The streets are lined with Ukrainian flags.  The beautiful blue and yellow flags make me proud to live here.  Today celebrates victory in World War II.  

Since it is not a work day today, we decided to take the kids into the city.  All of them.  We went to the National Botanical Garden.  The lilacs (I think I said violets in my last post for some reason) are in full bloom.  There are hundreds of lilacs on show at the gardens.  They were simply breathtaking.  There are several paths that take you through the beautiful flowers.  The smell was amazing.  This is probably the last week they will be in show and we are so glad we got to see them.

There was no sun, so my pictures aren’t great.  But thankfully it was cool and not raining.  There were lots of hills and pushing the strollers up those hills wasn’t easy in the cool…we might have died if it had been hot!

One interesting thing did happen.  Among the MANY people who stared at us and our kids (partly because of sheer number, partly because we are obviously American, partly because we were speaking English, partly because five of the kids have Down syndrome) an older woman came up and gave each of the kids a little package of cookies and candy.  I don’t know why she had all that in her bag, but she did.  I don’t really know if she felt sorry for them or what the reason was…but it was genuinely touching.  Wish we could have talked to her about our kids.  But, we don’t know those words yet.

Bethany & Hannah making lunch for the littles.

Posing with the Peanut Butter!

This little one is growing bigger and bigger!  Since his surgery he is really thriving!

Cute…Cute…Cute…

Our HUGE strawberry patch and our two Apricot trees.

Strawberry plant…  The blooms are so nice.

How’s that for a raspberry patch?

We have green onions and garlic coming up everywhere.  Some even mixed into strawberries.  Hmmm…

One of our cherry trees.  It’s gonna be a lot of cherries!!!  Which is great… since we love them!

Just one of the MANY irises.  This one will be breathtaking yellow in a couple of days.  I think I said lilies in my last post…but they are all irises.  Beautiful.

We have ENORMOUS, and beautiful hostas all around the yard.  Just wonderful.

Part of the grapevine.

Any guesses what this is?  It’s OKRA.

Hot peppers.

From Left to Right:  Tomatoes, Green Beans, Cucumbers

Look how green our grass is!  I got half finished mowing and ran out of gas.  Sigh.

Another of our beautiful purple irises.

So this is the entrance to the botanical gardens.  Handicapped accessible and all.  Which would you choose to take a stroller up?  The stairs or the very steep metal “ramp?” We chose the stairs.  I’m glad I’m not in a wheelchair.  These same type of ramps are throughout Ukraine where there are stairs.  Many are MUCH steeper.  And most don’t have rails on the side.

One of the spectacular views form the gardens.

Me and the love of my life.  She still turns me on and is the most important person to me — after 21 years.

The lilacs were just breathtaking.  You can’t imagine how many there are.

I don’t have any idea what this old building is, but it’s neat looking among the lilacs and foliage.

3 beautiful Malone women.

2 of the lovely Malone daughters.

One of the many lanes of lilacs in the gardens.

He wasn’t crying.  It was kind of cold.

I just love this boy — rough patches and all.  I would love to know what goes on in his head (I think).

That’s all folks.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord.

Tomorrow is Victory Day. Yep, another holiday! Early in the morning we are taking the family to the Botanical Gardens in Kyiv. Its a beautiful park and its the perfect time to go. The violets are in full bloom.

Then back home for lunch… Then I will work for several hours and then tomorrow even we have been invited to a Victory Day cookout! More Russian language practice! Yes!!

Just look how beautiful it is here!  The skies are beautifully blue, the sun is shining, the temperature is moderate.  Just perfect.

We had a major review in language school yesterday.  It was good to spend three hours hammering away at the latest things we have learned.  We have been working on verbs of motion.  You think…how hard could that be?

Well…let me tell you.  There are verbs for…

• walking
• running
• going by vehicle
• going by water
• going by air
• going by transport
• etc…

All of these have forms for

• starting the motion
• finishing the motion
• if the motion was round trip it has a different form
• all of these separate forms have past, present, future, imperfective, perfective

Just to give you a drop in the bucket of what verbs of motion mean in Russian.  To say the least I have been taken aback by the complexity of this language.  And to say that it’s complex is rather an understatement.

But trudge ahead we will!  It is so important to us.  We know God has called us to learn the language and to really press in to it for the first six months.  So press we shall.

We always wanted trees when we lived in Moore.  Now we have HUGE trees that surround our property.  We love them!  I love to listen to them sing their praises to God in the breeze.  What beautiful music they make.

You can see that we have a large yard where the kids can play.  We have a large area of concrete (allbeit not really smooth) for them to ride their riding tow and play when there is mud in the yard.  We have a large lawn where they can play.  

Speaking of the lawn…   Last week, the grass was about mid calf high and needed to be cut.  So we had two choices.  Mow it with scissors or get a lawn mower.  Let me first say that buying things here can be tricky.  Especially if you don’t speak a lot of Russian.  And what Russian we know has nothing to do with lawnmowers or words that relate to yard equipment.  At all.  

We went to our local home store (like an Ace Hardware probably) (we have stores like Lowe’s too, but they are farther away).  So we got to Booty Boom (spelled for you like it sounds in Russian).  And please…no off color comments.  I know they are racing through your mind.  So stop it.   We chose the lawn mower we wanted.  The easy thing would be to just grab one, put it on my cart and pay for it.  But no.  The mower on the shelf was THE mower we would buy.  Along came a young guy to help us and my first question to him was “Do you speak English?” (in Russian of course)  He smiled and said no, but that he would get someone who does.  I thought…hey…this may not be so bad after all.  Heh heh heh.  Silly me.  About 15 minutes later, another guy came over and said he spoke English.  Umm hmm….and I speak Russian.  Get the picture?  So after he told us he speaks English, that was the last English I heard.  We manage to communicate and ended up choosing a different mower that had a wider deck and more powerful engine and it’s a Briggs and Stratton engine — so a good choice I think.

I manage to ask for a container for gas.  And asked about oil (which happens to be the same word as for butter and cooking oil — it’s all about context).  I had to go pay for the oil first.  So off we went.  Then in a mad rush we ended up behind the store with the mower and he put the oil in (that I had paid for), added some gas and started it to show me that it works.  

Then it was back inside to find the box.  Sigh.  Up a ladder he went.  All the way to the top.  Then proceeded to jump up to get higher.  What??!  Oh yeah, this isn’t Lowe’s…where they wear safety belts.  Down came the box.  Then we filled out the warranty card.  Then we headed to the front to pay and for him to load it in our van. 

He asked if I had a discount card.  Not yet, I told him.  He showed me a computer that I would save 250UAH with it.  (You get a 7% discount with the card.)  Then I managed to understand that if I gave him 120UAH, I could get a card.  I understood it to mean that I was paying a fee to get a card of my own.  Ha ha…I had forgotten I was in Ukraine, I guess.  It turned out that I was giving HIM 120UAH and using HIS card.  After I gave him the money and he pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it to me it donned on me what was happening.  (So of course after we got in the parking lot, he wanted the card back — my suspension confirmed — ugh).  

All of that to buy a lawn mower.  Buying things in the grocery store can be just as stressful.  Makes a person really miss Walmart to be sure!

But it’s our life and we are growing to love it even with it’s craziness. 

I hope you will Bless the Name of the Lord today!

We had a great Sunday.  We had an early start — we go to a church in Kyiv on Sunday mornings so we leave the house a little before eight.  Ouch.

When I opened the gate this morning, I found that we had a Sunday surprise.  Some of our beautiful lilies had bloomed.  I’m glad I got some pics because by the time we got home at lunch time, they had finished blooming.  Short cycle!  Glad I saw them!

You can see that everything is green now.  It’s quite beautiful here in the Spring.  It makes the winter more tolerable I guess…

We had a great time of worship this morning and had a great sermon on standing for the truth no matter what the cost — and to love in the process.  The kids had a good time in children’s worship and youth Sunday school.

We had a pretty relaxing afternoon…  I worked in the yard a tiny bit and worked on some web design stuff — actually some how-to video production to be specific.  Afternoons seem short though.  We blink and it’s gone.  

We had an interesting experience for house church tonight.  No translator.  Zilch.  Nada.  So we did it in Russian…as best we could.  Nope…not nearly perfect.  And quite frustrating I’m sure, but it worked out and we had some good conversation – allbeit slowly.  Nonetheless, we had a good time with the Lord and each other.

Thanks for you constant prayers that our language study will move forward ever so quickly and that we will grasp it rapidly.

Enjoying our home — though there is ALWAYS something needing done.  And I mean ALWAYS.

My VERY humble garden.  Lettuce, carrots, peppers, okra, cucumbers, green beans.  You can’t see it, but the green beans and cucumbers are pushing through the dirt.  We also have a huge strawberry patch that is well established, large raspberry patch, 2 apricot trees, 1 apple tree, 1 plum tree, 2 cherry trees.

The grapes are growing well and will soon take over this entire corner.  That’s an outhouse peeking out of the corner by the way.  :-)

Not a well-house, exactly, since we don’t have a well but it’s where the city water for the different buildings all network into the main line.  The flowers are all starting to bloom and take over the  yard.  In a few weeks, the place will be full of color.

One of the flowerbeds. 

Have a great celebration of the Lord today wherever you are or whatever you are doing.  He is worthy of all we have to give him and so much more!

Bless the name of the Lord with us.

We had an invitation to the home of some good friends today.  We thought it was to enjoy tea and coffee and conversation.  And the whole family was invited.  That’s not an easy thing to do (invite a family that has 8 kids and 5 of them with Down syndrome).  But away we went at 1:00 to Tolic and Olya’s house.  

We got there and quickly figured out that we were actually going to be enjoying a lunch (shoshlik — barbecued pork ribs).  And it was a normal Ukrainian lunch.  TONS of food.  Salads, bread, cheese, sausage, juices, compote, lots of cookies, meats…  And in LARGE quantities.  

We all got sat down in the living room and in came three men we didn’t know.  One was a visiting pastor from Poland and two Ukrainian believers.  They had heard from Tolic that we were coming over and he had told them a little bit about us and they really wanted to meet us so they came.  They had MANY questions.  I spoke to them in Russian as I could and they seemed surprised.  It was kind of humorous because clearly I don’t understand much but sometimes one of them would ask a question about me to Tolic and I would answer in Russian.  It surprised them and it was kind of confidence building for us.  Not only did we understand them, but they understood us!  That was encouraging.  

Anyway, they had lots of questions about our kids, why we moved here, why we would leave America, etc.  It gave us a great opportunity to share what God is doing, what He has done, and what we think He is doing.

It was obvious that they didn’t quite understand that we had 5 kids with Down syndrome, but they were not uncomfortable with the kids.  In fact, Eliana, true to form, sat in all three laps at some point and gave hugs.  They didn’t seem to think anything out of the ordinary about it and just loved on them without reservation.

It was a great experience and we are grateful to have had it.

The lunch was delicious and they went out of their way to make us feel welcome and made sure we were all well-fed!

We got to see their very large garden —  huge amounts of strawberries, potatoes, cabbage.  We saw their chickens (10 laying hens and 1 rooster).  And no, we didn’t kill any of them and eat them for dinner — they are strictly laying hens.  We found out where we can buy ours.  We will try to get them next weekend (if I can get the hen house built before then).  After that, it will have to be July before we can get them.  And I’m not sure I want to be building a hen house in July!!!

Hannah and Eli

Yuri on left and Sveta (next to Micah) are our friends and neighbors.  They joined us for lunch.  Zahar is in the blue shirt.  He is Tolic and Olya’s son.

For some reason, Ethan got scared when we went outside to eat.  He would NOT let me put him down.  He held on for dear life.  The first few minutes of lunch he cried and cried.  Finally he settled down enough that I was able to turn him around to face the table, but still he wouldn’t let me put him down.  No idea what was wrong with him or what he was afraid of.

Hannah and Bethany at lunch.

A TERRIBLE pic of Eliana, but there she is.  And of course you can see Matthew and Micah in the background. 

Our three new friends.  The one in the middle is from Poland — he has 9 kids also, aged 22 down to 2!

We know God has brought us here.  We know He has plans for us.  But we recognize that the WHEN and the WHAT is HIS business.  Our’s is just to obey.  That we will do.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord.