Just cuz he's so loveable, here's a picture of baby Oleg.  He has a bad case of asthma, but he's quite ticklish too.  Hey, you could adopt this baby.  Why don't you look into it?

¶ 11:17 PM //

Shrinking the picture sorta ruins it, but it is so beautiful in southern Ukraine.  Notice the thatched roof in the background.

¶ 11:15 PM //

A week an a half ago, I was walking my pal Rachel home one night.  (Don’t read anything into that, it’s a safety thing)  The conversation turned to “Ultimate Vision.”  You know, the whole “I’m doing this right now, but what I really want to do is this,” conversation.  
     I told her that I loved working with orphans, but what we can do as missionaries is so limited.  Ultimately, I want to speak to churches about embracing the orphanages of their communities.  I would love to invest into the kid’s ministries of churches, who are willing to invest in their orphanages.  
That’s the only way we could reach all of them.  The Bible says, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”  He never said, “I will build my missions organization…”  God’s plan is to use the church.  The main need of orphans is a home, not a foreign visitor.  Local churches can provide for the kids in their village a spiritual home, if orphans choose to receive it.  
     God is amazing.  Within a week of this conversation, Sergey approached me and said, “How would you like to come with me.  I’m speaking to about forty Baptist pastors about the AIDS problem and the orphan system in Ukraine, and maybe you could speak for a little while and do a presentation.”
     God is so cool.  The very thing that was on my heart quickly turned into an open door.  I found myself traveling four hours southward, through beautiful Ukrainian country side to a little country church where there was an annual meeting of area Baptist pastors.  And the pastors were very open.
      There are exciting things happening for orphans in Ukraine.  The government would like to end the orphanage system in favor of a foster care system.  This would take children out of the institution and into family settings.  But it requires finding people who will care for children.  And the government is willing to pay families to do so.
     This is a great opportunity for the church.  There are 100 thousand orphans in the system with very bad statistics in the horizon.  What if even a quarter of these were raised by loving, Christian families?  That would be 25 thousand lives eternally changed, and equipped to face life’s challenges.  This could change the tide of suicide, prostitution, crime and alcoholism on a much grander scale.  But it’s in the hands of Ukrainians, not Americans.  As it really should be.
     Pray for me, that as God opens these doors to speak to churches and pastors, God will open eyes and hearts to His plan.  Orphans and adoption are at the heart of the gospel.  If only we would listen.

¶ 6:12 AM //

These are my friends Torben, Jeannette, and their traveling duck.  Sorry I forgot his name.  Believe it or not, I know more than one couple who have a traveling duck.  I think it's a secret movement.

¶ 1:24 PM //

There was a happy reunion of puppets old and new on the couch.  Here the gorilla is retelling the airport story below.  In his version, he's somehow always the hero.

¶ 1:14 PM //

     I was delayed in the Warsaw, Poland airport, when the thought came to me.  “Why are there so many guys with haircuts like the groom in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”?  Okay, if you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about.  Hmm.  The truth is, I love airports, the spirit of adventure is alive and well there.  Everyone is either coming from somewhere, going somewhere, or picking someone up who’s been somewhere.
     My journey didn’t start calm.  Due to Chicago traffic, I arrived quite late.  We’re told to be at least an hour early to the airport, or two hours if it’s an international flight.  I made it there (gulp) half an hour before my flight was leaving.  I rushed to the counter, the line of people long gone.  When the check in lady saw my luggage she exclaimed, “Hoary hoary.  You have too many pieces of luggage.  You are only allowed two.”
     “Can I just pay the fine?”  I was taking some sound system stuff back for the base, as well as a portable keyboard for my own work there.  I also carried a bag of puppets with me because there was no room in my luggage.  
“Yes, of course,” she said, as she picked them up.  “No, these are light.  Don’t worry about it.  Go to gate M3.  Hoary hoary.”  It was then that I realized that “Hoary” was not a Polish exclamation of anything, but she was telling me to hurry.
While I waited to get through security, she and another counter lady stopped me.  It seems that my computerized ticket wasn’t on their computer, or something like that.  They looked at my paperwork and their paperwork, decide I’m pretty trustworthy and that the money got to the right people, and let me beeline to security, shouting “Hoary Hoary” in my wake.
Now I had 15 minutes to take off time, and I opened my laptop bag to go through security.  I shouldn’t have worn a belt either.  Then they asked me to remove my shoes.  As the stuff rolled through the x-ray machine, my bag of puppets tipped over and the .  gorilla puppet flopped off the line.  
I zipped the laptop into my backpack, grappled my shoes on, and threw every loose item; belt, change, boarding pass, reading material back into the bag with the gorilla on top.  I could get dressed later, I decided.  Then I ran for my gate, the Chariots of Fire theme song playing somewhere in my subconscious as the crowds around got all slow motion like.  My arm is draped over the entire carry-on bag as the gorilla’s arms flop to the rhythm of my steps.
After running past twelve gates, I arrived and fortunately there was still a person in front of me who hasn’t boarded yet.  “Safe,” I said, to no one in particular.  But then the ticket man uttered those ill-fated words.  
“I’m sorry, you need two boarding passes.”
I looked at him, my eyes like dinner plates.  “W-what?”
“One for you… and one for the monkey.”  He was smiling.  Comedian.
Other than that, the trip was uneventful.  Is there a spiritual lesson here?  Only to be thankful that even though you know you have to sit for 12 hours or so, right now it feels pretty good.

¶ 3:18 PM //

I'm back in Kyiv and the plane ride gave me way more opportunity than I needed to read a book. (Roughly 12 hours from Chicago to Kyiv if you don't include the stop over in Warsaw, Poland) The book's called King's Ransom, and it's a historical novel about Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria. It tells of how he protected the Bulgarian Jews from being sent to Nazi concentration camps. It's a decent read, and it's based on a true story.

¶ 12:12 PM //