Living Life

Feels like home

2011-09-08T18:20:00.000+10:00

Well we are now back in Gav's house. We lived here for 2 1/2 years from Aug 2005 - April 2008. It does feel like we are home again after moving around so much in the past year. We've been on the go for that long. I am so looking forward to settling down. But there is a lot of work to do, lots of cleaning and we're going to do some renovating. There seems to be an excessive amount of dust around and my asthma is playing up so I'm finding it difficult to breathe.

Sergii's put his back out lifting heavy bags and furniture, but it's still moveable. He's been doing lots of yard work too. He found out he has an inflamed liver so he's taking some medication for that too.

The kids enjoy being back here too. The yard is so great for them. Nikita found a little kitten the other day and we feed it and gave it a box to live in for the night, but then it was gone in the morning.

I'm hoping to get the school room set up so we can get started asap. Anyway, better go and do some work. Will get some photos up soon.

Living in the USA

2011-07-25T13:29:00.000+10:00

We have been in America now for nearly two months. We have been having a great time both here at training and in all our travels before hand. We are living in Greenwood, Indiana. It's a little further south of the city of Indianapolis. We took our children in the city to the Children's museum, that was our first time in the city. The second time was during training. We had an assignment. We were given maps and instruction and money enough to get a bus into the city, but not to return. Our mission was to spend the day in prayer and helping others and telling others about Jesus. It was an amazing day. We went out in groups of 3. I was with Jenny another mum my age and Brian a 26 year old from Texas. We were a motley crew; me from Australia, Jenny from Mississipi two mum's in their 30's and then Brian. But we were a good team. I wanted to ask people for money but Brian thought we should just pray and ask God to provide. So that's what we did.

We were able to talk to many different people, Muslim, Buddist, homeless, middle class it was such an interesting time and having the freedom to just talk to people for the day was amazing. Quite often I watch people and think it would be good to talk to them but I'm always with my family busy doing things, going somewhere. I find it very easy to talk to people, but hard to start talking about Jesus. Brian was just going up to people and saying, "Hey, have you seen Jesus in this park lately?"

It got to the time we were meant to go home and we didn't have the money to get back on the bus. We started heading towards the bus stop and someone called out to us who we'd just been talking to. I thought, "could this be who is going to give us our money?" She called us over and said, "Hey would you guys have some money to give us to get on the bus?" I felt so bad. I pathetically said, "We don't have money either so I'm sorry, but we'll pray for you." Then we passed another couple who we had been talking to earlier in the day and we found out that they missed their lunch at the shelter because they were talking to us. We also had had no lunch as we were fasting, but I felt so bad because I really didn't know what it was like to go hungry often.

We got to the bus stop and there was Sergii with his team. They looked at us and said, "Get in" We said, "What?" "Get in we have the money" Well I thought they must of kept it from the beginning because they'd taken out wallets from us and we had to go with nothing. But God had provided them with money through a man they had been talking to and it was more than what they needed. We all got on the bus and heard their story and then we stopped at the next bus stop and there was another team just sitting there. The last team had made friends with some other believers and got a lift back to Greenwood. Greenwood is about a half hour drive out of Indianapolis (on the bus)

It was an amazing day and God's love for us was so evident and his faithfulness to us is so good. We are so blessed.

USA Jun 2011

2011-06-17T04:18:00.000+10:00

29 May 2011 Photos

2011-05-30T00:48:00.000+10:00

SPAIN 2011 Madrid

2011-04-12T07:22:00.000+10:00

Annasophia BIG-2!

2011-03-18T16:41:00.000+10:00

Photos Rzischiv Home

2011-03-14T03:09:00.000+10:00

Starting again

2011-03-08T00:50:00.002+10:00

Ok, so it's been over a year. We are back in Ukraine. Settled into our new little home. Excited about what God is doing here in Rzhishiv. People getting saved and ministries starting. Won't go into details but will plan on pasting our monthly newsletters on here. Don't think anyone reads this anyway, but just in case. Good for a record.

Church Camp

2009-10-26T09:11:00.005+10:00

Yesterday we returned from our two night stay at City North Family Camp. It was out in the sticks of Camp Duckadang near Linville. We had a great time. The boys enjoyed the pool and playground. Sergei enjoyed the extra naps and I loved not having to cook for the weekend. They had a talent show on Saturday and I asked Elijah if he'd like to say his memory verse from school Psalm 100. He did it and he got first prize he was so shocked, we are proud.

New beginnings

2009-10-14T20:31:00.003+10:00

The wedding was wonderful. Very simple and very beautiful. Nick and Sammi are now in Vietnam on their honeymoon. We had a wonderful stay in a nice big house in Montville. While away we found out from OMS international that we have been accepted into the organization. We are now unofficially OMS missionaries. Just waiting on documents that need to be signed in the US. Pretty exciting stuff =)

My Brother's Getting Married

2009-09-04T16:40:00.002+10:00

October 3rd my brother, Nick, marries the lovely Sammi (Samara) I'm so happy he has finally found someone to share his life with. He's 30, and it's about time. They are getting married in the hinterlands of the Sunshine Coast. Montville is the name of the village. It's beautiful up there. My parents have been here all week and we've been doing clothes shopping for the wedding. My mum found a lovely dusty pink dress, we got the boys shirts, vests and ties, a pair of shoes for Lij and a tie for dad. Still a few things left to get, but it's fun. I don't usually spend much on clothes so for this special occassion I've really lashed out. It's amazing how long it takes to walk the shops and actually find that just right item.

OMS International

2009-08-25T13:11:00.002+10:00

A couple of months ago we had a lady come and speak in our church. She's an Australian lady who has been working with orphans in Russia. Of course we were able to relate to her straight away and introduced ourselves in Russian to her. She was so happy to meet us. A few weeks after that we had Michelle over for a meal and we talked about Russia and Ukraine - two countries that have a lot in common. Michelle is home in Australia only because she is quite sick and needs some medical attention, otherwise she'd be still in Russia. She misses it a lot, and just adores all those kids. She's been over there for 14 years. Anyway we got talking to Michelle about the mission she is with and she suggested we join up with them. Sergei and I have talked in the past about joining a mission society but that's about all we have done - talk. Michelle suggested meeting her director, just for a chat. So we prayed about it and decided to meet with him. Ray and Michelle came over about a week later and we found out about OMS. We prayed about it further and a week after that we rang Ray and said we'd like to apply. We've put in our application forms and now we wait. We really believe that God brought this particular mission into our lives for a reason so now we wait.

Saturday Night

2009-08-25T13:07:00.002+10:00

Saturday night we had a family from our church come over for dinner. We had chicken enchiladas and nachos. Logan and Kylie have two girls Georgia and Stephanie. The girls had a blast playing with our boys and vice-versa. They made so much noise we could barely hear ourselves talking. Kylie also homeschools her children, so we talked homeschooling and politics. Logan is studying law to get into politics. Interesting conversations. We had a great night!

my kids

2009-08-21T09:17:00.000+10:00

Yesterday Elijah and Nikita played outside for hours in the sandpit. Was great for me because I got to clean the house. They ran into the house with wet hair, mud marks all over their clothes and cheeky grins on their faces. They'd been having a mud fight. They loved it. I love it when they entertain themselves without watching tv.

Winter days

2009-07-22T09:10:00.000+10:00

Well, we have been here in Australia for over a year now. We return to Ukraine in about a year. It's winter here in Australia and the nights have been quite cool, but the days are just glorious. It's amazing that the sun shines constantly and the temps reach up to 25 on a warm day. I will miss this in Ukraine, but I do long for the seasonal changes of Ukraine. Snow, Tulips, Berries, and Autumn leaves.

Annasophia is doing ok, at times she seems so much easier than the boys were, but I think that is just because she is the third child. She seems to be a really fussy eater and sometimes it's difficult to get her back to sleep at night with loud crying matches, and sometimes not just her. She sure is a treasure though and I still cannot believe that we have a little girl. She talks a lot and nearly rolling over.

I've been homeschooling the boys but am leaning towards the opinion that boys don't need to start school till they are 7. They just get so bored sitting at the table learning, it's working better to just throw things at them throughout the day and get them thinking while they're playing. They just about know all their letters and have been doing a little bit of reading already, it's so exciting. Elijah has written about 12 little books. He illustrates them and tells me what to write. He also loves drawing and reading. Nikita is more my practical boy, he loves to come grocery shopping with me and enjoys fixing things and helping in the kitchen.

God has been so good to us. When we moved to Brisbane he provided a job for Sergei, a house for us, furniture to fill it and a great church that we have become a part of. I also go to a mother's group at another church which is encouraging to be able to pray with other mums and share each others experiences in mothering.

We have been saving preparing to go back to Ukraine. We just about have enough now to buy our tickets to return to Ukraine and back again to Australia in a few years after being there. We also are close to our goal for a car. God has blessed us with faithful financial supporters who continue to support us while we're here in Australia. We need more before we can live in Ukraine again to do missions, but God has also put some awesome people in our lives who are helping us with missions awareness and we hope more people in the future will be able to get behind us so we can continue to work with the people of Ukraine.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Annasophia Joy

2009-05-28T06:40:00.001+10:00

I must not be a true writer or a blogger as it takes me forever to get to this thing. But I really want to write about the birth of our latest addition - Annasophia Joy, and yes she is a real joy. She's so placid compared to the boys. She'll just lie there sometimes and watch me as I cook or work with the boys doing homeschooling. She's 10 weeks old and she's giving us lots of smiles and goos and gars. Annasophia was due on the 6th of March. I went up to my parents place a week before hand so I could give birth in the country hospital where both Elijah and Nikita were born. Sergei stayed in Brisbane to work, I was to give him the call as soon as something started. Well nothing did start, we waited and waited and waited. It must of been the longest 10 days of my life. I'd wake up every morning thinking, will labor pains start today. With Elijah I went to bed one night and the pains started and lasted about 24 hours before he came and with Nikita I woke up one morning, the pain started and lasted till early the next morning. Well not with my little girl. The doctor told me if she wasn't here within 10 days of the due date they would induce me. They told me the procedure and I was fine with it, but then I went home and read some stories on the internet about inducement and got myself all stirred up. I was really worried that something would go wrong and I wouldn't be able to have her naturally as I did the boys. After some tears and a reassuring discussion with Sergei, and lots of text msg to friends and reassurance through prayers, I finally decided to let go and let God. I totally trusted him that if I had to go through a c-section it would be fine, but asked that everything would go okay for a natural birth.
Well, Sergei and I went into the hospital on the Sunday night they injected the first lot of prostoglandins and I went off to sleep. I awoke at 3am feeling like I was in labor. The midwife came in and sure enough I was in labor. Annasophia was born at 6:20 on March 16th. I can remember the sun coming up and streaming into the birthing suite and me thinking, "I want this baby born before the day begins" I had such a great experience in the hospital. I had the whole room to myself the first night, there was hardly anyone in the hospital, very peaceful. It rained that first night too, it was lovely. I had really great midwives and no bad experience and I know it's all because I prayed hard and God was good to me. It truly pays to put our total trust in Him and to love him and rely on him even when you know things might not go your way and then sometimes he just surprises us. Thank you for blessing me God!

Things are heating up

2008-11-21T21:24:00.000+10:00

Brisbane just had it's worst storm in 20 years, they're saying. We thankfully have not been experiencing any damage. We're enjoying the rain. It's finally filling the dams up which is much needed. We're on water restrictions here, four minute showers and no washing cars or watering gardens with hoses. So I'm really thankful for the rain, the poor people suffering from losing all their worldly possessions probably aren't so thankful, that's another thing I'm thankful for - not having many worldly possessions.

Expecting new life

2008-09-08T09:30:00.000+10:00

I had been feeling quite sick and thought I might be pregnant. I did a pregnancy test but it was negative. I was still pretty sure I was pregnant so I went for a blood test and sure enough - I am. I've also had a scan and the baby is due on the 6th of March, so I am 14 weeks into this pregnancy. I was sure I was less. I guess we'll only know once March comes. We have been wanting to have another baby, so we are pretty excited with our news. We'd love to have a baby girl, but if the Lord gives us another boy of course that's ok. It's amazing the dreams you have when you are pregnant. I remember when I was pregnant with Nikita I dreamed I pulled him out just to see if he was ok and then put him back in again. Last night I dreamed this baby's face was forced up against the wall of my tummy and I could totally see what it looked like, I grabbed it's little body along with my tummy and was showing everyone. How weird is that?

2008-08-19T13:26:00.000+10:00

Sergei is working with Josh Gollan. He is Daniel's brother (we work with Dan in Ukraine) Sergei spends his days mopping floors, and wiping skirting boards as well as cleaning kitchens, bathrooms and vacuuming floors. His hands are really dry and his knees get a bit sore but besides that he doesn't mind the work. He travels all over the city and even up to the Sunshine Coast and down to the Gold Coast at times, so he gets to see quite a bit.
I spend my days with the boys at home, well not quite at home as we are out every morning. Mondays they have gymnastics, Tuesdays we go to the library and video shop, Wednesdays we go to a mothers group with Bec, that's Josh's wife. Thursdays we go to Mainly Music where they sing and dance and bash musical instruments. And Fridays they have swimming lessons and every second Friday afternoon we go to a home schoolers group. So we stay busy and making the most of opportunities we have while here in Australia.
I have quite a few photo albums on facebook so if you haven't joined up do so and check them out.
We continue to speak at different churches and I've done a few coffee mornings/evenings sharing about Ukraine and our dream to open a coffee shop in Rzhishiv. We're hoping to get printed out a pamphlet about ourselves, Rzhishiv, and life in Ukraine to be able to get around to more people.

Back on board

2008-08-07T13:27:00.000+10:00

I decided to get back on here, wanted to keep in touch with all my blogging buddies. We're enjoying each day as it comes here in Oz, very different life to that in Ukraine, but making the most of it. Miss Ukraine, saving our pennies to get back there.