Over the winter our gas bill has climbed – December and January have cost about NZ$27 each. While we were in Rovno for Christmas I left the gas on minimum and when we came back after three days our apartment was at 9.5 degrees. After running the gas on medium for 7 hours it got up to 18.5º and stayed constant from there. If I turn the gas up any higher it will leak, so 18.5 was the warmest we could get (which is fine for me, I even start sweating if I do anything energetic, but its still cold for Vita). The temperature outside was minus 7º, and when it’s warmer outside then its higher than 18.5 inside. Conversely if it gets colder outside...
Just for interest's sake, we use about NZ$8 worth of electricity a month. When we had a computer at our place we used double that. Tanya and Sergei spend about NZ$20 because the town council doesn't heat their place enough (13º) so they have to use an electric-powered oil heater which gets them up to 20º. Lots of people in Ukraine leave their gas oven burning for hours to get some extra warmth, which of course is bad for oxygen levels not to mention mildew on the walls.
It snowed on Dec 24th and again on Orthodox Christmas Day (Jan 7th). Those are the only two serious snowfalls we’ve had, and each time we hardly got 30 cm. Last week it snowed almost every day, but didn't make any real difference. Vita’s grandmother remembers making snow tunnels to get out the door of their house, but Vita’s never seen snow like that. That’s industrialization for you, I guess.
The quickest way from our place to School Number III goes through some fields, and the children in the nearby apartment building have turned the path into an ice-rink – Vita skids and slides her way through a couple of times a day and so far has managed not to fall.
I fell once in my first winter in Ukraine and since then I've had slip-free winters, but last week marred such an awesome record when I went down on the iced-over steps at the back of the factory.
We finally got our mattress home, so now we have a double bed! Only it’s just the mattress on the floor, no wooden frame at this stage. But it feels like OUR corner of the apartment – an unexpected but very nice feeling. For Christmas we were given a set of sheets for a ‘Californian’ King Size bed – the pillowcases are big enough for two pillows each! But in spite of the fact that they tuck in a long way under the mattress, it’s so nice to have flannel sheets – like kiwi teeth in Ukraine.
New Year’s Eve was one of the slowest in a few years for me. We
went to Vita's Mum and Grandma’s and had dinner with them, lit
sparklers in the lounge on the stroke of midnight, then I went to the
church building to see how the youth were celebrating while Vita fell
asleep on her Mum's couch. Next morning kids started banging on the
door at 9 am, wanting to be paid to sing little rhymes and throw
wheat everywhere – we accidentally let a group in at about 12
because we thought we knew them.
We got hammered by a whole bunch more on Christmas morning: we didn't
let the first group in, but the next three all did their thing and
got their coins.
Ukraine also celebrates New Year by the old calendar, which comes around on
the 14th of Jan. They call it Old New Year which used to
confuse me somewhat. On the evening of the 13th one of
our neighbouring grandmothers asked me if I could ring her doorbell
early the next morning and throw seeds and say a 'blessing' rhyme
because its bad luck if a girl is the first one to visit you on Old
New Year’s Day. I had no idea how to say one of those rhymes
in Ukrainian and hoped Vita could teach me but she couldn't remember
them from her childhood so on the morning of the 14th I
recited the traditional Irish blessing (in Russian of course) and the
babushka gave me a handful of chocolates and some small change for my
trouble, then invited me inside for a shot of vodka which I declined
– but I must say that for chocolates like that I'd visit all
the babushkas. We must start this tradition in NZ... An hour or two
later we were again plagued by children reciting poetry and wishing
us all the best – one group of boys even had the audacity to
suggest we’d be cursed if we didn’t bless them –
all in rhyme of course (c:
The time has finally come, and Wayne is back in Australia. In the weeks before he left, every time I saw him, he remembered something else to tell me about church life as a pastor. Ura and I are taking over his various roles, which for me means spending time with two of his disciples, taking care of Sunday services, counselling people when they call for it, and together with Ura making any serious decisions that crop up.
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Please pray for us especially on this one: Vita and I still haven’t found a doctor or hospital that we’re comfortable with. Everyone without exception tells us that the last place to have a baby is in the Kaharlyk hospital, although many babies are born there and seem to survive, but the horror stories they tell us... The doctors in Kaharlyk have all developed reputations for a lack of professionalism and for not caring about anyone’s health or life even when the cash or vodka is in their hands. On top of that there is no running hot water in the hospital and you have to provide your own food, and if you want the doctor to wear gloves, use towels, apply bandages, put in stitches – whatever he needs – you have to supply it or it just won’t happen. I’ve already enquired in Kyiv, but as Vita is registered as living in Kaharlyk, services everywhere else are chargeable, and Kyiv isn’t cheap. We first went to a normal regional public hospital in Kyiv to confirm the pregnancy (which cost us about NZ$18) and the doctor lost the analysis results and seemed to subscribe to a few old wives tales – not the kind of thing to inspire confidence. Recently I went to a private hospital in Kyiv that we'd been recommended and found out that the price for one visit (which included an ultrasound and some blood tests) is about NZ$100, although everything was very clean and professional – I guess you get what you pay for. The nearest option that people recommend is Rzheeshev where the Gollans and Clarkes are planting a church, but they said they don't take people from outside their district. So it seems to be Kyiv or hire a midwife, and since the midwives all come from Kyiv they're probably more expensive than the private hospitals.
As I was walking down Kyiv's main street last week a woman stopped me and asked for any spare cash. I gave her some coins and she said, “You must be a believer.” I said, “Why?” and she replied, “Because you've got a beard.” Strange world (c: But apparently the particular beard and hair style I had at the time looked like the Orthodox priests'. People sometimes asked me if the beard actually made any difference to my facial temperature, and until I shaved it off I couldn't say, but now I can confirm that it makes a huge difference!
I went to a funeral recently in minus 15º. In typical Ukrainian style the service was conducted in the babushka's house, then the open casket was placed on the back of a truck and about 40 of us followed the truck on foot from her house to the cemetary. Traffic completely stops for funerals in Ukraine, and the casket is always open. Its bad luck to look out the window at a passing funeral procession – if you want to see what's going on you should go outside to watch.
Last night I took the van home because I had to get up
early and go find the last child to photograph for the sponsorship
program (the lady who normally does it was sick and the photos have
to be in Kyiv by today) and I didn't want to disturb Ura. So Ura
told me how to start a diesel in frosty temperatures and told me that
if its lower than -5 then I'll have difficulties, and started to
describe how to find some tube and spray something here and there and
I said, “Forget it, if the glow plug can't warm up the fuel
then I'll run”. I got up at 6:45 and looked at the thermometre
and it said exactly -5 so I went outside with my Bible, the plug
warmed up in a few seconds and the van started, and I sat there and
read and froze while the engine warmed up.
Its pretty icy, I'm not as confident on the ice as Ura
but getting used to it. Last night (6 pm but already dark and most
street lights don't work) driving round taking photos of kids we
found ourselves in a very narrow street and there didn't seem
anywhere to turn around, so I sped up a bit then flicked the van
sideways and we spun on the ice...but only half way. So there we
were stuck at exactly 90 degrees straddling the road with about 2 ft
in front (solid bank of snow and ice) and 2 ft behind (fence) to
maneouvre in. Cars had worn two ruts in the ice, and when I backed
right up to the fence the front wheels stuck in a rut. It took about
10-15 min of rocking back and forwards with Oles pushing before the
back of the van skudded round enough to get us going in the right
direction, and even then I was driving in third gear and going
nowhere till we gradually picked up momentum. I'm glad no one else
was driving that way, there was no way we could have passed each
other. A few minutes later, further down the road, we came across a
horse and cart coming up the hill. This time there was a snow bank
on the horses' side and a wall of dirt on our side. The driver tried
to push the horses up the snow bank but they were just floundering in
it, so I drove the van halfway up the dirt bank and at a 35 degree
angle, the mirror almost scraping the tray of the cart, we got past.
Later, Ura and Sergei went to a village (this is the problem, there's no ice
on the main roads, but the village roads are not cleared), and on the
way Ura let Sergei have a go behind the wheel. Sergei was driving up
a hill and about quarter of the way up he was spinning and going
nowhere, so he stopped and they swapped places. Ura got to about
half way and then with the wheels spinning freely they started
sliding backwards. Brakes, accelerator, nothing made any
difference, and with a drop on either side the only thing that kept
them sliding reasonably straight was the two ruts which the wheels
kept falling back into as they gained speed and slid all the way to
the bottom.
Last week I came back to the factory and tried to drive
up the drive at the back but slid sideways off the drive and was
going nowhere up. So I rolled back onto the road and Ura came out
and helped push till the van was pointing back up the road. Then he
rolled backwards down to the bottom of the hill, got some speed up
and came flying back up the hill hoping the momentum would get him up
the drive. But he started spinning half way and got nowhere near us.
I should mention that the road access to the factory is off a side
street and coming from downhill its only a slight angle but from
uphill its a hairpin – the main road goes up the other side of
the factory and is always cleared of snow and ice. So he rolled back
down and tried again, this time coming at the hill at such speed
(there's a slight curve at the bottom) that he came sideways and so
lost momentum and again didn't even make it to the drive. Finally he
went round the block and came down from the top as I'd originally
done and being more experienced than me he managed to turn up the
drive without sliding off it and made it all the way to the top. Now
I can do that too (c:
We've been given about 120 hours of half-hour sermons: Chuck Smith preaching, translated and prepared for radio in St Petersburg (which is generally just called "Peter"); we're copying them all to tape for Ura to listen to in the van and others to take home, and I have them on the computer ready to play all over the factory on weekdays, mixed with Ukrainian and Russian Christian music, when we eventually get a sound system installed.
Finally, a month after starting this newsletter I'm getting it done!! So now its a March newsletter instead of February (c: It started snowing on the first day of spring, so we've got a nice blanket everywhere again which is very nice to look at.