Fit to be sick

Oh man, it has been a tough week.  Basically, fall has come with a vengeance to invade my body and keep me away from school.  It has been very pretty outside,

And it is neat because all around us there are maple trees.  So many maple trees that people are employed to rake leaves all day.  And then the next day, they rake the same place because more leaves have covered the ground.  As the leaves fall and they are all in the shape of a Maple Leaf, do you know what I am thinking?   Wow it feels like home, and no, I do not cheer for the Leafs.

Well anyways,  I have been at home battling sickness this week which has been quite difficult.  I had to get a sub, (thank you John P.) but the worst part about being a teacher is that even though I am sick, I have the same amount of work to do to have a sub to teach in class.  You have to come up with lesson plans, PowerPoint slides, be a good communicator, make up assignments.  All from the comfort of your bed, sneezing and sniffling away.  I should have just gone and taught because I am more busy now than when I was healthy, except, I couldn't get out of bed.

Fortunately for myself, John is very flexible so he was able to run my classes smoothly without any real hiccups.  So I got to go to work today and had some tests planned and as I gave them, I found out just what was taught.  It is not easy to make a test for stuff you "think" your students learnt.

Anyway, it was difficult to not have the energy to do more than 5 minutes of work before resting for an hour, but it sure taught me alot about humility as at one point, Colleen was in a language lesson and I was watching Jolen (Ellianna was sleeping) and about 1/2 was through her lesson, I had to give her Jolen and just lay down.  Man, you try to be everything to your kids and your wife and are humbled by a simple illness.

So, tomorrow we are having some of the students over for a party at our apartment as we live only a 5 minute walk away.  Colleen has been hard at work  in the kitchen preparing.

That is one exciting thing Colleen has found here.  She can do ministry by baking!  She loves baking and it is stress relief so when I bring baking to school, the teachers thank me for driving my wife to baking and ask if I can keep driving her crazy for their benefit.  I am truly the lucky one in this relationship as my stomach is never in want!!!

A prayer request we would have is for Colleen as she starts teaching Health at KCA.  Both for her preparing and teaching, but also for the children as they adjust to mom being gone some of the time.

We appreciate all your prayers and thoughts as we take each step forward in Christ day by day.

This Canadian is Thankful for Football (Soccer!)

First of all, on a somber note, I would like you to remember the McPhee family.  We went to Bible School with them, back in the day and he was my professor after he graduated.  Fellow churchgoers at GBF in Sexsmith, they heard God calling them to Uganda and left earlier this year.  While there, they had a baby girl around the beginning of September.  Last week, she started seizurning and they later found out she had holes in her heart.  Selah went home to Jesus last Friday and this Friday they had the funeral service.  Please pray for them and if you would like to financially bless them in this hard time you can click on this link http://tgcfcanada.org/donate/  and then go to Dave and Janna McPhee.  Thank you for holding them up in prayer at this time.

Thing around here have been hectic.  Jolen has started showing us his humorous personality

The kids now that it is October must wear a touque outside even when it is plus 17 because once October hits, children must wear touques because they could get sick, or we will get told our child is cold by everyone on the street.

Thanksgiving in this house has come and gone.  We celebrated God's goodness last Saturday as fellow Canadian friends of ours could not be here this weekend so we, being Canadian, had the luxury of celebrating it early.  It is funny working with a bunch of Americans where Thanksgiving is a huge celebration with a children's program and everyone dresses up.  We told them we moved thanksgiving and they could not fathom that the day could be moved.  I also told them it is celebrated on a Monday just to push them over the edge.

Fellow teachers at KCA were given season tickets to the local soccer team Dynamo Kyiv and they could not make it this last game so they offered me their tickets.  I jumped at the opportunity as I have never been to a futbol game in Europe.  You you think I am a huge fan of the Oilers, you have not seen a passionate fan until a Soccer game in Europe.

My favorite part of the stadium is the fence they put up so the rowdy crowd stays at bay

The stadium seats 70,000 people and there is not one bad seat in the house.  Bigger than Commonwealth Stadium and a much better view

Going crazy after a goal is scored

This section beats on drums all game long!

Those guys are good!  They do things with the soccer ball I can only do in my dreams and even then they are more creative.  It was crazy good futbol.  Ukrainian Premier League is the 9th best league in Europe!  On a side note, on Monday if England ties their game and Ukraine wins, they qualify for the World Cup!

The score ended up being 9-1 for Dynamo Kyiv so as my uncle Myron would say "Guaranteed Goals!"  So we got to celebrate quite a bit!

These tickets we got, on the centre line, and 25 rows up were 60 griven each, or roughly $7.50.  It makes it hard to justify $100 per ticket to see the Oliers sitting in the nosebleed section.

This was probably one of the most difficult weeks of my life as the assignments started piling up and I could not keep ahead of the game.  I texted Colleen on Thursday morning just overwhelmed and you know how people say they feel someone's prayers.  I literally felt her prayers and if you were up at 1:30 am on Wednesday night, I felt yours too!  Thank you for partnering with us as we celebrate God's goodness here and serve in ways we never would have imagined!

A Date with Dad!

So Colleen suggested I go on a Father-Daughter date with Ellianna this past Saturday.  On Saturday morning, we boarded the bus to a mall called Dreamtown and went on a date.  If you were to go into a mall over here, you would notice that nothing is very different.  Sure there are less people and no one speaks English, but they are laid out and look the same.  Malls in Ukraine are expensive places to go, in other words, if you are able to spend ridiculous amounts of money, then you go to the mall or you may go for a birthday party once a year if you are lucky.

For a mall to exist in Ukraine, the rational is that if 10% of the population can shop at the mall then it can be sustained.  Wow!  Only 10% go to the mall.  A stark contrast to Canada where the year I graduated, probably everyone could say they have been to a mall in the last month.  So of my grad class of 60 people, only 6 would have been to a mall.  Those are small odds where our mentality is volume produces profit and the Ukraine mentality is "the more exclusive the place, the more money we make!"

So the mall on a Saturday was not busy but we had fun walking around and getting lost in the hall of mirrors

The hall was probably the size of a small apartment but it took us around 30 minutes to get out

We had some fun running into all the mirrors and they gave me special gloves so I would not mark the mirrors for the next person.

Which Ellianna is the real one?

We were planning on going to McDonalds but, it was in the second half of the mall as we only explored a little bit but we walked by a pizza place and ate some pizza!

Why do I share this?

It is pretty simple, what is important in life?  When we leave Ukraine, will we be thinking "I wish I had spent more time with local Ukrainians" or "I wish I knew more Russian"

Or will we say "Ministry was so important to us that we missed our children growing up."

We had the privilege of going to a KCA soccer game last night and the amount of parent support who said "My kids are the most important thing to me (besides Jesus of course)" was astonishing.  The team we played against was a school of 600 students and our teams were quite outmatched yet, they had 1 or 2 fans and we filled the bleachers with the KCA cheer section!

The other schools joke that every KCA game is a home game!

I have learned that my kids and my wife need to know that they are so dear and important to me and sharing that love to Ukraine is my goal.  I hope and pray the world may see Jesus through my love for my family!

A little (dis)(en)couraged

The week before Fall Retreat was quite discouraging.  Anytime you try something new, there is a honeymoon stage and then it wears off.  I felt like school was that way this week.  Lots of it was my fault because of either inexperience or plain stupidity.

Those who know me know there are times I am serious but, for the most part, I enjoy joking around.  We have fun at school because it is an American one and they have a hard time pronouncing herbs, about, foyer and I found out this week, drama.  We were talking in one class about abilities and giftings and I mentioned the school drama may be something to try.  Well, I said drama and the class asked what that is.  "You know, like acting" "Oh like dr(ah)ma."  Well, I proceeded to let them know the proper way to say drama and I said the only time we use dr(ah)ma is when you are talking about a "queen" and then I looked in the direction of a girl in the class.  I didn't think anything of it until after class.

I have a Thing on Fridays that students can submit questions, any question, and we will discuss them on Monday.  Well, I got a question on Friday "Why do you pick on ________ (the girl I referred to as a drama queen).  Safe to say I felt like an idiot, I was an idiot, and had to humbly ask for forgiveness in front of the whole class.

Then, I had a substitute teacher and learned that you need to explain the class to the teacher as my Grade 8 class is "Wild" and that is an understatement, so, the sub left the room and one of my students put another in a headlock while he was gone.  Again, another apology needed.

So, this was the attitude and mentality I had going into fall Retreat.

Ellianna trying to join in with Ultimate Frisby

It was a little rainy

The turning point for the weekend was an extended worship time.  After having these problems this week, the worship leader stated that if you are having a problem ask a teacher to talk with you.  So, someone from one of my classes came up and asked to talk to me.

"Oh dear" I thought, "What did I do now"

This student actually confessed to me that they cheated on the test we took this week.

My faith and spirit was filled to overflowing.  Here I was down on myself asking God if He really does show up and blatantly He DID!!!

To resolve the situation, I marked everyone's test and no-one got 100%.  I then put, for example, 24/32 = 100% "Not by what you have done but by Grace Alone Ephesians 2:8"

So on this student's test I wrote the same thing 0/32 = 100%.

I was so blessed to be able to tangibly give a life example of what Christ has done in our lives.  None of us is perfect, and yet when we accept Christ, God sees Christ's perfection in us!

Weird Wacky Wonderful Week

So everyone in our household has been sick the last few days so I have not had the opportunity to write anything on my normal posting day on Thursday, but, I may have time now as it is 10:43 pm Kiev time, everyone is sleeping and everything is calm.

I actually thought the exact same thing last night and was poised to sit down and type when Jolen woke up, stayed up until midnight, woke up again at 3:00 am for a couple hours and was ready for the day at 8:00 this morning.

First I would like to take you back to Saturday.  The wonderful part.  We got a package from Canada!!!!

Is all this really for me?

Mmmm...Canada tastes so good!

Thanks to our wonderful friends at Meest (a shipping company to Ukraine) these packages arrived just in time for us to eat the wonderful food!!!

Apparently you can only buy birthday cards in one location in Ukraine, the Post Office.  I pride myself in being a patient person and one who is not alarmed by the unknown, but for some reason, I was lost when I went to the Post office later that day.  The post office to me is a very simple concept.  You go to the post office, get in line and then you get to the counter and buy your item.  In Ukraine, you go into the post office and there are 4 different cashiers, all with a different lineup and each cashier has a sign above their register stating what the line was for.  Well, I didn't see a line saying birthday cards so I got into one line, it took too long and then I got into another and I got very frustrated.  By the time I got to the till, I think maybe the cashier realized I was fuming mad or that I didn't know what I was doing because when I pulled out my dictionary and pointed to Birthday Card, she ran over to another cashier and grabbed them all from her desk  and brought them over for me to see.  Now I think if Hallmark came to Ukraine they could make a killing because I had the choice between a card with red flowers, pink flowers or white flowers.  As I like to get funny cards, I got even more frustrated by my "flowery" choice!  So, Aidyn ,you are getting a flowery card in the mail, Happy Birthday!  But it was weird that I got so mad!

Sunday, my hair needed cutting.  I went to a place to get my hair cut.  No problems until the very end, my hair got cut quite short except for the bangs.  I know this is not a picture of me, but I kid you not, this is the reflection I was looking at in the mirror when she was finished!

I found out that when you go to a hairdresser in Ukraine, they cut it the way they want to and not the other way around, but luckily I was able to communicate that the long bangs were not my style so I have a normal not Wacky haircut now.

Tuesday was and awesome day because the England football (soccer) team played against Ukraine in World Cup qualifying in Kiev!  Tickets were $100 and the game started at 9:45 pm on a school night so it was not possible to go, but it was cool that I was only a few Kilometers away from the National team the David Beckham used to play on!!!  The city was buzzing and we had a neat sight outside our window that afternoon.

This hot air balloon was weaving in and out of all the apartment buildings!  Well, the game kind-of was disappointing as they played for 1 1/2 hours and the score was 0-0.

Our family got a little homesick this week so we also made milkshakes one night in our "enormous" kitchen.

At least the kitchen is bigger than our "hallway" kitchen in our first trailer as it literally was the hallway in the trailer.

I was reminded this week of how good God is, even in the weird, wacky and wonderful times.  He deeply cares for us and amid all this craziness we call life, He is there guiding our hot air balloon lives through the tall buildings in the city that is our lives!

No blog next week as the school is going on their annual retreat out of the city and away from civilization.  See you in 2 weeks!

Patience Proves Persistent

Wow, the week is gone yet again and everything revolved around patience.

Wow, it was a three month process, but God (as always) proves faithful... He still would be faithful if the house hadn't sold either.  So as of the end of this month we are homeless (in Canada at least).

So this week I was teaching on Abraham and his patience.  And when I say patience, I mean patience.  To make a long class short I will give you the Cliff's notes version.  Abraham was called to be a great nation when he was 75 years old.  Isaac was not born until Abraham was 100 - 25 years waiting for the promised son.  Then, Isaac doesn't get married until he is 40 and then another 20 years before Jacob and Esau are born.  So, if you do the math, 25 years + 40 years + 20 years gives 85 years for Abraham to see the fruit of that promise.  And even then there was only 3 pieces of fruit.  The kids in my class are 15 so, if God was to, for example, call them to be a Pastor, they would not preach until they were 100 years old.  The message sunk in pretty good.

Through this class, I also was able to share a little bit of my own testimony and God's timing is not our own.  I felt the call to go overseas at around the age of 12, but did not go over on my/our own, without someone holding our hand, until now at age 31.  19 years, that means I have been waiting on the Lord for longer than my students have been alive.  I told them, think back to your earliest memory, and that memory is newer than the length I have been waiting to go.

Also,

Ellianna's birth day!

Jolen's birth day!

3+ years of dating and 7 wonderful years of marriage without children, (we thought we were being patient) we have now had 2 years of them showing us how un-patient we are!

And on a super exciting patient type perseverance thing.  Amanda accepted Christ!  Colleen and I were talking and dancing and Jolen stood up and Praised Jesus Too

We have been praying for her for 4 years and it is pretty cool when you feel like you maybe played some small part in someone accepting Christ!  So stop right now and say a prayer for her as she needs the body of Christ to hold her up as we all need each other!

If you remember us in prayer, Russian is a tough language so pray for us as we patiently learn new concepts and apply them!

Now, hopefully all my patience proves itself this year with the Edmonton Oilers!

Ready to be empty nesters!

Our kids are growing up.  They have found food and are able to feed themselves

Pooping on the potty has begun for Ellianna.  And they have found a place to sleep.

It may be a bit squishy but they will manage!

It has been a hectic week.  I have already given at least one quiz/test/exam in each class.  (it's weird here, a small test is a quiz, a medium one is a test and the big kahuna is an exam, maybe that's the way it was all along and I am the odd one out.)  So Colleen and I were up until midnight marking last night so I didn't get a chance to finish the blog.  Colleen started Russian lessons twice a week and I start next week.  We made pizza and gave some to our neighbours and they in return gave us watermelon

We have Ukrainian friends (one who is a teacher at the school) coming over tonight for a meal and we are making them tacos.  A great canadian dish straight from Mexico!

God is so gracious.  We are encouraged to make friends here in Ukraine and KCA.  You may know that  no one from Canada/States lives around us and it can be quite lonely.  We are encouraged that a few new teachers want to live in our area so please pray for them as they look for a place to stay.  Also, it only has been 1 week at KCA but we are already thinking and praying about our future.  Is this where God would have us?

Thanks for all your encouragement!  God Bless!!!