Month: November 2013

Our House!

Posted on by kimnjed

So, I'm just sitting here in my little Ukrainian house, the kids are asleep, and Jed is off to watch soccer at a friend's house (He doesn't waste time with the man dates! Hehe) Life is good. We are blessed and happy.

 

Wanna see our house? YES! I'm pretty proud of us because we actually accomplished quite a bit today, despite the fact that the kids woke up at 4am. Oh, you say that just gave us more hours to work, so of course we should have gotten a lot done? Well, I say it was evil and instead caused us all to take a three hour nap at noon. We couldn't help ourselves! Jet lag is a beast.

 

So, the house is still a work in progress, but I'll let you have a peek at our new digs. We feel quite comfy here and are so super thankful. Here goes nothin!

This is our street, headed toward our house- the white building on the right.

Here's the front of our building. I think there are like 4 houses (flats) that are all a part of this building...not quite sure though. We enter around the back.

This is the path to walk around to our pad. 🙂

These steps lead to us! That balcony right above is our balcony. Everyone come on over!

Welcome! Here's what you see when you walk on in. (Minus the huge grins on our faces, so happy to have you! Also beware of tiny, leg-grabbing people ready to jump out and grab you...they're vicious I tell ya)

Oh, you like the purple kitchen, do you? Well, we girls like it too. The boys aren't so sure.

Too bad we don't have a microwave manual...not that we could read that either...hmmm

Here's the place where all the goodness happens. When you come over we'll eat loads of deliciousness at this big 'ol table! That's assuming I figure out grocery shopping and can buy the right ingredients for the deliciousness. Seth wants me to tell you he has his eyes closed. FYI 🙂

Here's the view from the dining room table of Jed leaving me to go on a man date. 😉

So, to the right of the front door is the kitchen, and this is what's to the left. There's the bathroom, and the living room.

Here's our AWESOME bathroom! This is the biggest bathroom we've ever had. For some reason I find it very cute and bright. Is that weird that I love my bathroom so much?

Our little washing machine is in the bathroom. When Addy saw it she said It's just my size! Yep, that's about right. Ha! We don't have a dryer so this girl's gonna have to learn the art of hanging clothes to dry. Sweeeeet.

Here's another time when a manual would be helpful...

This is the room that we'll use as a living room. I think we'll move out one of the beds to make more space, throw some cushions on the others, and call 'em couches.

The view from the other side of the room, complete with Jed looking creepy. He makes me laugh. I just love him!

Still with me? Now let's head upstairs so you can see the guest room. Hint hint...

This is the biggest room, so it will be for the kids. We can't fit 4 beds in it, so we need to buy some bunk beds. Until then, just the girls will sleep in here.

That white door leads to a shower.

THIS, now THIS is the guest room! Isn't it fantastic? 😉 The boys will sleep in here until we get the bunk beds.

Here's our cute little upstairs bathroom. So itty bitty!

Here's our enclosed balcony. Pretty sweet eh? Right now we're storing empty suitcases here. Yeah, when we brought 12 SUITCASES we didn't really think through what we would do with them after we were done traveling here. Anyone need a spare suitcase? Emma- notice my sweet hanging skills???

Our view during the day...

And now for the armpit of the house…

Our bedroom!!! Yep, we still got some work to do...

Isn't the house SO GREAT??? It's a miracle. It's so clean, plenty big, under our budget, a three minute walk to MTU, and furnished. We are so happy!
When we knew we were going to live in this house we were excited, but I had one worry. I was worried for my kids. There are no parks nearby, and I was so concerned about how we would find friends. Do we just walk around until we hear kids and then head that direction? It was a worry for me, but we really felt like this house was God's gift to us, so we knew He had/has our kids covered.
So, yesterday morning we woke up, looked out our balcony window to check out our view, and you'll never guess what we saw.

A PLAYGROUND!!!

Would you believe they installed a playground right behind our house our first morning here?? INCREDIBLE. We were laughing, and I'm pretty sure I cried. Now THAT is God's gift to my kids, but also a gift to this mommy's heart. Where there is a playground, there will be children. It just goes to show us that God has gone before us and taken care of every single detail.
One of our friend's felt like God showed her that this move to Ukraine would be like Christmas Day for our kids. Like they don't know what they are getting, but that God has great gifts here for them. Well, gift #1 was delivered on our first morning and I am in awe.
It just keeps getting better and better. Saying yes to God is so much fun!!!!!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

How it Went Down

Posted on by kimnjed

We are here! We are here! Holy, moly, the outpouring of support has blown us away. We feel so loved and spoiled! Our friends and family rock. So many Viber messages, so much facebook encouragement, so many emails. Thank you all for loving us so well.

Here's how it went down.

Portland:

We said goodbye to my family and it was p-a-i-n-f-u-l. Picture Addy clinging to the window, sobbing as our family walked away and you'll be able to picture the level of sadness. Our family has so fully released us to this and we know it is hard. I can't imagine how we could even do this if they didn't let us know that they are behind this 100%. Thank you dear fam for letting us go. WE LOVE YOU!

We were feeling rather pathetic, so we hurried off to distract ourselves with a long security line. That line made us want to poke our eyes out, so the other sadness was forgotten for a bit. It felt like all we had ever known was that line and our 4 roller carry-ons + 5 backpacks + 1 guitar. All time stopped and we were lost in the vortex of shoe-taking off, pocket-emptying, luggage-heaving, and luggage-scanning and re-scanning. Did I mention the miracle that we got to check all 12 bags ALL THE WAY to Kiev, and 7 of them were a couple pounds overweight and they made us pay nothing? Oh the cheering that rang out at the American Airlines ticket counter!! Did I also mention that TSA officers have a knack for opening the bags stuffed with loose legos? Yep, they chose the lego bags without fail. Hehe…it was like an explosion of legos every time. Annnnnd it never stopped being funny.

Flight #1

This flight was pretty uneventful. As we were heading down the runway I explained to Havalah that we have to go really fast before we go up in the air. She said “Oh, when we start to drive really fast will our hair blow back?” 🙂


Chicago:

TSA really had a ball with our luggage this time. They must have scanned Ezra's backpack 4 times. I think the nerf gun bullets were the culprit…or maybe the scary shark toy? I guess it will always remain a mystery.

We ate some yummy food, took a train, changed terminals and we were off again!

Flight #2

This was the biggie. We were flying from Chicago to Istanbul and it was a 10 hour doozy. The kids did AWESOME!!!! They really couldn't have done better. We watched movies, ate, and slept. I won't bore you with all the details…

 
Istanbul:

Before we arrived in Istanbul we explained to the kids that when we got off that plane we wouldn't be in America anymore, so they needed to expect things to be different. The first sign of different was when we went through the security check. O.M.G. As Havalah went through the x-ray scanner deal-io the TSA officer (a woman) grabbed Havalah and started smothering her face with kisses. HAHAHA!!! It was so awesome. She was going on and on in Turkish, grabbing, kissing, talking, more kissing. At that point we were certain we weren't in Oregon anymore. Seth got the same smooch treatment and we were on our way. I'm not sure they took note of anything in our bags, they were just too enamored with our kids. I loved every second of it, and Hava and Seth didn't seem to mind it much either. 🙂

Flight #3:

This flight was less than 2 hours long, so I don't have much to say about it. Quick and painless, and before we knew it we were in Kiev! The feelings as we touched down in Ukraine were like nothing I've ever felt before. Jed and I met eyes and were like “Holy cow. We did it. We made it. God did this. After 3 years of dreaming, we are here- with our kids. WOW.”

Kiev:

Once we got down to baggage claim in Kiev we were in good hands. We looked out the glass doors and could see a group of our dear friends from the Kiev Vineyard waiting for us, waving and smiling. YES!!! All we had to do was get our bags from the carousel to the door and then we had many hands hugging us and helping us. Praise God for the Body of Christ. Praise God for family in Kiev. We love them so much!

Want to know the biggest miracle of all? ALL 12 BAGS MADE IT TO KIEV. Jed and I were literally whooping with joy when we grabbed the last bag off the carousel. It was definitely a moment to celebrate. 🙂

Our friends helped us to the van we had hired and we were off on the road to Zhitomir! All the kids except Seth fell asleep on the two hour drive, so that was easy peasy. When we arrived at the house our friend Oleg was waiting with keys to let us right in. He even brought food for breakfast this morning! All our friends here made us feel so loved and welcome. Then we logged online and all our friends from the US were cheering us on like crazy! It's like one ginormous hug fest and we are loving every second of it. Thank you, dear ones, both near and far.

All in all, the travel couldn't have been more perfect. Tomorrow I'll show you pictures of the house, so stay tuned! Woot! 😉

We are so unbelievable thankful that God has brought us this far. He has covered every single detail. It just goes to show you that the children we've come to serve are so stinkin' dear to His heart. He will stop at nothing to have His way. He will stop at nothing to bring light into darkness. All of this is for His glory. He continues to pave the way and we simply can not wait to see what He has in store next. He is changing the atmosphere and softening hearts. He is opening eyes and we are humbled to be His hands and feet in this place.

To God be ALL the glory for the great, amazing, fantastic, unbelievably good things He has done.

 

Today We Fly

Posted on by kimnjed

And we're off! Thank you dear family and friends for showering us with love these past few days/years. 🙂

 

We have been drowned in love and we leave with full hearts knowing that we have been fully released to our destiny. We go “fully loved, and fully free to love.”

 

We can't really comprehend that this is really happening, or what this really means, but we know that God goes before us and His plans are gonna rock.

 

Bye for now! So many hugs and so much love to family and friends. We LOVE YOU!!!!!

 

Happenings and About-to-be-Happenings

Posted on by kimnjed

Next week we fly away!

 

Next week the new adventure begins!

 

Seven days to go and we're feeling gooooood.

 

Today we went to Portland and finished up the last of our shopping. Oh man, we rocked it! Jed got shoes, Addy got shoes, I got jeans, Jed got jeans…we were knocking things off the checklist like beasts. It was awesome. I think the only things left to buy are a brown belt for Jed and some good walking shoes for me. We won't have a car in Ukraine, so our current shoes won't really cut it. We'll be walking A LOT. I finally resigned myself to the fact that I'll need to spend more than $20 on a pair of shoes for them to last in U. 🙂

 

We had the best weekend. Our dear, dear friend Cody came to visit us this weekend from Florida. Cody and I were friends in college, and then after we graduated she moved to Oregon to live with me. Cody was there when Jed and Kim became Jed and Kim. 🙂 In fact, it's a little known fact that Cody was the catalyst in the whole making of Jed and Kim. Back in those days Jed was in love with me and I wasn't so sure…hehe. Then Cody came along and helped me realize what a catch I had right in front of me. So…I guess we owe a whole lot to our Cody. Cody was the first one I screamed with after Jed proposed, she was in our wedding, she was there when Addy was born…it only makes sense that Cody would have to be a part of this ginormous life event we're in the middle of right now!

 

Boy did we need some Cody in our lives this weekend!! Jed and I were feeling rather burned out on packing/item-deliberating/stuff-decision-making. We're so sick of looking and relooking at our stuff! Cody came along and gave us just the right amount of bossiness and energy to get 'er done! 🙂 On Sunday my friend Angie, Cody and I layed out ALL OUR STUFF and ALL OUR SUITCASES and packed, packed, packed. It.was.awesome. Not only was this weekend super productive, but it was super refreshing and life-giving. I didn't realize how much I was missing my friend. Having Cody here was like a weekend-long hug/bowl of ice cream. Comforting to the extreme. Great, now I'm making myself cry. Grrrr. Anyway, thank you Cody for being such a sister to me. I love you and I miss you already. Come baaaaaaaaack!!!!!

 

Welp, now I got all emotional and lost my train of thought.

 

As we tackle the next few days left here in Oregon I just want to savor friends and family. I want to drink in everyone. I want to make sure we get to say goodbye to as many people as we can, so if you're reading this and you want to make sure you get in a goodbye just give us a call! You aren't a bother. We have a lot to do, but nothing is more important than making time for the ones we love.