Greetings from Kharkov, for the moment anyway. We leave in the morning for a few days -- more on that in a minute. Things have been progressing pretty well here. We've now pretty fully made the transition from our first year to our second year, complete with shifted priorities and refactored schedules/routines. For example:
Our first year, we tried to do as much language study as we could realistically manage. At times I was having class 5 days per week, and Denyce 3 days per week, and each doing plenty of homework and self-study aside from that. Now we are both down to two days per week with the understanding that there will be little or no homework outside of class.
One principle which we hold to be second-to-none, based on both Scripture and input from others, is the unequivocal importance -- no, make that need -- of prayer in our lives and work. To that end we've made a decision as a family to clear room in our schedules, and make a plan to actually do, three hours of prayer daily for six days every week. This was about a week ago and it will take us a while longer to get adapted to this, but so far we are very positive about this. In addition, we and our teammates have scheduled a once-weekly team prayer time in which we gather exclusively to pray in depth for things pertaining to our work and the people in our lives.
We're looking with greater intentionality now for opportunities to spend meaningful time with people, deepening relationships and directing people toward God's word. As our language has progressed this has become more realistic, and in a very reciprocal way, it's likely that nothing will help our language continue to progress more than this meaningful time visiting with people.
I've gotten busy with a number of specific work-related tasks that are pertinent to these early stages of our work. I mentioned some of these in a previous post -- web domain arrangements, website work, initial research for printing/photocopying locally. Soon I will begin to look into advertising in newspapers and perhaps other local media.
We leave early tomorrow morning for Germany. We will be attending the Euro-American Family Retreat, an annual gathering of Europe-based missionaries, church leaders, and presenters and speakers from various places. This will be our first year to attend, so we're excited to see who will be there and what the next few days will hold. I'm anticipating some neat opportunities to network with other current and former workers here in Europe, bounce ideas and questions off one another, and of course to relax as a family in the fellowship of other families and individuals with whom we have much in common.
I've been trying to tell a few Ukrainian friends here lately about our plans to Germany and have learned through experience that there is no single Russian word that can adequately translate the English word "retreat" (that is, in this sense ... they do, of course, have a word for retreat in a military/battle context). A good friend and co-worker here who is a native English speaker attempted to translate the concept of a "retreat" by rattling off a six- or eight-word phrase that was basically a sentence describing what takes place at a retreat. As far as one-word translations, the closest I've been able to come so far has been собирание (lit. "gathering") or конференция (lit. "conference"). Anyone reading this with a background in Russian is welcome to suggest other possibilities; I'm listening. For now, those will have to do.
With 22 minutes left in this week, as I begin typing this post, I thought I'd share a little bit about how things have been going here and what we've been up to since I got back from Phoenix. By the way, Denyce and the boys did well during the time I was gone. Our dog, Kona (or now Konochka, as the locals have taught me to call her) even got her normal quota of walks per day without me, her chief walker. Our teammates helped on occasion with that too, for which I am grateful. One of our teammates, David, even made a contact while he was walking our dog, and now has started what should hopefully become a regular routine of meeting with him.
We and our teammates here in Kharkov are in the process of transitioning to the kind of ministry activities and priorities that will characterize this second year on the field. To that end I have several tasks I'm responsible for, most of which utilize my experience, interests, and gifts in one way or the other. I've been researching Ukrainian domain names so that I can get one (probably four actually) for us to use for publicizing events and contact details locally. Once I get the domain name I'll need to build a small website for that. Additionally, before long I'll be transitioning our existing team website to a dual-language website, adding Russian translation for all the content (I'll need to have help with the linguistic side of that endeavor). Besides internet-related things, I'm also responsible for some upcoming printing/publishing-related projects, an area in which I also have some background. I'm glad to have opportunity to serve as a part of this team in ways that I find interesting like this. I'm also grateful to have teammates who are not only busy at work on their own parts of the work, but who themselves are relatively tech-savvy, and who for the most part understand this stuff too. I am not the only one like this on our team, and it's great to be able to collaborate and share insights and responsibilities.
Our family, specifically, also has a couple of big things we're working on. First, we've been looking for a different place (either a house or apartment) to move into. We like our current apartment, but are pretty sure there are other places that would better suit our family, both now and especially down the road. We have looked at numerous apartments and two houses here, and have given really serious consideration to a couple of them, but for now we're just being patient and seeing what else comes along. Meanwhile, this whole process has been some of the best language practice I've gotten, as I'm dealing with most of the people involved (real estate agents, owners, etc.) directly in Russian, although when it gets serious or technical I've used translation a couple of times. I've also come into contact with some good people and hope that one or more lasting relationships might come from this process.
The second major thing we've been working on has been finding a vehicle. We completed our first year on the field without a vehicle. When I returned to Phoenix earlier this month it had been over a year since I had driven, which was a first for me. The other families on our team who are in Kharkov have already owned vehicles for about 10 and 4 months, respectively, and we learned a little bit vicariously through their experiences. I also spent some time here and there the last few months becoming familiar with the market for vehicles of the type our family is interested in (vans), which took quite a bit of learning. The models available, and in many cases the manufacturers themselves, are very different here than in the US. For example, one of the most common types of vans here is made by Mercedes. However, a Mercedes van is not a thing of luxury or eliteness at all. It is regarded as a nice brand and a good value, on par with the other major manufacturer of vans, Volkswagen. I also dug into the legalities to try to make sure I understood the various options available to foreigners to be able to use cars in Ukraine, and the implications involved.
After getting the blessing of our sponsoring church to move forward with it, the ball truly started rolling when I scoured the classifieds (we can't afford a new van here, that was one thing that was crystal clear) and found 6 or 8 vans for sale locally that fit our criteria and were models we were willing to consider. I handed the details over to a very good local Ukrainian friend of ours who is a mechanic, and knows the ins and outs of vehicles in Ukraine better than I ever will. He did the calling and within 24 hours he had narrowed it down to one that he felt was an exceptional value, went and looked it over and drove it, and then called me and told me about it. The next day we all went together to look at it, and decided to buy it.
Thankfully the owner was willing to be patient, as I didn't have the funds available at that moment. One challenge of living over here is the times (thankfully not often) when any of us on the team here needs to have and spend a large sum of money on something. This is universal to all missionaries, probably. I had managed to get by up to this point on just paying for things using Ukrainian currency withdrawn from ATMs (our bank allows almost unlimited withdrawals when we need them), but even that method didn't sound very up for this task. Plus, most used vehicle sales here are priced in dollars, and the sellers expect to be paid in real cash dollars. When the other families here bought their cars, they used combinations of visitors from America bringing cash (up to the limit before customs duties apply) and using Western Union. Other missionaries who have lived here longer, though, have told me about the value of having a local Ukrainian bank account, but up until now I hadn't had a need to really pursue that. After finding this van this week, I looked into local banks and opened an account at one, denominated in dollars. Then it was just a matter of having the money wired from a US bank account to the Ukrainian one, and the wire transfer fees are much cheaper than a service like Western Union.
Yesterday we paid for and took possession of the van, today it was registered at the local Ukrainian equivalent to the DMV, and next our mechanic friend will be doing a little bit of work on it. It needs new tail light covers, but more importantly it needs seatbelts installed, as most of the seats do not have them. It's unclear yet exactly how long that will all take, but we are looking forward to finally having use of a vehicle. We really wanted to get this done before winter hit, and I guess technically we did. It sure is cold out there already though (freezing as I write this, with a low of 26 or 27 F tonight).
Well, there is really so much more to mention about what all we have been up to -- attempting our first team assembly wholly in the Russian language, some important collaboration and discussions about the future with a valuable friend and co-worker in Christ here, and more. But this is already a long post, maybe even already long for a Hindman post, so I'm going to leave it at that for now. If you've read to this point, I hope you can see that there is seriously no end of the adventure, lessons to be learned, and opportunities to be pursued here. Pray with us that God can work it all to His utmost glory.
A quick post here while I'm at my gate waiting to board here in Phoenix. I've said it before and I'll say it again: this is a great airport. Let me elaborate three reasons:
Free WiFi. Which I am using right now. This alone sets it apart from most.
It's located right smack in the center of the city. Super convenient.
The airport's name itself -- Sky Harbor. That totally rocks.
I've had a great stay here these last few days. I came here for the wedding of a long-time best friend, Tyler Ellis. I was one of his groomsmen, and it was priceless to get to spend some great time and have some good fun with Tyler and Caleb again. These two were my "best men" in our wedding, and after Tyler and I were both among Caleb's groomsmen in his wedding, it sort of completed the circle for Caleb and I to be among Tyler's groomsmen. These are great friends ... I would describe them as "David and Jonathan" friends to me.
After the wedding I transitioned to the East Valley and spent the last couple of days with our sponsoring church, Sun Valley Church of Christ. It has also been wonderful to be able to stop in and see everyone there face to face, and do lots of communicating about our past year, how we're doing currently, and what we are looking ahead to for the coming year and beyond. On Sunday morning I gave a report along these lines, and then in the evening I preached and then spoke to the youth as well. Then yesterday I was able to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner all with Sun Valley folks. In between, I got to visit a dear brother who is in the hospital, and did some running around picking up a few purchases to take back to Ukraine.
One year ago today, our family arrived in Ukraine (here is our blog post from that day). That day seems far removed from us now, both in terms of time and in terms of our language, our knowledge and understanding of this place, our connectedness with people here, and more. It has been a good year amazingly full of growth, challenges, adventures, and lessons learned. We are thankful for all of you who have supported and encouraged us through this time of adaptation and learning. We still have a lot of adapting and learning to do, and I'm sure the next year will be just as full with the new kinds of lessons, challenges, and blessings that will correspond to some of the new ways we'll be using our time and efforts in this second year. May God be praised.
Well, I've been remiss in not posting at all on here since returning from Italy. As we mentioned before, we went to Italy on a combination vacation + visa renewal trip. We were joined by my mom and stepdad, and Denyce's mom. We had a fantastic time and each part of the trip was really enjoyable and interesting. Denyce is doing a nice job of covering the trip in more detail on her blog (denyce.posterous.com), where she is sharing details and photos one day at a time. For the purposes of this post, though, I'll just some the trip up briefly like this:
Getting There - we, along with my mom and stepdad (who had flown to Ukraine several days before), took a train from Kharkov to Kiev, spent a few hours around Kiev, and then stayed the night in the hotel at the Kiev airport. The next morning we flew out of Kiev to Rome, where our flight arrived just minutes before Kathy's (Denyce's mom's) flight. We all met up at the gate and flew on to Florence.
Florence - I would summarize this city with these key words: Art, charm, art, romance,... oh, and definitely art. We enjoyed staying in an apartment in the historical center where practically everything we had time and interest in doing in our three days was within easy walking distance. Our first whole day in Florence, I traveled to Rome to submit our visa applications to the Ukrainian consulate there. The process ended up requiring an overnight there on my own.
Massarosa/Quiesa (or simply, "the village") - we wanted to see a different, less major-city-touristy side of Italy, and we also wanted some of our vacation to be a bit more restful than it tends to be when you're in a big city trying to see all the sites. We stayed for six days or so at a very nice private villa on the edge of this small village (Quiesa) adjoining a town (Massarosa) in northern Tuscany. While there we played with the kids in the nice garden and swimming pool, rode bikes, and walked around the village. We also took day trips to Lucca, Viareggio (where we swam in the Mediterranean), and Pisa (I can confirm that the tower does indeed lean).
Rome - I had to use a few words to summarize Florence, but only one is truly necessary for Rome: History. Amazing. Although it was a bigger, more tiring, less hospitable city, I loved Rome and was astounded at the way there are ruins and remnants of history everywhere -- not just in museums and behind fences, but along roadsides, in parks, around practically every corner. For anyone who finds history interesting, Rome is like being a kid in a candy shop where you're allowed to touch and sample to your heart's delight.
I'm tempted to try to select a photo or two or three to include here, but it would be too great a task at the moment. For the resumption of my language lessons with my teacher, I proposed that we could spend the first lesson with me showing her pictures from our time there and me trying to explain and describe them in Russian. Of the however-many photos we took in Italy, I painstakingly narrowed them down to just the most interesting photos that told the story of our time there, and it ended up being around 400 or 450. Crazy. And tomorrow's lesson will now be the fourth hour we will have spent in the process of going through these photos (I expect to finish them tomorrow... probably). Instead, may I just recommend again that you check out Denyce's blog and keep tabs on her posts still to come about the rest of the trip: http://denyce.posterous.com
Since being back from Italy, we've gotten back into our language lessons. I've also been getting, hands-down, my best and most intensive real-life language practice yet in recent days as I've begun the process of looking into options for a different apartment or house for us to move into. The contract on our current apartment expires in a couple of months and although we like it here, we know there are probably better places that would better fit our family now and in the future, so we want to evaluate our options. In the process I've talked to more real estate agents and landlords than I care to count at the moment, and in all but one case this is all in Russian. It has been intense but good.
When we were searching for an apartment a little over a year ago (and ended up in the current one we are in now), we had to rely on a real estate agent to do the looking for us, since we didn't yet have nearly the language adequacy needed. After several weeks without being given a single option that met our requirements, we eventually broadened to using another agent, who was able to find us only one option (the apartment we are in now). Contrast that with my experience this week -- on Monday around mid-day I mustered my courage and started calling phone numbers for real estate listings on the internet. Within a couple hours my phone was ringing like crazy, I was getting calls from people I wasn't sure if I'd even spoken to before, and despite the language barrier I ended up being shown 5 apartments in the space of 3 hours that evening. The next day we were shown a house that was absolutely, shockingly even, amazing and affordable, and our heads are still spinning trying to decide what to make of it and whether we should act on that one or not. Tomorrow morning I'm being shown yet another house as well. So all that to say, what a difference a year of language study can make. And in a very cool sort of self-rewarding kind of way, I'm inclined to think that I've grown in my language even more perhaps in these last few days of interactions than in any three days previously in our time here in Ukraine.
