Kharkov, Ukraine

Anytime you see a picture with bad quality, you'll know that we took it with our iPod :)  This is the central train station in Kiev, Ukraine.  We are experienced travelers and we are usually confident when we need to buy tickets, etc, but this was the first time we've ever felt "overwhelmed" because of the language.  Russian is impossible to read and understand if you never saw it before!  There is no way that you can "guess" what the words mean!  But fortunately, we had plenty of advice from our friends in Kharkov and we were able to buy tickets just fine!   

On the 5:30 pm express train to Kharkov.  The trip took six hours and we were pretty tired, because it was our fourth straight day of traveling.  The first day was the train from Jelenia Gora, Poland to Katwoice.  The second was the flight to Kiev.  The third day - we had to stay at a hotel in Kiev because Alexa got the flu and had to sleep it off.  This is our fourth day of travel, the express train!  It was nice and fast.

The Nelsons, who we are staying with!  This is an old picture from when we visited them in Dalls, Texas during our fundraising road trip.  We just didn't take a picture of us in their apartment in Kharkov, but we will do that and put it up in our next blog.  We all pretty much look exactly the same except that Alexa's hair is shorter and Caleb is a lot bigger!  The Nelsons are so sweet to let us stay in their guest bedroom!  We really enjoy our time here with them, and Olivia is fluent in ASL - and David is picking it up pretty quickly!  We'll include more pictures of us/them in our next blog!

Russian language.  It's just not something that you can read and remember.  You have to make an effort to try to recall the names and everything.  The fingerspelling for each of those letters are pretty complicated, too!  This is the hardest language that we've ever faced!  

Typical street in Kharkov.  Pretty much everyone drives crazy!  In some intersections there aren't any stop lights, so you will just have to drive fast and hard to make it to the other side!  Usually there's some kind of big truck coming the other way, with someone walking across the street, and there's a pothole, and all kinds of trouble!  

Policemen in Kharkov.  Their hats are really big and round.  Alex joked that you could land a helicopter on their hats!  

We visited the deaf center in Kharkov and found out that there would be a "concert" performed in Russian sign language.  We went to the concert and we enjoyed ourselves.  There were some pretty talented performers.  The performing arts is pretty popular in Ukraine and Russia.  Those little kids are break-dancing!  iPod picture :)

We visited a church that has a large number of deaf members - the services are interpreted.  Here, they are honoring the interpreters with flowers and gifts.  All the women in the front are interpreters.  

After church, the deaf went to another room to socialize.  It was a good chance for us to meet some of them.  We made plans to meet more of them later on.  The great thing about being deaf is that you can immediately meet people from another country and be able to communicate in a simple way, and we are usually open and warm with each other, because we share the same deaf experience.  

Another angle of the room.  

Us playing "Nerts" a card game at Brandon/Katie's apartment.  Brandon and Katie are on the left.  It's nice to be able to do this again, because we played a lot of card games or normal games when we were all in Lubbock, Texas for Sunset International Bible Institute!  Photo credit goes to Olivia (stole it off her facebook!)   

Caleb, the Nelsons' adorable baby!  We really enjoy playing with him and we see what kind of work it requires to be parents!  The Nelsons are great models for us!  They are very loving and devoted to Caleb!  He is a very blessed child.

Again, I did not take enough pictures of the missionaries.  Our next blog will explain more about them.  But this is a team meeting - they do it once a week on Tuesdays - where they get together to discuss about what they are doing and on what they can improve, etc.  In the back is Mike and Lucy, on the left corner is Rob and Denyce, on the front left is David/Olivia and Caleb, and on the right is Brandon.  His wife, Katie, is hidden (she was sitting on the left of me).  All of us are graduates of Sunset International Bible Institute and/or AIM (Adventures in Missions), a program at SIBI.  They have been in Kharkov for two years already and will be for the next four years.  Their main goal is to plant homegrown churches that meet in homes.  Most of them can speak Russian!  We really respect this group of missionaries because they have accepted the challenge of the great commission and they are willing to give up the comfort of USA and family to be here in Ukraine.  

Olivia teaching/playing with the children of the missionaries.  There are five in total, with one on the way.  

And... the highlight of this blog is our visit to the deaf school!  It was called an orphanage by an organization, but it's not an orphanage, but rather a boarding school, which is normal in the deaf world.  There are a few orphans in this group.  We will get more information on a second visit to this school.  The children were all great, and we had so much fun with them - teaching them ASL with them telling us what the Russian signs were.  We had Olivia and Brandon come to help us with interpreting!  Brandon would translate from Russian to English, and then Olivia would translate from English to ASL!  This was for our meeting with the principal, but when we were with the children, we could communicate with them pretty directly, because again, it's just easier for deaf people.  You can find Olivia on the front row.  The woman in the pink shirt between Alex and Alexa is one of the two deaf teachers at this school.  Photo Credit - Brandon Price

The guy in the red shirt on the far right is the other deaf teacher at this school.  The woman standing in white is an interpreter, and she is a CODA.    Photo Credit - Brandon Price

Pictures and more pictures!  We love visiting deaf schools and we really wanted to work at this one, but we were sad to find out that the school would close at the end of the week and all the children would go to different camps and home, and the orphans/abandoned children would go to to camps, and then foster homes.  We were really clear with this as it was difficult to communicate with the principals and time ran out, but we will come back and find more information.  Hopefully we'll be able to go to one of the camps.  Pray for us that this can happen!  PC - Brandon Price.  

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Brandon wrote a blog about our  visit to the deaf school, and you can check out his post and his blog at http://www.brandonandkatie.com/?p=2169!