Summer flashback: Annual conference

The SEND Ukraine team's bylaws include the need for an annual business meeting, at which we elect leaders and hear a report from our area director. This usually takes about an hour, but in order to encourage connections between team members, we take the opportunity to spend a few days together. (Our team is widely distributed, working out of five Ukrainian cities.)

This year's conference was at a Christian retreat center by the Black Sea. The accommodations were pretty simple ("high-class camping," someone dubbed it), but the setting was beautiful. Until nightfall, that is, when the mosquitoes and spiders got to work. So many bugs. I was actually thankful to see bats, because bats eat bugs. Go bats!

We stayed in little cabins, and in the mornings and evenings, people gathered on the front stoop to chat.


Catching up with sweet Joy, our conference neighbor.



On the last morning, someone came by with chocolate chip cookies! Before breakfast!

A team from an American church came to serve us by providing a vacation Bible school, music and teaching. The teacher had been through cancer recently, so he spoke about confronting "giants" in our lives. It seems like people who come to talk to missionaries often focus on surviving through hard times, as though our lives are so, so difficult. Usually this bugs me, but I actually appreciated this particular teacher's approach.

Lev was a peach, sleeping through most of the morning meetings and contentedly resting in other people's arms when he wasn't snoozing.


I was very thankful for the excellent mosquito netting that came with Lev's stroller.


Art, one of our teammates, made it his mission to make Lev laugh by the end of the conference. Success came on the last day.

The program for kids was a highlight of the trip. It was the first time that we've been at a conference at which Dietrich has been old enough to really participate and enjoy being away from us for long stretches of the day. And it was good for us to see how much he's grown in the past year.


The childcare workers knew the way to a boy's heart is paved with Matchbox vehicles.

On the last night at conference, the kids put on a little concert for the adults. Last year, Dietrich wanted to be on stage with the big kids, so he stood up there with them, but he didn't know the words or the hand motions. This year, he fit right in.



The kids program was so good that being back home was a bit of a letdown. So, I let Joy and Dietrich decorate Lev.


Joy seems to be wondering if this is REALLY an okay way to treat a baby.


But look! He likes it!

Seven Days in Kyiv, take one

I'm finding, now that I'm a mother of two, that I accomplish little beyond what is built into the structure of our daily routine. Enter Seven Days in Kyiv: my attempt to add blogging to the routine. And away we go ...

Monday was a normal day (Eric to work, Dietrich to preschool, mom and Lev at home), which was a blessing since Dietrich had been sick for four days, and Eric joined in his misery over the weekend. Dietrich, Lev and I have created a fairly enjoyable afternoon routine, which includes some rest time, some English-language school time, some reading time, some coloring time. I've noticed that Dietrich responds well to lots of structure, and spends less time experimenting with things that will only lead to trouble. (What happens if I bounce Lev's seat really, super hard? What about if I hang from the kitchen counters?)

Tuesday, Lev and I spent the morning traveling to the center of the city to pay Eric's registration fine. It seems that the Ukrainian embassy in San Francisco gave Eric the wrong kind of visa. He's been filling out registration paperwork based on a religious visa, but he actually holds a private visa. Despite this, he's always had his registration approved. People holding religious visas no longer have to register (hooray!), but Eric, thankfully, noticed that his visa is different from mine, and people holding private visas do still need to register. So, he sent in all the money for registration, and then was informed that he also needed to pay a fine for doing his paperwork incorrectly last year -- even though that paperwork was approved. Sigh. Lev did great, mostly sleeping during the long metro rides to and from the center of the city.

Then, Tuesday night, Dietrich started showing signs of tummy troubles. He stayed home from school Wednesday and Thursday. Feeling sympathetic, I let him eat whatever he wanted on Wednesday and the first half of Thursday. When this approach seemed to do more harm than good, we switched to a very simple diet: bananas, crackers, noodles and rice. By Friday, he was well enough to go to school for a couple of hours, and by Saturday, his tummy was back to normal. The banana-and-starch diet had an added benefit: It made our reluctant eater eager to eat ANYTHING other than bananas and starch.

At the beginning of the week, Eric was busily preparing for two mid-week meetings. He serves on two leadership teams for our field: He represents theological educators on the Executive Committee, and he's one of the elected leaders on our Area Council. He got home from his Wednesday afternoon EC meeting just in time to help me set up for our SEND home group meeting, and the next day he was at AC from 1:30 until 10.

Thankfully, back at the seminary on Friday, he got good news: Seven of the eight potential Talbot extension students who took the English-language competency test two weeks ago received high-enough scores that they can continue with the application process.

Friday has become our very busiest day, with Eric fitting Ukrainian language class into his work day, and Dietrich going to preschool, music lesson and dance class. (When we signed up for dance, we asked what days it would be, since we already had music class on Fridays. Oh, we never have extra lessons on Fridays, we were assured. Live and learn.) It's the one day during which Lev just gets hauled around, snacks when he wants to, and does most of his napping on mommy. Music class is a hit; it even made the "Thank you Jesus for ..." list during his prayers that night.

On Thursday, a nagging pain in my tooth prompted me to call the dentist, whom I hadn't seen in six years. I had a two-hour appointment scheduled for Saturday. It was one of the more uncomfortable dentist visits I've had, but I blame myself and my six-year gap. He fixed my exposed root, gave me a new brushing strategy and told me I need to come back for two more two-hour visits. Boo, but again, mea culpa.

It was the longest I've ever been away from Lev, so I left a bottle for him. He slept almost the whole time I was gone, but we gave him an ounce from the bottle just to see if he'd take it. His older brother rejected the bottle. Passionately. This was not an issue for Lev. One ounce, down the gullet in three minutes flat. Good news, given my upcoming trips to the dentist.

This morning, we went to church as a family of four for only the second time. Church services bore Dietrich (no Sunday School for his age; indeed, he's the only kid his age at our church), so it was difficult to get him out the door, even with promises of a tramvai ride and chocolates as a reward for good behavior. But once we arrived, he did great. He really enjoys trying to write his letters, so he mostly just practiced A, H, O and K, and did a bit of coloring. He also found all the number 8s in the hymnal. Lev, on the other hand, needed a lot of coaxing before he finally fell asleep. I left the service and walked around the block three times to get him to dreamland. About 10 minutes after I got back, the church gave the pastor flowers for his birthday, and everyone clapped. And that was the end of that nap!

I spent the afternoon freezing apple and pumpkin purees for future Lev consumption, and then we went to a good-bye gathering for some teammates who are heading to Russia. Home again, pizza for dinner, then Eric was off to watch American football at another teammate's place. I put the boys to bed, and here I am typing.

And there you have it, Seven Days in Kyiv. And now for the week's best photos:

Watch out, or Lev will eat you

Can you give a 3-month-old a complex about his weight? Good golly, I hope not, because it's hard to look at Lev without commenting on how stinkin' huge he is. After a long, hot summer, during which he only wore diapers, I pulled out what I thought would be his fall clothes. I chose the 6-month box. No way, Mommy O. This boy's on to 9-month duds, thank you very much.

Our love for Lev totally matches his humongousness. We're so glad there's so much of him to kiss.

Taking it literally

Like Americans, Ukrainians have several idioms that they use to describe how they slept. We, for instance, say, "I slept like a log." They, for instance, say, "I slept without back legs."

And now, allow Dietrich to demonstrate: