Our trip downtown

 I put Esther in the stroller and we were off to the bus stop. Unfortunately the elevators didn’t work but at least we are just on the 5^th floor.  You never know how long you are going to wait for the bus it could be a couple minutes or 20 minutes. So as soon as I see the bus coming, I quickly fold up the stroller, sling the diaper bag on my shoulder, grab Esther, and make sure I have the bus fare in my hand. Even though it’s one of the beginning stops there still aren’t any seats. It’s definitely not easy (or should I say safe) to stand up on a lurching bus holding Esther and the stroller while I’m holding onto the rail…do I even have a free hand?! Fortunately there is always someone who will give up their seat since I have a baby. It takes less than a minute before sweat is already running down your back. They don’t really believe in opening the windows even when it’s 85 and humid. And if they do have them open, if they see a baby, they will close them b/c they don’t want the baby to get sick from the breeze. A good Ukrainian slogan would be "If you're not sweating, we're not satisfied!"  The bus ride downtown takes about 40 minutes. I am blessed that Esther usually does really well on the bus even when she is all sweaty. There was an old lady who sat down next to us and just talked away. She let Esther put her legs on her lap and went on about how good Esther was. She didn’t go longer than 15 seconds before she started talking about something else. I understood maybe a quarter of what she was saying to me. I was able to answer the few questions she asked so I don’t think she knew that I didn’t really understand much. I just prayed that I could minister to her by listening. It was wonderful to feel a breeze when we got off the bus. We walked around seeing all the vendors and then grabbed ice cream and went to the park. It was so nice to see a park that was clean with well cut green grass. You weren’t supposed to go on the grass but it was nice to look at. We also went into a big children’s store which of course Esther loved. They even had someone dressed up as Mickey Mouse! I couldn’t believe it. Esther just smiled and went right over to him. But when she started coming back to me and realized that Mickey was following her, she got this panicked look and quickly held up her hands to me.  All in all it was a fun day.

Don't Always Agree

The other week we received a box from Sarah's parents.  I was talking with the young man who delivered the box, and he was very curious about why we are in Ukraine.  I was able to tell him some about what we are doing, but I couldn't understand everything he was saying.  As I told him this, he nodded sympathetically and said (still in Russian), "Yeah, Russian is a debilniy language."  I didn't understand that word (debilniy), but I figured he meant it was a hard language so I agreed.  That word sounded familiar though.  Later I remembered that I had heard that word at an orphanage years before (it's slang), and it means "retarded".  So here is this guy I'm trying to witness to, and I agree with him that his native language is retarded and backwards.  Score another one for me.  I guess it's not always safe to be agreeable.