Jessica and our family dog, Jenny, love the snow.

Our Christmas party for our Ukrainian friends and church workers.

Our Christmas Program is on Jan 4th (Ukrainian Christmas is on Jan 7th) and the Kids are doing great with their practice. Pray that this will be a great out reach to the village.

Katrina our friend and fellow missionary spent Christmas day with us. What Fun!!!

Winter fun has begun for the kids, Ye Haw!

Tasting the snow flakes.

Merry Christmas!!!!!

These are the black current tarts that we had on Christmas Eve. Yes, I made them.

We are eating our Christmas Eve supper; borscht in bread bowls, pinwheels, relish tray and black current tarts.

Wood for the winter

Ukrainian sunset

Joanna doing crafts, in Kids Club around our kitchen table.

Friends, I am so sorry that you haven't heard from me in a while. It seems like when I tell you that our internet is working great then it stops. So I better stop saying that. We are doing fine. Getting ready for Christmas. Last Sunday we had our first Christmas program practice. Our program will be in the afternoon of Jan. 4 th. That may seem like a weird day to have a Christmas program but Chistmas here in Ukraine is on Jan. 7th. Yes, we will be celebrating American Christmas(Dec. 25th) with our family and Katrina, our fellow missionary. But the most of the Holidays around here start at NewYears. I hope I can post pictures later. I'll try to keep you posted. Ha Ha.

So much to be Thankful for.

I know that Thanksgiving is over, but I am just now getting time to tell a few things that I'm thankful for. This picture is of some of the things we had for out meal and yes, I am thankful food and friends to share it with. But this year I really have a lot to be thankful for, like running water (hot and cold); and indoor bathroom(it even has a shower); heat in our house; a little place in God's great big mission field to work; and a family and wonderful husband to share all my blessing with. Yes, God is good and it is a joy to be one of His daughters.

Thanksgiving day

Thanksgiving dinner at the Drummond's house in Nova Odessa in southern Ukraine. It was nice to be with fellow missionaries and friends. The food was great and we even took a hike to a nice little water fall. But sorry it was too dark, by the time we got there, for pictures. But it was sure nice exercise. We did miss all of our family, but we still had a very nice day.

Here I am fixing (or remudding) our petchka or Ukrainian stove. Yes, I did make bread and even a cake in it. Now I have a stove that Jason bought for me that has a working oven in it. I feel like a queen. We still use this Petchka it help heat the house even though we have gas heaters.

Kids club

Some of the neighoborhood kids eating with us. (Joshua's good friends)

Jason, Jessica & Joshua painting the gas pipes that come into our house. The Lord worked a miracle for us to get gas to our house so quickly. The gas company first said that it would be next summer before we could have gas connected to our house.

All gas pipes in Ukraine must be painted bright yellow according to code.

My husband with the phone on his head trying to get a faster internet connection.

Back to blogging

Yes, some of you are wondering where I have been and what happened to all my promises to keep my blog up-to-date. Well, I have been in the land of no internet. Let me correct that. We had a very (I mean VERY) slow internet connection. And then Jason and a few of his friends tried to get something working faster and then it quit altogether. So now we are finally back on line and it seems to be working much faster(keep your fingers crossed and say a prayer).
What have I been doing in the mean time? Oh, a lot of things and I will try to catch you up a bit. We have been working very hard to get our house(remolded barn) in working order before winter hit with furry. Well, I think it hit. Last Sunday we had our first real snow fall that stayed and it was so cold that no one came to church or Sunday School. Our transalators and their two children came to Sunday school and in church there were 5 besides our family. What a way to start off winter. It has been cold, but I have no idea what degrees in F. I'll have to figure that out for you later.

Hello from our village in Ukraine

Hey, I am alive and I have been reading some of your post. But I have tried 3 times to publish a post and let you know how things are and none have been successful. Sorry about that. Jason is gone right now trying to work on getting a better connection for our internet. You would laugh if you could see me right now. Jason told me that our internet works better if you put the cell phone on your head while you are online. Well, I am trying it. But I think that it works better with Jason. Jessica said that I have too much hair (Jason doesn't have that problem) for it to work on my head. Right now I am going to see if this will post, and if it does I'll try some pictures. So long for now.

Friends

Josh and his friend, Aaleya

Jessica and Wendy, our friend, making cookies and pies for the Fall party. Wendy was such a help. She was with us for 5 days and we thoughly enjoyed our time with her.

We had a Fall party, to say good bye, to our good friends in CO. We had between 40 to 50 people in our back yard. It was so nice to see so many of our friends. About half of our friends that showed up were children. We had a lot of friends that helped with the games, treasure hunt and making pies and jellies( for prizes). I don't think I got any pictures of the pie eating contest. Well, I have 4 more suitcases to pack and then 4 carry-ons to pack. After that we have a lot of cleaning before we can leave our house. We have 3 days left to get things done.

Here is our family and our little home on the road. Our little white van has been our home for the past 4 months. It has taken us down the road for almost 30,000 miles. Talk about faithful.

Some of the weird things the we do during our off time. When you get tired you never know what will make you laugh.

Me and my honey on the Oregon coast. It was so foggy and beautiful.

A few favorite deputation pictures.

Yellow Stone-Old Faithful and our favorite little missionaries

STARTING THE PACKING!!!!!!

We were at Amy and Monte's house. They are very good friends of ours as well as Jason's cousin. Here Amy is helping me with packing by vacuming all the air out of a bag. Jason got a kick out of us sitting on the bags to get all the air out. It was so much fun being with family and friends and getting work done as well. Now that's what you call having a blast!

GPS

I was driving down the road at about 2:30am and singing to keep myself awake. I do that from time to time when the rest of the family is sleeping, I sing and have time to talk to my heavenly Father. Like I said I was singing(not at the top of my voice, because I wanted everyone else to stay sleeping) and driving when I stopped to think about what I was singing. "My Lord knows the way through the wilderness. All I have to do is follow." And it really struck me funny because as I was singing that I was looking at a GPS that someone had loaned us. My first thought was "if the Lord know the way, why am I following this thing?" But then I thought "Maybe GPS stands for God Provided Satellite." Who knows but it never hurts us to stop and think about what we are singing.

Around the World?

Jason, my husband, tells me that we have traveled around 22,000 miles since the end of May. I forgot to add this little detail to my last post. But if that is true, we could have traveled all the way around the world and by now. Maybe that is why I am feeling just a bit tired. Yes, I feel like I have been around the world and back. Sometime I will have to figure up how many miles I have traveled with my wonderful man since we have been married. I'm sure we have traveled around the world several times.

Deputation Update

We are almost done with our deputation tour, so I thought you might like to hear a few of the details. My husband, Jason, and my two children, Jessica and Joshua and I (Joanna) have been living out of our mini van since the first weekend in June. We have been home only 7 days this summer. We have been traveling to different churches, raising funds and prayers support for our missionary work in Ukraine. We have had 65 services in churches across the USA. We have been from coast to coast, in 26 different States so far. We have stayed with some very nice people and even had the chance to be with family. If we have already been with you, thanks for listening to our talk and giving and praying. If we haven't been with you yet, we are looking forward to seeing you. Hope you like these pictures taken by my good friend Carrie Carter at our service in Frankfort, IN.

Our little school on the highway

Josh loves school!!!

Jessica studying hard

The first day of school is an exciting time. Maybe a lot more exciting when your first starting out. But all the same, it is a change from the carefree summer, and a reconnecting with school friends. Our first day of school this year was a just a little different from the norm. Yes, we do home school our two children, Jessica-5th grade and Joshua-kindergarten. We have been on the road since the first of June doing our deputation tour. We travel to different churches across the US telling them what we have done in the past in Ukraine and what we plan on doing as we go back this next month. Since we have been in the van practically all summer our children were getting bored of the games we had, gameboy, and coloring books. Even story books, which they normally love to be read to, was not keeping their interest. So when they begged to start school we decided to go ahead and start. We use A.C.E. curriculum, and our first day of school was

Aug. 19th. We had to leave our home in CO at 4:30am to make to our service that night, so it was a little early. After the children woke up and we had a little breakfast, we started in on our first day of school. That day we ended up traveling 12hrs that day and 10hrs the next. But we have been doing fairly well keeping up with their schooling. Jessica sits in the front seat and Jason helps her when needed. I sit back with Josh,because he needs a lot more help with his schooling. I love working with children, even my own. They are so much fun! I just hope I am saying that at the end of the year. I guess we'll see.

Going back to Ukraine!!!!

Many of our friends ask us the question, "So you're going back to Ukraine?" Sometimes when they ask it, they have a questioning look on their face like they are wondering if we have lost every brain cell that we ever had. Yes, we are headed back to Ukraine. Yes, we have been following what has happened in Georgia. And yes, we can't be sure the same thing won't happen in Ukraine. Now some may say at this point,"So why are you going?" I can try to explain, but really I can't expect you to understand, unless you have been there. Unless you have been to Ukraine and seen the village children so eager to hear about Jesus, you wouldn't understand why we would ever what to live in a village without common things like running water, inside bathrooms and A/C. There are some things that seem almost impossible to explain. One of those would be the look on someones face when they receive a Bible of their own, when they had wanted one for a long time. Or how about the look on a street child's face when you just gave him the first meal that he has had in three days. Some may ask are you going back because God called you, or to make yourself feel better? There is no question in our mind that we are going to Ukraine because that is where God wants us. But also that is where we want to be! When you make a difference in someones life, and you can see that being there is giving hope and spreading God's Love, why wouldn't we want to go. I know some missionary wives who have drug their feet every step of the way. I don't want that to be said of me. God made us a team and a team we will be. So back to that question," So you're going back to Ukraine?" My answer is loud and I don't care who hears, "Yes, we are going to Ukraine. And I can't wait until we get there."