Friday  October 21, 2011

We slept in again..... to 6:40 a.m.  The days start early here, and it’s almost midnight each evening before we turn out the lights.  It will take some time to get used to this schedule.

After dropping the boys off at their various schools we went to Alek’s office.  He and his staff begin each day with prayer.  The prayer here is different than what we’re used to.  Everyone prays out loud, at the same time.  At first it is really distracting, but after awhile  it’s kind of uplifting.

Watching Alek work is stressful because he is like the one legged paper hanger.  He works very hard, and is being pulled in 10 different directions all of the time.  I pray that his ministry finds the funds necessary to hire some additional staff, because no one can keep up his pace year after year.

Our next stop was Ukraine’s version of the Home Depot.  A nice store, but a different culture.  I purchased a drill bit, and was told that I would need to take the hand written ticket to the cashier, pay for it, and then return the receipt to the saleswoman (near the back of the store) to retrieve my bit.  Can you imagine the response you’d have if they asked you to do that at home?

Lunch at Oskar’s (our new favorite market / cafeteria) was good, but even the nice stores have weird bathrooms.  Karen is still trying to get used to the squat pots, and I’m betting she never will.

In Ukraine, it seems that most houses have washing machines but no dryers, so we hung our clothes out on a line to dry this afternoon.  It worked for our grandparents so it should work for us, right?  I wonder where we’ll dry them this winter.......

Tonight Alek took me (Bill) to the Russian Spa.  I’ve never experienced anything like it.  Basically you sit in a sauna until you’ve lost a pound or two of sweat, then you lie down - in the sauna - and a guy lightly beats you with some branches with leaves on them.  Next you jump into a pool of freezing water.  I could literally feel my heart pounding for about 10 minutes after that.  This is followed by tea drinking, and another round in the sauna.  Once you’ve lost another pound or two of sweat you leave the sauna, lie down on a table, and a guy rubs you down with honey and then rock salt.  Then it’s back into the sauna until the salt crystalizes on you.  It will be fun to do this with Karen when we return!

It’s now midnight, so it’s time to close.

Until tomorrow, God Bless and spakoyney nochey (good night).

B&K