My SOVIET life...

Many of you have asked for a glimpse into my everyday life here. Well, I've finally gotten around to taking some pics of this place. I'd even forgotten that some of this stuff is not so normal in the states, but thanks to a visit from my friend Leslie from the sates, you now can see what I see every, single day. So here goes...


This is the little orthodox church near my house. They have little ones like this all over the place here. Old people go here on Sat. nights and Sundays.

The canal that seperates me from the island of Rusonovka. That's right, I live next door to an island.

This is the canal and pedestrian bridge just a 2 min walk from my building. I used to swim in this thing during the summer. Lot's of old guys fish in there. Me and my old roomate threw rotten watermelons of that bridge one time. They completely disentegrated upon contact with the surface of the river. It was really cool.


There are lots of new buildings being built all over this city. This is just down the street from me. They have the crews working 24hrs a day...I know cause I see the welding flashing at night.


This is my Building. 9 stories of concrete goodness.....SOVIET concrete goodness!!!


There is no parking here in Kiev, so parking and driving on sidewalks is a common occurance.

This is our trash lady who is always picking up around our dumpster. I don't know who pays her...maybe it's the state....the SOVIET STATE!!!!


I have never actually seen these flowers anywhere near my building, but Leslie found them somewhere.


My building's front entrance. It looks ohh so...ummmm.....SOVIET!!!

Our stairwell...and yes it smells as bad as it looks.

The inside of my front door. We have a outer wooden door and an inner leather covered door. I don't know what the second one is foor, but I'm glad that we have it. It's prettier than the other.
Here's my old roomate's room. I may be moving into this one soon.
Please note the gas stove from the 1940s. It's a rare piece because it's such an antique. It may be old, but you better believe it can still burn your biscuits...oh yes it can.

That's enough for now. Come visit me sometime.

...and back again

Here are some more pics from the Odessa trip.
When we first arrived, all I saw was yellow...
...and then a house with trees inside...
...and then, at the train station, I came across the strongest baby in the world...literally...
...and then I came across my favorite car in the world...it was like the twilight zone...

But then we arrived to the beauteous reatreat house that was right by the black sea...Our view for a couple of days.
Up and down the hill we went...
All 20 of us packed into this little summer house...but not all 40 of our shoes could fit.
One of our small groups for the weekend.
Shashlik for dinner!! I love the way Ukrainians cook meat...
I'm pretty sure that it's the same across all cultures...Men and grilling meat...
...and Ladies and their flowers.
Ukrainians LOVE to sing and there is a rich folk song heritage here. We ate and sang often!

I've always wanted to see my name in lights...so I'll sign off with my signature...until next post...

Odessa bound...

I'm here in the office trying to get all of the media stuff ready before me and my co-worker, Marina, meander our way down to Odessa via an overnight train. I'm sure it sounds exciting to everyone, but let me assure you that it smells much worse than you are imagining. I'm not looking forward to the train ride.
We are in 3rd class...I've never ridden anything else...and its all open cabins and smelly bathrooms that flush directly on the tracks. Not exactly as civilized as one would hope, my good man.

I'll have to write more about the trains here as time goes on. I'll try to take some pics on this ride down so that you can see what I'm talking about.

So I'm tired, and not exactly looking forward to this 12 hr. train ride. But whatever, i'm feeling young and adventurous all of a sudden as I type. It beats being in the office. Plus I'll get to take a few days off since I'm working over the weekend.

When we get back Mon. morning, our director, Jason, from England should be here. He'll stay with me in my flat. He's cool we should have some fun. I enjoy talking with him and see a lot I can learn in terms of leadership. He'll be here till friday, and then on the following Mon. my good college friend Leslie comes in for a few days from sunny San Diego.

We outta have some fun going around the city, doing all the touristy things I haven't done yet. It's always good to be with old friends who just get you. I'm looking forward to it...eeeeeemensly.

Anecdote from today:
So i went out into the market area with a couple of stores and lots of kiosks. I stopped in at this little food shop and asked for a hot dog. I saw a couple of guys with some hot dogs from there and they look decent, so i decided to try. So I ordered them, and the lady looks at me like I am an idiot for saying "hot dog" the way that I just did. I guess my american accent was really showing through, since I was pronouncing an american word.

Anyway, she then procedes to ask my if I want one dog or two (they were kinda small)...but she asked if I wanted it "with 1 or with 2". Believe it or not, this is a phrase that I have never before heard in Russian. When you use the preposition "with" you then have to put the nouns in a different case...the instrumental case. But the thing with russian is that you always have to change the vowels so that they are in the right case. And usually, the vowels can sound completely different from one case to the next.

For example: 2 is normally "dva"....but when you put it in the instrumental case it becomes (sss dvoo-ma) or something like that. I'm still not sure what she said. I just nodded and said "dva" like a complete idiot.

Stuff like this happens a lot. But I'm learning not to care about looking and sounding stupid. I still care...but facing that sad fact everyday is helping me come to terms with it.

So I'm outta time, gotta get going to catch my train. Much love from here.

If you would, right now pray for our travels down there and back. Pray for the kids that are going to be at this retreat. Pray that the technical stuff would go over without a hitch. Pray that these students would see Jesus and fall in love with him.

Jerry-boy out.