Living out daddy's dream

Our landlady continues to stall on covering our balconies. During the winter, this was a temperature issue. The weather’s warmed up, but Eric moved all our bookcases to his new office at the seminary, so now it’s a storage issue. To solve this problem, we’re having a very large (10 foot long, 2 feet deep, 7 feet high) piece of furniture built to accommodate the stroller, the extra chairs, the down-filled comforters, etc. My dad called it a storage locker, but it’s going to be the first thing you see when you walk into our home, so I prefer to think of it in classier terms.

Viktor, the carpenter building the classy storage locker, came over last week to get measurements. He took one look at our baby, who was outfitted as shown below, and said, “That’s what Russian circus wrestlers used to wear.” I, of course, never meant to dress my baby like a circus performer of any sort. But I’m sure Dietrich’s dad, who once wanted to be a wrestler in the circus known as the WWF, was secretly pleased.

And it’s off!

Monday marked the first day of the Talbot extension program at Kiev Theological Seminary. It was a very busy – and very good – day.

For the kick-off, we invited all the students and their wives to come stay at the seminary. While the students went to orientation and their first class, we put on a mini-conference for the wives. Several dignitaries from Talbot West (i.e. the main campus) were in town, including Karen Dirks, the wife of Talbot Dean Dennis Dirks. Karen has been involved in ministry to seminary student wives for 25 years. I learned a lot from watching and listening as she spoke to the women.

The day was more challenging than we expected when we started planning six weeks ago. Bonnie Saucy — wife Mark Saucy, the director of the extension program — had a vision and a passion for this event. She did loads of work planning it and making sure that it would equip the women as they minister with their husbands. But just a little more than a week ago, she had to return to the States for medical reasons. We tried our best to pass along her vision, her passion, her spirit, but we felt inadequate.

There’s a Russian phrase that I think captures how Bonnie’s absence was felt. When we returned in November from our time in the States, I asked the youth at our church how things were going. They told me, “Without you, badly.” I knew that the group was doing just fine, so I didn’t understand the nuances of that phrase until Monday. I think we can all confidently say that the conference went really well. But, without Bonnie, those of us who worked with her know that something major was missing — so, in that respect, it went badly.

One other challenge: Dietrich won’t take a bottle, so we can’t leave him with a babysitter yet. Eric took him for most of the afternoon, but I had him with me in the morning. This was very difficult. My attention was divided; my brain did not have the capacity to handle all the logistics of the day, plus the baby, plus speaking Russian. I will never again sign on for something of this scale unless I know someone else can watch after our little guy for the day.

Thankfully, there were also joys.

First, we’ve heard that the wives loved the day, and felt special and pampered. That was our hope, so it’s encouraging hear happy feedback. Our next step: To figure out a good way to continue to minister to the wives, who live all over Ukraine.


We wanted to pamper the ladies, so two of our teammates who used to work as beauticians in the States came and taught them how to do a manicure.

Second, one of my responsibilities was to introduce a method of reading/meditating on the Scriptures called Lectio Divina. Bonnie had prepared most of the lesson; I just added a few thoughts. Her husband was our main speaker for the day. I was impressed by the way Mark and Bonnie had worked together to pass on a unified message. One thrust of Mark’s talk: Theology is not just for pastors or church leaders or men — it’s the responsibility and joy of all believers to grow in their knowledge of God, and to be changed. Bonnie’s lesson on Lectio Divino gave the women a practical way to, through the Scriptures, grow in their knowledge of God and to be changed. It was a joy to see husband and wife minister together in such a unified way.


Mark Saucy teaching the wives of the Talbot students.

Third, I tend to be a “do-it-yourselfer.” I don’t like to ask for help, especially when I know everyone’s really busy. And, in this case, I was so overwhelmed that I sometimes didn’t even know what to ask for. But several of the ladies from our team here — ladies who hadn’t been part of planning of this event — at the last minute stepped in and handled many logistics: Driving all the supplies to the seminary, making food for the tea we served, stocking the apartment the Talbot team was staying in with food, lining up someone to clean that apartment, helping us pack up after the conference, and so on. I’m thankful we don’t serve alone.

The wives are back home, but the students will be in town for two weeks. This week, they are getting a crash-course in Biblical languages.

When I welcomed the women on Monday morning, I said, “This has been a long process, but we've seen how God has worked, how He's created this program, how He's gathered the students and the teachers. Probably, we all could give a testimony about how God has already blessed us through this program. We praise Him!” After seeing how God worked on Monday, we praise Him all the more.


Frequent readers of this blog know that I was in charge of decorations. Here’s an overview of the room.


And here’s a closeup. We also had candles placed on the tables, and we lit them while the ladies read and meditated on Ephesians. The flowers are balanced on the oranges. I’m glad I didn’t stick the flowers directly into the fruit as I’d planned, because at the end of the day the ladies took flowers, and this would have been a sticky endeavor if they’d sat in orange juice all day.

Plug in

The Talbot extension program starts next week, and a team from Talbot West just arrived to tie up loose ends in time for Monday’s kick-off. Yesterday, I was at the seminary with the team and with Dietrich, and I spent some time chatting with Oksana, one of the KTS translators. She’s hoping to be pregnant herself soon, so she’s pretty into babies. She went on and on about how cute D is, how he looks like his dad, and how she particularly loves his nose. I said, “It’s interesting that he doesn’t have my nose (pointy) or his dad’s nose (generously proportioned).” She said (and this sounds better in Russian), “Yes, we have a name for Dietrich’s nose – we call it an ‘outlet nose.’” For sake of comparison:

Dietrich’s nose


A Ukrainian outlet


A lot of times, I think speaking Russian is just hard work. But then I have a conversation like that one, and I realize that it’s quite a privilege — and often an entertaining privilege — to learn how another culture expresses itself.

Feeding Dietrich

Tonight, we fed Dietrich his first “solid” meal. A lot of reading, shopping, chopping, peeling and boiling went into the one tablespoon that he downed! It also brought with it a cultural experience that I hope not to repeat for a while.

As you probably know, most people in the States start their babies on iron-fortified rice cereal. So, yesterday I took the baby on the long walk to the nice grocery store that has a good selection of baby foods. It was about 3 p.m., the store was crowded, and in practically every aisle, a worker was stocking the shelves. So, I had to leave the baby and his stroller next to the mandarin oranges while I maneuvered around the lady stocking the shelves and the three large cardboard boxes she was working out of.

One brand had its ingredients listed in English, but its rice cereal also contained milk and sugar. Another brand was all in German or Ukrainian, but not Russian. And the other options all originated in Ukraine, which I wanted to avoid for the same allergy-related reasons that I don’t use Ukrainian flour.

Trying to decipher all these languages was taking quite a bit of time, so Dietrich noticed his stroller had stopped moving and started crying. I didn’t want to make a rushed decision on his First Meal Ever, so we quickly finished the rest of our shopping and left. Or tried to leave. Despite the fact that I was holding an upset baby on my hip and pushing a stroller full of groceries with one hand, the security guard stopped me and looked over my receipt to make sure I hadn’t stolen anything.

This was not shaping up to be a successful shopping experience.

On our way home, we went to the outdoor market where there is a kiosk that sells baby products, including cereals. There, in the window, I saw Nordic Rice Flakes. Nordic Flakes are from Finland and I use them all the time to make granola or porridge in the morning, so I trust the brand. I asked to buy them.

“How old is your baby,” the seller replied.

“Five months,” I said.

“Oh, he can’t have that rice cereal, he’s too young,” she said. Then she tried to sell me buckwheat cereal. I explained the allergy situation, so instead she offered me a different brand of rice cereal that already had plums and sugar added. I asked again for the Nordic Flakes, explaining that the baby was only a week away from 6 months, but she refused to sell them to me.

At that point, I decided yesterday was not the day to start Dietrich on solids.

I did some more reading last night and this morning, and decided that I’d rather start the little guy on something more seasonal than rice cereal. Namely squash. About a week ago, I was eating squash soup, and he got the giggles every time I put a spoonful in my mouth. So I thought our chances of culinary success were high with squash. Plus, when I was in the market buying carrots about a week ago, the seller asked me if I wanted to buy some squash for my baby, so now I know that Ukrainians think squash is an OK food for a little guy.

Thankfully, an older gentleman was selling a big hunk of squash on the street right outside our house this afternoon. I bought it, peeled it, boiled it, pureed it (using my handy-dandy immersion blender), added some momma milk and fed it to the little guy.



He did great! He ate about a tablespoon, spilled about a teaspoon and already seemed eager to control the spoon on his own.



One I decided on squash, preparing it was really easy. So, I think I’ll go ahead and keep offering Dietrich fresh fruits and veggies for a while. Another bonus: A jar of baby food here costs about a dollar. The chunk of squash cost 50 cents and provided about 10 jars worth of food.


Dietrich also thought his bib was pretty tasty — so much so that we had to take it off to get him to concentrate on his food.