Reality

I'm sitting here at the kitchen table, alone for the first time in 2+ weeks.  Karen is out buying supplies for the other transition homes, and the boys are all playing indoor soccer.

If you've been keeping up with our face book posts you've seen videos of us bowling with the boys, and leg wrestling with the orphans.  But as I reflect on the last couple of weeks I realize that, while we're trying hard to make the best of the situation here, the reality is that life here in Ukraine is very bleak compared to the unbelievable blessings we are accustomed to.

The boys that we have come to love so much are getting a lousy education because they are orphans.  The sad truth is that orphans get the worst teachers, in the worst schools.  That's just the reality here.  Once they graduate, the chances of them actually getting a job are slim. at best.  Why?  Because they've been poorly educated, and are earmarked as orphans.

While we've been posting the videos that show us all having fun, what you haven't seen are the old, old men that we pass on the roads, dragging firewood behind them to heat their homes with.  Or the old, old women that stand outside in the freezing cold all day long selling their wares.  Or the younger women that stand in a restaurant with their young child, watching you eat, hoping that you'll give them a couple of grivna (25 cents) or a scrap of food.

Life here is very harsh.  If you'll go to the you tube address below you'll see what I mean.  This was taken this afternoon, at the local dump.    

http://youtu.be/4hFHVEolRRo

I hope you'll continue to pray for us, to know what we've been called to do here.  But I also hope you'll pray for the Ukrainians that won't be "going home soon"; to a warm house, multiple cars, a refrigerator full of food.....  The reality is that, unlike us, they have very little to look forward to.  

God Bless,
Bill