Village Life

Last week Bill and I went with our friend, Farri, to a small country village. The majority of the day was spent in getting there and getting home on a variety of buses and taxis. We met Farri at one of the metro stations at 7:30 in the morning to catch a bus and arrived at his mother-in-law’s cottage at 1:30 in the afternoon. The countryside that we traveled through reminded me of the Midwest, rolling snow-covered fields (probably wheat) with rows of large trees marking the borders of each field. The last part of our trip was by taxi and we were dropped off on a road in the village and walked the rest of the way. In Kiev, as in our large cities, people do not generally greet passing strangers but in the village all of the schoolchildren we passed said “Dobridyen”.

The home where we spent the next couple of hours is Tonia’s girlhood home (Farri’s wife). Like all of the homes in the village it was very small, painted white with blue trimmed shutters. There was no indoor plumbing but a rustic outhouse with no seat, just a hole in the floor. Thankfully, there were walls and a door. Water was heated on a stove and when we came in after a trip to the outhouse, our hostess gave us a bar of soap and poured warm water over our hands into a basin as we washed. The house was chilly as there was no central heat, just a small space heater that was not working. Despite the lack of modern conveniences, our hostess had prepared a great number of interesting Ukrainian dishes for us. The most interesting was called Salt Cake. It resembled Baklavah in appearance with what looked like icing on top. However, it tasted as if it might have had pureed fish as one of its layers. When people come for a visit, it is normal to treat them like royalty and this was their best. I was not allowed to help with the setting of the table or clearing of plates.

After an hour the birthday boy (Roman) woke up from his nap. He had turned two that day and was happy to sit on his father’s lap and a little nervous about the strangers. It helped that we had brought a gift. Roman had many layers of clothing on in order to keep him warm.

Unless you might think that Olia (Farri’s mother-in-law) is an uneducated peasant woman, she is not. She is a teacher of history for the 5th through 12th grades. In response to a question from Bill about Soviet times, she responded that a person does not have a heart if they do not have some emotional attachment to having been under the Soviet Union but they do not have a brain if they wish to return to that life. I need to mention that she was born in Russia and has some lingering loyalty there as most of the true Russians we have met. Olia said there were many shortages and they typically waited in long lines to receive a loaf of bread or milk. At that time they were not permitted to leave their villages and had no ability to improve their circumstances.

Because of continuing economic difficulties in Ukraine, villagers continue to live without most modern improvements. We were surprised by the primitive living conditions in this village and when reporting this to our friends in Kiev, several confirmed that this was typical of most villages throughout the country. For this reason, many people are immigrating to Kiev and other cities and abandoning rural life.


On the way home we had missed a bus connection and needed to take a taxi for a few hours. Farri instructed us not to say a word during the trip as he wanted to get the best rate and if the taxi driver realized we were Americans that wouldn’t be possible. So, we sat quietly for a very long time while Farri chatted away with the driver in Russian. When we got to the end of the taxi ride, I asked if the driver didn’t think it was odd that we didn’t speak the whole trip. Farri said he had told him that we were his parents from India and did not know the language. It was amusing to think that we had passed as Indians but this young driver probably had little world experience. We eventually arrived in Kiev at 10:30 that night and walked the half mile home in a snowstorm. We were so appreciative of our warm little apartment with a toilet.

In addition to experiencing another facet of life in Ukraine, the day allowed Farri to open up to us about many of his struggles and we told him that we would be praying. We will give more of his history at a later time. But we find it interesting that during this time when we are somewhat limited in communicating with Ukrainians, God has brought this young Muslim English-speaking man into our lives. Farri himself said that he feels that the day that he met us in the bazaar was not just a chance meeting. Please pray for him, Tonia, Olia, and his son and pray for wisdom for us.

2 Corinthians 5:20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

Village Burners

Oksana is our church secretary and friend. She has an excellent knowledge of English and translates for us on Wednesday nights during our English classes. She had been reviewing the placement tests that we give to students to determine which of the 3 classes they should attend. She was very amused by some of the paragraphs that the students had written about themselves. Following are some excerpts: “I have mother, sister, and brat. I burn village of Rozhevka.” “I bath in 1985.” “I have girlfriend. She is very biuotiful.”

God has been blessing our attempts at establishing outreach English classes. The classes continue to grow and our church Bible study that follows the classes is now standing room only. We surveyed the students this week to determine if we should expand our classes during the next two month session. Over 90% of the students requested that we offer more courses during the week.

We have also continued to meet with our Indian friend Farri and his Ukrainian wife on a weekly basis and they have invited us to go with them to a nearby village for their son’s 2nd birthday party. We met Farri’s wife for the first time a couple of weeks ago and we took an instant liking to her. Her English is very good and she was happy to have someone to practice with.

With the exception of missing our family and friends and some minor hardships, we are thoroughly enjoying being in Ukraine. It is a great adventure and we are making good friends. The success of the English program has been a great encouragement. During the last couple of years as we have prepared for full time ministry we have often felt that we were throwing ourselves off of a cliff and asking God to catch us. The fear of risking the unknown and abandoning the security of what was comfortable and familiar seemed overwhelming at times. But God has caught us and He is trustworthy.

I was reading an excerpt from a book by Elizabeth Elliot which made the point better than I can.

“When my brother Dave was very small, we spent a week at the seaside in Belmar, New Jersey. In vain my father tried to persuade the little boy to come into the waves with him and jump, promising to hold him safely and not allow the waves to sweep over his head. He took me into the ocean and showed Dave how much fun it would be. Nothing doing. The ocean was terrifying. Dave was sure it would mean certain disaster, and he could not trust his father. On the last day of our vacation he gave in. He was not swept away, his father held him as promised, and he had far more fun than he could have imagined, whereupon he burst into tears and wailed, “Why didn’t you make me go in?”

Romans 12:1-2 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.