12/28/2009 - Christmas in Review

Been busy with all the holiday stuff recently, but it is my day off today so I can write! I can't really recall much from before Christmas, but the events of Christmas are still fresh in my mind.

Last Tuesday, we hosted the moms' group. Not many kids came (only the Markey boys and Leah), but we found out that there is now a fifth person pregnant in our church! It all happened close together last time and so again it happens. Christina is the furthest along though ;)

Right before Christmas, we were busy making our presents - lots of delicious stuff! Bagels, cookies, brownies, candied walnuts, and "Tex Mex" bread. It was hard to give it all away! We attempted to allow Leah to help us make the cookies, but it was hard as she was distracted so often - we also didn't want to botch it up because of lack of time. We plan to make cookies with her again when we can - hopefully it will become a tradition as I am a big fan of family-centric activities!

On Christmas day it was fun to have Leah get into her gifts this time. Last time she was basically a lump of baby who didn't really care. Since then she's been running around constantly with either them or the gift bags.

Afterwards, our entire team went to Jon and Steph's to celebrate together. Ruth joined us again from the Peace Corps as did a new American couple attending the YWAM DTS program. It was good to hang out and to get to know the new couple better - we played some fun games and the food was rockin'.

Saturday, we went to the medical dorm by invitation and had a Christmas party with some of the Africans who live there. We did some songs and just hang out with some snacky foods. I got to meet a couple new people and hope I see them again in the future.

Yesterday, we had our church's official Christmas celebration (even though Ukrainian Christmas is Jan 7). Christina wasn't feeling too good though and due to miscommunication, I was unable to take Leah to church with me so I missed everything after worship. I heard that it was a very fun time though and that the food was delicious - I hope everyone was blessed.

So that is about all I can remember. I will be getting photos of the African outreach/party soon from someone else and I'll post up some pictures later of what I have. We planned to do video, but it didn't really work too well with all that happened.

As for the future, the Markeys take off in about a half hour for Kyrgystan to spend some time with all the family they have on this side of the globe. Zhenya and I will be teaching in the next couple weeks so you can be praying for us to both be filled with insight from the Holy Spirit about what should be taught.

12/17/2009 - New Leah Vid

Today I took some more video of Leah and wanted to publish all that we had taken to date. It all fit nicely in a 10 min video so here you go! Enjoy!



Other than that, not much to say about the week so far. It's been snowing since Sunday afternoon and now it is about8-10cm deep (couple inches).

Monday was our day off so we hibernated all day. Brian came over to babysit Leah so we retreated to our room and watched a movie together.

Tuesday my morning meeting was canceled and so Tuesday and Wednesday I pretty much stayed home and took care of housework. Not much to say about that :p

About a week ago, our wonderful care team sent a Christmas package with all sorts of goodies. One of the highlights was a bag of nacho Doritos ... and we all know the best thing that a missionary can do with that ... make taco salad! So, last night Christina went out to do the weekly grocery shopping and came home overwhelmed and exhausted so I made my family recipe of taco salad. It was and is heavenly (just had leftovers)!

This just in ... the laptop's power supply just had an unfortunate encounter with a small girl named Leah ... going to be a day or two (hopefully) before I can get it replaced.

12/13/2009 - Weekend!

Been a bit busy the last few days :)

Thursday, I had my first full class with my newest guitar students. 4/7 people showed up and 2 of the absentees were because they hadn't found guitars yet. One of my new students worried me because she speaks French and not really any English, but I was impressed at her ability to understand and pick things up fast. We'll see how it all goes. So far things are very promising and two of them seem especially to be gifted musically.

Nothing of note really happened on Friday because Christina wasn't feeling good so I took over watching Leah most of the day. It was also a fairly "blah" day so we really didn't go out.

Saturday and Sunday were busy days. I think Saturday I was doing things constantly from 10am until 11pm with practices, preparations for Sunday, prayer meetings, and then caring for Leah in between. I like days like that though ... you can sleep well at night :)

Church today was pretty cool. I think we flowed together on the worship team better than we have before. Nothing really happened to cause that so I blame God :P Wish things went like that more often. Instead of being in the service lately, I have been leaving halfway though to play guitar with the kids lately ... they are preparing for their Christmas presentation :) It should be fun.

12/09/2009 - Leah

So I decided to write a small bit separately about Leah. She is growing up so fast now ... running and playing with the kids ... repeating countless scores of words ... being disobedient :P She's an amazing kids really!

She's got about 4-5 teeth coming in all at once so she's been in a lot of pain lately also.

So I will post some pictures too ... but there are a few, so click here and then proceed to view the pictures to the right in order to see the ones I uploaded today.

12/09/2009 - Back in Action

So things have kinda slowed down ... relatively speaking. I'll be trying to blog again.

We found out some things about Christina's pregnancy which brought much peace of mind. We talked to an American midwife who told us that the cramps and pains that Christina is experiencing is, in actuality, normal and nothing to be concerned about. Although she isn't feeling any better, I think psychologically it has helped her to deal with it by knowing nothing is endangering the baby. So things are a bit better.

It would be hard to talk about what has happened the past while since my last entry so I guess I'll just talk about this last week.

Today we went over to George and Sharon's for a team meeting and to celebrate George's birthday! We discussed a few of the upcoming things, but perhaps the one you all might be interested in is that we are weighing two options right now for a new place to meet. We've had a couple instances where the workers at the place where we meet right now have been less than pleased with something which I would consider insignificant (we moved the pile of tables outside the meeting hall for a holiday ... ) We are still looking, but also are hoping that our request for a loan will be accepted. Anyways, we're psyched about it. The meeting and "party" were a lot of fun ... just check out this cute picture of Leah!





This last week, George, Jon, myself, and a guy from the church, Peter, went to a leadership conference in Kyiv which was pretty cool. Met up with a lot of old friends whom I hadn't seen in a long time. The pastor from Horizon church in Indianapolis came to speak and the subject intrigues me:

-Pursue after the enemy
-Overtake the enemy
-Retake what the enemy has taken

I'm having a hard time applying it though as I found his examples to be more generic experiences than practical application - still praying that I would get it. The teaching was good though, don't get me wrong :)

I also found out that a friend of mine is leaving Ukraine soon so that'll be sad. I always admired his family for how outgoing they were in their neighborhood and how many strong relationships they built. The choice was hard for them, but of course understandable when considering the reasons. We'll be praying for them.

Lets see ... I have only had one of my guitar classes recently due to outside influences and surprise journeys. However, I'm excited that, beginning tomorrow, I can finally begin having them again with my students. Brian, my best student, is leaving Ternopil to go work - part of his University practical work requirement so it'll be sad to see him go, but I will have up to 5 new students joining so there will be much to do!

We've also had a mens' discipleship class in the mornings where we study the book of Romans inductively and also discuss some theology books we read together. We've met a dozen times or so, but recently one of the guys has been traveling so we decided to wait for him. I honestly don't mind because the class is at 7am and it is nice to sleep in! It is more rewarding however, to see others and myself grow through the studies :)

I guess I will stop there ... not sure what else to add from the last few weeks. I don't think I have my newest newsletter up, but probably it will be there by the time you are done reading this --->

I should be writing more ... I hope! :)