Adventures in Ukraine

It  is the morning we are going to the States. We will be back in Texas tonight. Well…we will be flýing back to our time zone and back tomorrow which is tonight…which is….you get the picture???

I woke up early, like Ecc. 12:4 spoke of, and got up and showered, etc. Boy does it feel good to have a shower where the water is hot for the whole time and the water is drinkable if it gets in your mouth…then I ate breakfast with a tourist group of “mature” Italians!! It was interesting to be able to hear all the happy goings on with them almost like a fly on the wall.

After I ate I went to Staci’s room and woke her up. She is such a hard sleeper! But she will be ready, with bells on, for the shuttle to the airport. Maybe even have something to eat first!

This is the long leg, we will fly into our own timezone, and we will have a headwind which will make it a longer flight. We expect to be in Dallas after 7:00 p.m. It will have been a great trip and one that we want to share with you all.

I read this morning in Psalms 32:7 (I think) about God being my deliverer from trouble, and singing songs of deliverence, it just gave me comfort to know that He is always with me and that I can depend on Him. I want to thank each of you who prayed for us daily. I know that your prayers made our trip easier and safer. Meadow View has always been a blessing to me and my familý! Again, thank you. (and Fairy, thank you for always giving us a little note of encouragement, and being diligent to write!)

I only have a moment more on the internet so I will say goodbye and we love you.

till we see you again,

Jackie and Staci

We are in Vienna and have had a wonderful day. The flight was short and sweet, and we had the easiest time getting on the plane ever!! They didn’t even check our bags…..what a relief! We also visited the city of Vienna this afternoon after arriving in Vienna. We got to our hotel and checked in then went for a walk in the village of Fischmend. We walked to a sidewalk Italian (I know, I know this IS Austria!!) cafe. After eating we went to the train, about a 10 minute walk and rode to Vienna. It was about a 30 minute ride. We found a man who knew English and he helped us after we bought the wrong ticket. He said the conductor would help us if there was one, and there was. We also had to buý tickets for the Ubahn as well (that is thé under ground). We got to see St. Stephensplatz Cathedral. It was very nice. There was a street performer that we both enjoyed. We are home now and on the hotel internet with the worst keyboard ever!! The keys stick and some of them don’t work at all.

Anyway….to explain ‘Dear Merilee’…..

Everytime one of us does something that we could be ‘told on’ for we type in the air and say out loud ‘dear Merilee’ and then finish the complaint.

Dear Merilee….Staci is mean to me and won’t take her medicine….

Dear Merilee….Jackie is such a mean person, she makes me take my medicine….thanks….see ya…good bye…

Dear Merilee….Staci is not helping with the dishes…and she is rude to me….

Dear Merilee…Jackie expects me to do everything around here…thanks…see yaa….good bye

and so on and so on….we have had much fun, and we have worked hard, and we still love each other…we will see you this weekend.

love you lots,

Jackie and Staci

Wow…what a taxi ride we had yesterday. The guy has only been driving “I usually don’t tell my customers it is better”. Olga told him that  we were already in the car and he could tell us. He had only been driving for 3 or 4 months and the previous experience was on the computer games about driving. It was a very scarey prayer filled ride. At one point we were driving on the sidewalk. When we asked him why, he told us it was because the road was so bad! He was almost running little grandma’s off of the sidewalk. And he would look at them like THEY were at fault for walking on the sidewalk! At one point we hit a bump so hard and fast that Staci and I both flew up and almost hit the ceiling of the car. We both screamed. He said “sorry” in that deep  Russian voice. He did try to be slower! But he was going 100 kl an hour on the city streets that were traffic filled and pot holes everywhere. It was a very interesting experience for us both. Staci kept covering her mouth and saying “ohhhh” “oh my goodness” “what are doing”. I told her to stop because it was making him go faster and crazier! I literally was praying protection as we were flying down the road. He didn’t know where we were going so it was a much longer trip than necessary! This morning Staci said “you mean that he has only been driving for 3 or 4 months and I put my LIFE in his hands!!” Needless to say, this will be one thing that Staci will never forget!!

We also got a chance to see the babies again, of course Staci was in heaven! (untill we had to go back in that same taxi!) He did a better job of getting us home, not quite such a crazy ride. I used to get car sick a lot as a child, welllll, I got car sick yesterday over that ride. I never actually threw up….but boy did my stomach hurt!

Our class was on Paul and Silas singing in prison (maybe we should have started singing in the taxi!!) and we had a good class with the children. We ate at Daffi and got online, then had to buy diapers for the babies and go to the Baby House. We also bought one of the handicapped boys a baby seat (like you would sit them in on the floor or table to feed them in, I can’t think of the name of it right now) I was afraid that it would not fit, but he LOVED it and really played with the little mobile hanging from it. It sits up and lays back and has a rocker mode as well. They loved it…thank you Meadow View!

Our class last night with the ladies was very good as well. It seems that lessons that I brought with me, ones prepared long ago, were right on target for them. Without me even knowing what was going on, the Lord provided for the right lessons to be taught at the right time. I have really enjoyed the ladies here. I also told them about our LBC and how y’all sent money to them. They were so touched by your generosity. I am sure that they will send us pictures of how they use the funds we leave with them.

Today is our last day of class with the children and Ladies. We will also get our first chance to go to the hospital. We went this morning to buy some needed supplies. Wellllll….our clock at home SAID 8:12 when Staci got up and I knew we had to be at Daffi at 9:00 so…we left. Well our clock was wrong and we were early. We had to do all our stuff without an interpreter….which of course we did. Then getting back to the building on our own was a little different. We didn’t know what you called our stop so we just went to the front of the bus and said “stop bashalista” and he did and we got off. Welll….the minister Alexander looked at us like we were crazy…because here we were an hour and a half early with not interpreter. when Staci got on the computer and looked at their clock….well…she wasn’t a happy camper for losing an hour of sleep….sorry Staci…my bad!

Well, the kids are here so I must post my blog. We love you and look forward to seeing you in person. Not many days and we will be home. Keep us in your prayers for the final days here and our final leg of our journey. We know that God is in control and we will rely on Him.

we love you all, till we see you again,

Jackie and Staci

We went to the airport again today. It was a bitter sweet time. We were saying goodbye to Gary, Greg, and Kathy (the last of the Bentonville team to leave)…but..we were NOT looking for luggage! It all came and it all has everything that we put in it! So, it was good to see them off, although we will miss them here.

We saw our first Russian movie, the Fantastic Four, was okay, but now Iwould love to see it in English so that I can tell what they were saying! It was very loud, but it wasn’t a crowded theatre so it wasn’t too bad.

I just found out from my interpreter that all calls that I have been trying to make home during the day are the cost of $5 (that IS USA dollars) and at off times, it is .20! Wow…my mistake…I have been talking to an answering machine for $5 a pop! We did get to speak to Karen and Kathy W. for a few minutes! Next time it will be in the evening hours!

Last night we got a taxi ride home from the Daffi. We came here to use the Internet, and we were scolded in Russian for eating the wrong food in the food court area. We had purchased it at the grocery part and not the food court part. We didn’t understand what he was saying, but when he found that out, he walked away. Another guy just here, said “don’t worry…you okay” . We kept on working. Then we met Jane, an interpreter, and she put us on the van 155 to go home. The driver was not very nice. She explained where we were to get off, and he looked away. When we had been on for a minute he said something. I didn’t know that he was talking to us. Then he said it again…we were looking aroung a little confused. Then ALL of the people on the van turned around and looked at us. I thought that maybe he wanted us to get off before our stop…they were all looking at us like we were idiots! We were! I had forgotten to PAY! We paid, and he was much happier. At our stop, he said “schoilya”, and we got off. It was a little weird!

When we got to our flat, I automatically checked the water…really not expecting it to be on…WOWOW…it was on! I jumped on it and did the dishes and put a load of clothes in the washer and took a shower before it went off again! It was wonderful! Staci took a BIG chance and waited till the morning to take her shower. Thank you God, we had water again this morning. Of course, we had just hauled 4 huge bottles of water up 4 flights of stairs! Oh well….if it goes off again, we will have water!

We have another ladies class tonight, we will have children in the morning, and we will try to go to the Baby House and play with the babies. We will go to the hospital on Thursday and see Tamara. Rita will find out their needs today and we will bring them the stuff that they need.

Today in our lesson, we had two boys from the basketball camp join us. They even really enjoyed the crowns that we made as a craft. Fairy, you did such a fantastic job of getting them together! It has been wonderful having everything that I need to do them all! You are a blessing!

We will try to put more pictures on here….Staci is the resident picture mover-arounder, and I just stay out of her way! We will try to talk again to you all either tonight or tomorrow. We send much love to you all. Thank you for sending me email! We love to here from you. And, yes, Rick did email me and it made my heart sing!

love to you all,

Staci and Jackie

We are in Daffi again after a full day. We onlyhave a few minutes before the guy comes back and speaks to us in Russian again. There was a table of people who spoke “cho-choot” English so they let us know that we were okay.

We had a great kids class this morning and then Staci took her trombone lesson and I must say so myself, she was VERY good! Olga’s son is in the 3rd year music school and he did the lesson. We went to Irana house….wow…what a house! She is an architect and she designed this place….wow…it has at least 3 stories and it is built around her son whom she home schools. There is a library, a gym like thing, an area to paint, a room to study, a place to compose music…….you get the picture! It was very interesting…and I have pictures to prove she did her lesson!

We had our first ladies class tonight, and I think it was very successful. We had a full table with ladies from the church, ladies from the area, and ladies whose children are interpreters or helpers. We all had a great time.

Afterwards we sang for a little while, it was fun. We also found out that the church has a baptistry (you can think HUGE tiled tub) that has hot water, we ARE going to get a shower. It looks like we won’t have water at all. There is some kind of huge pipe that is broken and there is not telling when it will be fixed, if at all. So…a shower at the building is what it looks like we will get.

Kathy, Gary, and Greg are going home tomorrow, we are sad to see them go, but we know they are tired and ready to go home. Kathy is not feeling very well, I think it was something that she ate. We will see them off tomorrow and ten go on with the rest of our stay.

We have been invited to see several people before we leave. I hope that we can get it all in as well as the hospital and other orphanage and Baby House. Staci doesn’t want to leave without seeing more of the kids…go figure!! It has been the biggest blessing having her this year. They are falling in love with her as she falls in love with this country.

They are also having a “Revelation” type situation in the church here. Like all congregations they have growing pains and hurt feelings and confrontations. With no elders, they really have a hard time with leadership. We have had several opportunities to talk with them about the correct way to talk to each other and to face their problems with love, grace, and patience. Behaving in a way that gives God the glory. We know how difficult it is to do that, so please be praying on behalf of their growing pains. They are a special congregation and I love them all so much. Your prayers on their behalf I know would do a wonderful thing for them. For them to know that other brothers and sisters are praying for the health of their body of believers.

Pashalstuh, (please), continue to keep us uplifted to the Father. We are working as hard and as fast as we can. We look forward to seeing each of you soon.

Shout out to all of the Withrow’s “I love you and miss you all” love, Staci

till we see you again,

Jackie and Staci

Wellllll….we are here and we DO have our suitcases….all four of them! We have luggage and no water in our flat. Staci is LOVING the spit bath version of bathing! Maybe today we will get to shower at one of the other flats.

Staci says she is doing much better. Her “sack of infection” (ewhhh!!) is going down. She is still taking the medicine (Karen, Merilee, and other “mothers”) as she says “medicine of death”, and is trying to get through each day. I think very well actually.

We were unable to complete our blog the other night due to the location of where we can get internet access and the fact that it was pouring rain and the mall closed and the computer battery died! Oh well, today we have a few minutes to let you know how we are doing.

Thanks to all of you who have put remarks on our blog spot, it really means a lot to us! Just hearing from home makes a huge difference! (that is a hint for my husband Richard!!)

We had a baptism that came out of the BB camp. She is one of the coaches and she is so sweet! Her name is Luda and she was baptized in the Dneper river on Friday. She will be a huge asset to the church. She is going to set up classes to teach English using the Bible from the kids at her school. That will start when school starts back up in September.

We have also been visiting the older people in the congregation and those in need of being seen and loved on. The kids are already at the camps so we have not been able to see them at the Dawn. We have been to the Baby House and will go back there again. Also we will visit the hospital before we go.

The ladies are really looking forward to the ladies classes and they start tonight. We will have four of them. Today Staci will get her first trombone lesson from the son of one of our interpreters. She is SO excited…..well….not really…but she is willing to do what ever she has to here. Even try weird food that she has never tasted before!

This moment we must leave because our next appointment is coming very soon.

Thank you for your continual prayers, pray for water in our flat, and success in the rest of our classes, and our continued good health. We love you and will blog again as soon as we can come back here!

till we see you again,

Jackie and Staci having great adventures in Ukraine

We left you with us in Chicago….

We arrived at the airport early and went to the United counter and, of course, waited. After about 45 minutes we had our papers checked and they said, of course, we were in the wrong place. We needed to be at Jet Blue…in a different terminal…of course!!

We dashed across, I know the visual it gives you of ME dashing anywhere, to the correct terminal. Upon our arrival, we found out from our, now, dear friend, Brian Thomas, that we were not on the list to fly with JetBlue. What??? After several hours the day before…and we were STILL not confirmed on this flight to Dnepropetrovsk via Vienna via NYC!! WOW! I couldn’t believe it. Brian was on his cell phone to the customer service people in NYC because the people in Chicago were not there, they don’t have flights out of Chicago on Monday for Austrian Air apparantly! The lady was very nice, but not very helpful. She said that we could purchase a walk up rate ticket to NYC and they would be glad to reimburse us later…..yeah right! I told her she was assuming that we had money if she thought that we could just “purchase a ticket” and wait until they got around to giving us our money back! All I could think of was money not being well spent and what it could do in Ukraine with the same amount of money being used for the orphans and the hospital! I kep asking until the counter agent got his supervisor to honor the tickets and let us on the flight. (I did not learn until arriving in Vienna, that JetBlue and Austrian Air do NOT have an agreement and they don’t normally honor vouchers, etc.)

After the tickets were going to be no problem, we had the problem of luggage. They are supposed to take luggage off of flights that the passengers do not actually get on the plane…so we assumed that our luggage was somewhere in Chicago. Assuming is not a good thing in every situation! JetBlue sent us to United to find/retrieve our bags so that we could re-check them in order to have them go to Vienna. After another mad dash (see above about dashing)….Well….United “doesn’t have them”, Austrian Air doesn’t answer the phone because they are not flying today from Chicago, the Austrian agent in NYC “doesn’t know what to do about it”, and we have been tagged for extra security because…you guessed it…we bought a “last minute ticket”! (whose fault was it that we had “last minute tickets”???)

I was so exhausted, frustrated, and about to miss our flight to NYC that I just cried. Staci took one look at me and didn’t! It was a temporary lapse, I know that God is in control, and I haven’t cried since. Well….again “shades of Karye Withrow” we were going to have to punt! (1998 Karye and I found ourselves in a situation that was not going to turn out like we had planned for) The purpose of us going was to teach…all of our hard work (that means YOU Fairy) was not going to make it…what would we have to teach with, give away, and share with the kids???

Something hit me…”I know the plans I have for you” Who has plans? What I have planned is not important, HE has plans for me, to prosper and not to harm me!! We would/will make do when we get there and see what we have to work with. It doesn’t matter where the luggage is, it doesn’t matter when we arrive…it MATTERS that we follow God’s plan and do the best that we can!

To finish…we made our flight to NYC…on time…without the hassle of having to check luggage again. We did have a small hassle with a very rude TSA agent who did our security…but on the whole…we made it scott free! We made our connection in NYC to Vienna with 5 minutes to spare…and we had a flight with few bumps! We sat next to a few crying children but Nanny Staci handled them with ease!

Upon arrival in Vienna, we went to the next gate to “wait list” for our next flight. It was PACKED and they were asking for volunteers to not go…so we did not make that one! We did, however, get to talk to some very nice Austrian Air representatives who straightened out some glitches in our ticket and helped us get wait-listed for an earlier flight on Wednesday with confirmed seats for the later flight. SO…tomorrow we should get on our last leg of the flight! We have a nice hotel, paid for by Austrian Air, and breakfast in the morning, with transfers to the airport as well. Thank you God for taking care of us.

Our hotel is filled with teenagers, on the other side, who are on some type of trip! I am also thankful that we are on the quiet side of the hotel! The last group looked like at least 50 to 75 teenagers doing what teenagers do on a trip to Vienna…laugh…flirt…make noise…holler for each other…run back and forth….and WE are on the opposite side of the hotel from them!

Tomorrow will bring another day. Psalm 61 tells me that God is my strong hold and my refuge, we are clinging to that! Keep us in your prayers. We send our love to Meadow View and our families.

Jackie and Staci 

We are supposed to be arriving in Vienna about now….and we are still in Chicago. Yesterday was a nightmare!! We left Dallas in a huge rainstorm, but our flight was not delayed due to weather (thank you God) and we arrived on time at O’Hare. But…and you knew there was a but…after waiting in line to check in at Austrian Air we were told that the flight check in was closed. We had been there about an hour in line and were actually the next people to check in when they told us it was closed.

Well….everyone behind us got a little agitated…and then we were led to another area (perhaps so that any complaining would not frighten other passengers…) to be “re-routed” to our destinations. We were the first in line and the last to be finished. She worked on our “bulk” “non re-routable” tickets for over an hour before moving on to help the other 10 or so people get out of there.

We stood at the counter area from 3:45 until 8:45 before they finally got our situation finished. They could get us to Vienna but not to Dnepropetrovsk. We would possibly be stranded in Austria or Germany with no hotel compensation or we would have to wait one to two days to leave Chicago. We opted to stay in Chicago. (where we had a hotel and they speak English) They called a shuttle at 8:45 to be picked up by 9:00…but…and you knew there was another but…we did not get picked up until 9:45…after the restaurant was closed for the day!! They did give us a sandwhich and some chips! (If we had been delayed by weather the hotel and food would have been on our dime!! So thank you to God one more time!!)

We had a good nights sleep and a good breakfast and are going to the airport in a few minutes…continue to pray that we will get our connecting flights from here on out! And Staci wants to have “good hair”, so keep up your prayers!

My passport is safely delivered by my friends at FedEx, and I am with my husband, parents, and two of my grandchildren at our family reunion in Coleman, Tx. I expected it to be very hot, but it is trying to rain so the heat is down and the humidity is up! But that does make for a cooler situation. What tomorrow brings only God knows, and we will be glad at whatever He brings our way!

Poor KK has been eaten alive by the mosquitos, so we are putting “itch stuff” on her and hoping for a better day tomorrow. I lost “rock, paper, scissors” to Cody, so he got the bed next to the t.v. at our hotel! Go figure! The room is so small that it really doesn’t matter…

We leave on Sunday and so I am going to enjoy the visiting with my family as long as I can. Tomorrow my sister Vicki will be here and she will take my parents home so that they don’t have to leave early. I am SO glad that she is doing that, they really wanted to stay an extra day, and I couldn’t!

It won’t be long till I come again to let you know what the latest adventure is!

till then,

Jackie 

After much prayer and some fear and anxiety as well, my passport is in the hands of FedEx. It should be in my hand by Friday evening! I thank God for His oversight on this matter and I give Him all the credit for getting it through.

I also want to thank all of you who prayed about it, made calls on my behalf, and gave me all the extra hugs and words of comfort and confidence. Thank you for lifting my spirits and reminding me of the things that I have known for a long time…I am NOT in control…He IS!

keep praying!

Jackie