult times.  We are bound to have hard times.  Ignoring them won’t make them go away.  Let’s talk about it as a family and agree in prayer for those situations.

The benefits of the Examen have been better than I ever expected.  Sure, sometimes there’s a night when everyone is hyper and silly and the Examen is less than contemplative (insert potty talk and fake burps…oh little boys…), but usually there is at least one gem that comes out of our time.  It helped us not-so-good-at-routine-Johnsons establish routine back in the US that we carried on here in Ukraine.  It’s something the kids can count on and it gives us a chance to key in on how everyone is really doing.

When we do our Examen we turn out the lights, we light candles, and we all take a turn sharing.  We also do our family read-aloud during that time.  It’s called “Family Time” and it’s lovely.  Of course, sometimes Seth won’t sit down, sometimes Havalah pouts, sometimes Addy or Ez has a bad attitude, and sometimes Mommy and Daddy are really just ready for the kids to go to bed so we aren’t super patient.  It’s not always a romantic, solemn, introspective time, but it’s still precious in its own way.  I know we are laying a foundation of open communication and sharing with one another.  I’m excited to see how the sharing deepens as the kids grow in maturity.  Right now when sharing about the difficult moments the kids like to use it as an excuse to tattle on each other.  Ha!  So, we try to move it back to them focusing on their own responses to the situation.  “Okay, so maybe so-and-so stole your toy, but how did you respond?”  People will always let you down, but God is always near and always faithful.

If this strikes a chord with you I highly recommend giving the Daily Examen a try.  Anyone can do it!  If you are single, you could journal your Examen.  If you have no kids at home you can share with your husband or wife.  Take a moment to quiet your heart at the end of the day and look back for glimpses of God’s presence.  When did you feel His joy?  What about that moment was so great?  When did you have a difficult time?  Was there something that happened when wish you would have responded differently?

Sleeping With Bread is a great book for understanding the benefits of the Examen.  I definitely don’t agree with everything in the book, but I can take out the good and forget the rest.  I’m okay with doing that.   🙂  The general idea is great and doesn’t deter me from the stuff I don’t agree with.

Soon I hope to share some of our favorite read-alouds from our Family Time.  I’m a sucker for a good book, hence the 6 ginormous boxes of books we shipped to Ukraine.  Be thinking of your favorites because I’ll be asking for suggestions!

What about you?  Do you have any great family nighttime routines you’d like to share?  I love hearing what others do at the end of their day.  Hmmmm?  Anyone?