Letter from the Ukraine Feb 2000

Dear Mom, Dad and all,
Sorry I have not written in a couple of days, but as always it's been busy. Wed. was International Women's Day and it is a big deal. We started by having our Russian teacher over for breakfast - pancakes and bacon. She had never tasted such...both the bacon and the pancakes with maple syrup. It is also "pancake" week here or "butter" week. Similar to Lent. They eat pancakes and lots of butter this week and beginning Sunday they do without until Easter.

After breakfast it was on to buy flowers and then to split up and delver them to special ladies of our congregation who don't have family.  The first visit we made was to an elderly couple.  It was the wife's birthday and we didn't know it.  They had bought pastries, sausage and some other things with which to feed us - they knew we'd stop by.  We didn't really have time to stay, but it would have broken their hearts for us to leave.  It was just Mila, Ray and me.  So, we had to eat more sweet stuff.  We made several more visits delivering flowers and congratulating the women on their special day.  At 1pm we had our visit with Galina - the shut in.  David and Nick went also.  She had made a cake and some pastries (all with butter and very sweet).  They were good, but by the end of the day - I was sick.  We didn't have time to eat all day and all we had was sweet stuff.

From Galina's Mila and I went to Budjonovsky and taught class at 4 while Lynn and Nikka went along, but delivered flowers to 4 members in that same area.  It was cold and raining too.  From the 4pm class, we rushed to a 5pm workshop for teachers of teens and children.  A guy from Oklahoma was here providing the workshop.  It lasted till 7pm, but Mila and I had two other visits to make so we had to leave at 6pm.  Once Lynn and Ray were finished with the workshop, we all went to the Baptist family where the middle daughter was having a birthday.  She said they couldn't afford to celebrate so we took a cake.  They had prepared some tomatoes and potatoes and what I thought was ham.  Ray fixed my plate and said, "You want some of this ham?"  Not feeling so well, I said only one small piece.  At the end of the night I kept hearing someone say, "yezik" (that's tongue in Russian).  Yes, as many times as I have avoided eating tongue here, I finally did without knowing it.  Without knowing what it was, I still didn't like it.  The potatoes made me feel a bit better, but all the sweet stuff and butter had done it's damage. It was very late by the time we got home and a long hard day.

Thursday, I didn't go to Russian since I was still feeling bad.  Mila and I had already planned to visit so we did and I did okay, but still felt queezy.  Anyway, we then had teen girls' class and Mila takes care of it now, pretty much.  I let Ray and Oleg go on our visit after the class.

Friday, we were supposed to have a guy over for lunch that is leaving for Russia for a year.  So, I got up and made homemade pizza - I think I have perfected it.  I used that pork sausage that Ricky made while he was here, black olives, onions, mushrooms, and gouda cheese it works really well since there isn't any mozerella.  It was really good, but I didn't feel like eating much.  The guy didn't show for lunch so it was Ray, Sergei, Sasha (a teen boy), Lynn and me.  Ray taught at Azotney for both of us and I stayed in - it was cold and raining and I was nervous to travel that far from home not feeling well.  I appreciated Ray stepping in.  Tonya was even there and they say she has been coming to church on Sunday's.  I was so happy to hear that. I am looking forward to seeing them all next week.  They wanted to suspend the classes until March due to the flu epidemic.  They had a little welcome back party for us too.  They are so sweet.

Ray and Sergei came back by here after the class and about 7pm the doorbell rang.  Well, just when I was beginning to think we weren't going to have any strange situations this year like we did last year - Christina (teen girl) shows up with a little girl.  Christina was crying and asking me for help.  At first I thought it was her little brother, Serosia who comes here to visit often.  It was a 5 year old little girl.  She was cold, wet and very dirty and smelly.  She was at a bus stop asking for money to buy ice cream because she was hungry.  She said she only got one meal a day and was hungry.  She also said it had been days since she had been cleaned up.  She came in talking up a storm.  I soon found her to be very smart for her age.  She was small and in fact is 5 years old.  She was pretty far from home and seemed to be very street smart.  She was so cute and funny I just fell in love with her almost immediately.  The first story was her mother worked and leaves her at home alone all the time until the middle of the night.  Later we found out from her that she has 7 siblings.  I put her in a bubble bath - it was obvious she's never had a bubble bath before.  She loved playing in the tub.  I bathed her and washed her hair.  Then put a pair of my Victoria Secret panties on her.  Christina and I had to pin them in a couple of places and they looked pitiful.  She's probably the only 5 year old girl with VS underwear!  I put one of my t-shirts on her and tied it with a belt.  I gave her a pair of my socks which looked like leggings on her.  Then gave her a bowl of potato soup I had made.  She was gulping it down in whole chuncks.  Then, I remembered the little outfits that came in the mail just the day before.  Most of them looked like little boys, but there was a 4T size in there and it was perfect for her.  Also, the 3T boys underwear (I forgot about) was perfect.  The little jacket fit too.  She had on such dirty clothes with holes all in them.  The little dress she had on was thin cotton, sleeveless, a summer dress and about 2 sizes too small for her so I didn't feel bad about putting another summer outfit on her.  She loved it.  Her mother is probably wondering how in the world her daughter could wander away from home, come home full, clean, with new clothes and a bag of clean, old clothes.  That package that was sent truly came at the perfect time.  I don't know who bought them, but I am so grateful.  I know they were for the orphans, but this was a little girl in much need and it helped more then they will know.  One of the little jackets was perfect for her too.  It. too, looked like a little boy's jacket, but it looked cute on her.  She has such short, short hair, several people that saw her thought she was a boy.  She was calling me "Aunt Linette" (in Russian) and was helping me and running around the house.  When Lynn got home she had a nice surprise waiting.  I couldn't help but think back to living with Dee and Dee coming home to find various animals that I had picked up.  Well, I pick up stray cats and dogs and Christina one up's me and picks up a little girl!  I told her if she had to find one, she found a wonderful one.  We took the little girl home and she took us to her neihghbors house where a little boy about 12 came out and said he would see her home.  We went with them to her house and her mother was home. She said Ginya was very clever and the mom just went to the neighbors for  a minute and when she came back, Ginya was gone.  Ginya was begging her mom not to beat her or punish her.  Ginya was begging us to come in, but it was 10pm.  She said then come back tomorrow.  I told her I couldn't tomorrow and she said, okay then the day after tomorrow.  We will try to go Monday.  We are having Olga (the girl who died from cancer) mother and family over for lunch tomorrow.  She is supposed to come to worship and then here for lunch.  WE are having around 16-18 people!  Lynn and I have done most of the cooking tonight after our 2 hour Ukrainian/American meeting and then prayer meeting - all of which was today.  So, we have been busy.  My night last night was quite strange, but I enjoyed helping that little girl.  I wish you could see her - how bright, happy and cheery she is.  Her little hands and feet were so red and dirty.  She didn't have any gloves and her hands and feet were so cold.  She had on two pair of leggings and a pair of socks all of which were soaked all the way through.  I aske her about being so wet and dirty and she said she walks around a lot.  I washed her clothes by hand since our washer takes 2 hour and the water turned to mud they were so dirty.  I have never seen such.  I'm anxiously anticipating finding out why this little girl came into our lives.  I know God has a purpose here.

Well, it's 12:30AM and it will be a long busy day tomorrow.  I will write soon to answer questions you had in your last mail.

Love you,
Linette