Romaniv | Wide Awake Family

On Walking, Smelling, and Celebrity Sighting

Posted on April 24, 2014 by kimnjed

Today was so full! Full of funny moments, full of awholelotta walking, and full of joy.

Here’s just a few moments of note.

1. Addy and Ezra’s class went on a trip to the local puppet theater today. We found out just yesterday that kids who wanted to, could go today. I wondered why we always find these things out at the very last moment. Then…aha! I discovered an announcement board outside their classroom! Yes, I know, it’s been there all along…but when all you see everyday is walls filled with things you don’t understand, it’s hard to know what to pay attention to and really try to decipher, and what isn’t worth your time. I don’t often have the desire to stand in the school halls with Google Translate at my side, so I usually go with the “if it’s really important they’ll tell me” route. No more! I will now be vigilantly watching for new notes on the announcement board. No more surprise field trips for the Johnson fam! We will now be well-informed members of society. (Here’s to hoping at least)

The wonders you can find on this “Announcement Board”! Look, a spelling word list! Hmmmm I wonder how many of these we’ve missed. Oops.

2. When I dropped the kids at school this morning their teacher asked me if I wanted to come along on the field trip. Sure, why not? She mentioned it was quite a long walk, but if I thought the Littles would be up for it they could come too. Well, Jed was in Kyiv today, so if I wanted to be there then the Littles would have to buck up and and hike along with us.

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I gave Hava and Seth a pep talk about being strong, not crying and whining when we go on the long walk….blah blah blah…”If we whine and cry then Teacher probably won’t invite us on another trip, right?”

I’m happy to report that they did great on the walk. 🙂 It was about a mile walk from the school to the theater. It was HILARIOUS to be a fly on the wall with Addy’s and Ez’s class. It’s also funny to learn all the in’s and out’s of school here. Like, for field trips, there’s no permission slips, no planning what parents will drive, no parents at all! Their brave teacher just confidently lined up boys in one line and girls in another, and headed out on the walk with all of her students. Along busy streets, across crosswalks, she walked in the front, trusting the kids would follow. When school classes cross streets they hold up a red flag so cars will stop. One kid in the front of the line holds a flag, a kid at the back of the line holds a flag, and the teacher holds a flag. When crossing a street she just walks on out there, risking life and limb 😉 and stands in the middle of the street for her class to cross. They do this every day when they walk from one building to another for lunch. Today I got to see it in action. I tell ya, that teacher is one brave woman. One woman, taking a whole class on a mile walk through town to a field trip and back. She totally rocks it. I wasn’t a ton of help since I had Havalah and Seth, but I tried to keep the stragglers from straggling too far behind.

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3. I’m a “smeller”. Smell means a lot to me. How things smell really matters, I can’t overlook a bad smell with much grace at all. It’s a struggle. But, being a “smeller” can also bring a lot of joy! Good smells make me so happy! Anyway, I do have purpose for telling you that. While walking back to the school today I had such a strange moment. I smelled a very beloved smell. I smelled “Mission Trip” smell.

All throughout my teen years I went on mission trips. I traveled all over the world during high school and college. God put the world in my heart and I just had to go. There’s a certain smell I remember from mission trips that I’ve never smelled in the US. It’s a smell you smell when you’re walking on a city street. I don’t know what all it entails, but it’s a mixture of gasoline, tires, foreign food cooking…and I don’t know what else. I love that smell. To me, that smell means Jesus. It means being Jesus to the people He’s called you to. It means going out of your comfort zone and giving your all for His sake. It means loving people that you don’t understand and doing things you don’t understand, simply because Jesus said to, and it is what you were created for.

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Today I smelled that smell. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I looked around and saw my children walking ahead of me in a line with their class. I heard the buzzing of Ukrainian/Russian swirling around my ears. For a moment I thought “Oh my word. This is really happening. This is my life. I CAN’T EVEN BELIEVE THIS.” I was overcome with thankfulness, and completely humbled. All my life I dreamed of this and now it’s happening. May I never, ever forget what a joy it is to serve Christ in this way. The last couple weeks have been hard for me, personally. My heart needed that smell to remember it’s purpose. 🙂

4. Jed got to spend the day in Kyiv with some boys from Romaniv! MTU took some of the highest functioning boys to see a dolphin show. Jed got to go along and he had a great time. I’ll let him tell you about that at another time. I just have to share a sweet moment that happened on their way home.

Jed texted me as I was cooking dinner and let me know the boys’ bus was stopping at MTU on the way back to Romaniv so the boys could use the bathroom and volunteers could go home. He asked if I wanted to come say hi. YES YES YES!!!!! I hurried the kids to put on their shoes, paused on the dinner-making, and flew out the door.

On their way to the Dolphins!

Oh.My.Word. Dream come true. Watching my own kiddos meet some our “Our Boys” was so, so sweet. They Boys were so curious and kind. They attempted the kids’ names and shook all their hands. Valera, our “helper” (highest functioning boy) in the Isolation Room was there and I was so happy for the kids to meet him!!! We talk about him all the time. I feel like “The Boys” have been like some big mystery to our kids. Now they have faces for some of the names. Now they see they are real people. Ezra and Havalah were pretty shy. Seth was curious. Addy was smitten. Her eyes were glowing. It was like a celebrity sighting! As soon as we walked out of the building to head home she said “Mom! When do I get to start helping at Romaniv???” Soon I hope. 🙂

McDonalds in Kyiv, complete with balloons!

So, that was today. There were other small funny moments too, like when I walked in to gymnastics to pick up Addy and one mom that I see all the time finally blurted out “Why did you come to Zhytomyr??” Hahaha! Like it’s been bugging her all this time and she finally just had to ask. Hilarious. Or when the kids were getting ready for bed and Hava and Seth tricked me. They acted like they had their jammies on, but then on the count of 3 pulled back their covers to nakey little bodies. Oh they laughed so hard! Meanwhile Addy died laughing as Ezra screamed over and over at the top of his lungs, “Слава Україні! Слава Україні!” (“Glory to Ukraine! Glory to Ukraine!”)

Is this life for real?

Yesterday

Posted on April 5, 2014 by kimnjed

Today I’m glowing. I’m basking in yesterday. Today was a great day, don’t get me wrong, but part of the reason today was so good is because yesterday was simply superb. It was a day of absolute beauty. All day I felt God’s smile. Lovely.

The day started out normal enough with Christina and I heading to Romaniv with the rest of the crew. But Romaniv. Oh Romaniv. We had the BEST time. Yesterday was hands down my favorite day at Romaniv yet. No comparison. It’s hard to say just what made it so special. I think part of the goodness was that we are simply getting to know the boys more. We are there consistently and it’s beginning to pay off bit by bit. We know them all by name, some who are able can recognize us. We are starting to get in to a bit of a rhythm with our little team. We are learning some of the specific needs of each of the boys and when we are able, we meet those needs.

The path to some of the best boys on earth

I had the most beautiful moment with one of the boys, Vova. I’m supposed to save this for our series about Romaniv but I can’t hold it in. You can read about it twice. 🙂 So Nina brought bubbles yesterday. That’s the first time we’ve attempted bubbles with the boys. It was AWESOME!!!! A few of them loved it!!! Total success. Anyway, after playing with bubbles for a bit I decided to take one of the bottles of bubbles and go to the bedrooms to see if some of the boys who don’t come to play would enjoy them at all. I went in to the first room and found one boy asleep on the floor, one boy asleep on the bed, and Vova sitting in his bed rocking back and forth. He was self stimulating, banging his hand on his leg repeatedly as he rocked. I said his name and knelt on the floor below him. Slowly I started blowing a couple bubbles. Instantly he stopped stimming (self-stimulating). He sat still for a moment and I blew a couple more bubbles. He remained still and quiet so I kept on blowing, quietly and slowly, more and more bubbles. Then, after a minute or so Vova slowly reached his hand up and started popping bubbles on by one. He popped some in the air, a couple on his leg, on his bed. He noticed the small wet spot left by a popped bubble and rubbed it with his finger. I spoke softly to him a bit, but was mostly just quiet as we played with the bubbles for a while. After several minutes of fascination with the bubbles he lifted his head and looked in my eyes. He looked at me, and just kept on looking. Melt my heart and make it burst all at once!!! I’ve never had eye contact like this with Vova before. He is normally distant and doesn’t participate at all in our time on Fridays. Then there we were, at his bed, looking at each other. I swear to you he almost smiled. It was magical. I felt the smile of God and His presence so strongly in that moment. I don’t even have words to describe it. Tears were running down my face as we looked at each other. Then Vova looked away and I resumed blowing bubbles.

In that moment of connection I saw Vova in a different light. Normally I think of him almost as an old man. He walks unsteadily, legs bent at odd angles, not interacting with anyone. He often shrugs away from touch. I don’t know if he is verbal at all. Head shaved and nondescript face, but not yesterday. I saw him as a young man yesterday. I feel almost like I had the tiniest glimpse of how God sees Him. He was beautiful and valuable and precious. I will never ever forget that time. It fills my heart with hope for what God has in store.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11

That verse is for Vova. That verse is for Misha. That verse is for Bogdan and Vladik and Valera and Zhenya. And because we believe that to be true, we have hope.

I got back home from Romaniv, and as I walked around the corner to our house I saw the kids talking to our neighbor!! Our neighbors are like total mystery people. We doubted their existence, so rare were the signs of life coming from their home. Our building is actually made up of 6 “apartments”. It’s hard to explain and hard to even tell where the different apartments start and end. Well, finally I met one of our neighbors! Not only that, but she was nice! And she has a 2-year old! Seth and little Vitaliy played trains while we two Mommies attempted conversation. We managed to visit for an hour!! OMG. HUGE breakthrough! I could have burst I was so happy to have a neighbor connection with an actual human. Woot! Thank you Jesus and thank you Google Translate.

Getting our crazies out before going in to the theater

Then to wrap up the most fantastic day ever, the kids and I (Jed was in Kyiv) went to a concert at our local theater with some friends. We listened to a local Acapella choir that is famous throughout Ukraine. It was absolute heaven. They were beautiful. I can hardly wait till their next tour. You guys, it was such a treat. They sang old traditional Ukrainian songs, songs in Latin, a fun song in English about springtime love, and even an old spiritual that I sang in high school choir! Now that was a kick. During the English song Ezra leaned over and said “Mom, this sounds a lot like English!” “Yes, that’s because it IS English my boy.” Haha! They sang a tribute song to “Heavens Hundred”, the people who died on Maidan in February- ordinary people who gave all so their country could have a future. Everyone stood while they sang, many people were crying. It was a moment I’ll not soon forget. The spirit of the Ukrainian people is astounding. In the midst of occupation and threat of invasion at our borders, they steal away on a Friday night to partake of beauty and honor their heroes. At the end of the concert the singers and the audience cheered “СЛАВА УКРАЇНІ!” (“Glory to Ukraine!”) You could see the pride in their eyes.

So there you have it; my yesterday. My heart is full.

Here is a video tribute to the Heavenly Hundred. The song in this video is the song we heard sung last night. May God bless Ukraine and may their deaths never be in vain.

Our Boys: Gathering Time, Part 2

Posted on April 4, 2014 by kimnjed

Yay for Friday!!!

You can find the next installment of our posts on Fridays at Romaniv over at the Wide Awake International blog right here: http://wideawakeinternational.org/blog/2014/4/2/our-boys

I’m really excited for you all to read about what happens at Romaniv on Fridays. I just returned home from there a couple of hours ago and had the sweetest time. I feel like God is moving there and we are really able to connect with some of the boys in a way we haven’t been able to before. It’s so cool.

And, since you came all this way to take a peek at our little old blog, here’s a few pictures of our week to reward you for your efforts.

Have a super weekend!

Girls love a good mohawk

Preschool at MTU 🙂

Honing our Ukrainian braiding skillz

Havalah, aka “Rock and Roll Girl”

Ez is so handsome in his school uniform!

Our Boys: All of Our Boys, Part 1

Posted on April 2, 2014 by kimnjed

Hey there!

Every month we send out an email newsletter and for this month’s newsletter Jed asked me to write about what a Friday looks like at Romaniv orphanage. Welp, I started writing, and approximately 2700 words later I had a post. Ahem….2700 words might be a tad long for an email newsletter. 2700 words is also far too long for a blog post. So, we decided to make it a series!

You can head over to the official Wide Awake website to read the first installment. I was going to post it here, but then that would involve lots of cutting and pasting and formatting and I just don’t have it in me. Dinner won’t make itself ya know! 😉

Follow this link to give it a read if you like: http://wideawakeinternational.org/blog/2014/3/30/our-boys-all-of-our-boys

We’ll probably be posting the second installment tonight, so I’ll make sure to post the link here when it’s up.

Happy reading my friends!

The First Month: The Hard and the Awesome

Posted on December 13, 2013 by kimnjed

One month ago from almost this exact moment we touched down in Ukraine. One month ago all 6 of us + 12 suitcases + 8 carry-ons + 1 guitar touched down in our new home. Has it only been one month??? It feels more like one year! Not in a bad way, but in a really strange way it feels like we’ve been here a whole heckofalot longer. I guess kids do that to you; they make you settle in real quick like. 🙂 Our new reality set in fairly fast and we’ve been on a ginormous learning curve ever since.

This is my take on the past month. Jed doesn’t do much blogging here (ahem…) so these are my thoughts. He’d give you a different perspective, and it would probably be more profound, but I’ll share mine just for the fun of it.

The Hard Things:

Language.

Duh. Yeah, at this exact moment Russian is my enemy, my worst nightmare, my insurmountable mountain. Russian is stinkin’ hard y’all.

But, we actually have picked up quite a bit, and when we remind ourselves we’ve only been here for one month we start to feel a little better about our progress.

Everything’s labeled…

Still, Russian hates me. Holy moly. My brain hurts just thinking about it.

Shopping.

Shopping is an interesting beast. The hard part isn’t finding delicious foods. Ukraine has loads of deliciousness available! The hard parts are prices (WAY TOO EXPENSIVE) and lack of car. These things aren’t impossible, just a little harder than in the US. I’m learning to cook like a Ukrainian in order to be able to afford groceries. Cooking like an American just doesn’t cut it here. The foods that would be frugal back in Oregon aren’t really frugal here, for the most part. Lucky for us we all love Ukrainian food! I just need to find out how to cook more of it so we can have a bit of variety in our lives.

The store we walk to most often

We use public transportation all the time, since we don’t have a car. It’s pretty sweet that we live super close to a really busy bus stop. We can easily catch a bus whenever we want one. So, that’s no biggie, except when we want to do “big shopping”. “Big shopping” doesn’t mean Costco Big, it just means we need to buy for more than just today. Like last night for instance, we needed to buy diapers, pull-ups, and some stuff for the house, along with our normal purchases (cabbage, potatoes, beets, carrots, sour cream, milk, coffee, butter, and flour). That’s all fine and dandy…but how are we gonna get it all home??? Oh that’s right…we’re gonna carry it! Ha! So, basically we can only buy what we can carry, and when you factor in slippery sidewalks, kids bundled to the nines, dark at 4:30pm, a bus ride, and little hands that need to be held, you realize you really can’t buy all that much. Jed and I are shopping and debating what’s too heavy and what we can handle. “Sure, we can buy those mandarins, they aren’t too heavy. Oooooh no, we can’t get eggs…there’s no way we’re making it home with those babies still intact!”

On the bus with my sweetie after shopping last night

It’s an often hilarious, and an unexpected hard thing. Big time learning curve there. (And I didn’t even mention label-reading. Forget about it!)

Time Management.

Up to this point we’ve pretty much been in survival mode. Not in a bad way, it’s just reality. Schedules and time management have been a work in progress.

Starting a non-profit from scratch is a lot like starting a new business. We have to account for expenditures, thank our givers, get the word out, stay accountable to our Board, seek God for direction and vision, all while living in a world where every.single.thing is new.

It’s easy to get focused on just living every day and get backlogged on Wide Awake “stuff”. That’s been a hard one that we are far from mastering, but we’re plugging away at it. Again, let’s remind ourselves that we’ve only been here one month, mmmmk?? 🙂

The Awesome Things:

Walking.

I know, earlier I said not having a car is hard, but it’s really only hard when we go “Big Shopping”. Otherwise, I can honestly say that I’m enjoying walking everywhere. It’s so beautiful!!! We have to shop a bit almost every day (that’s the way it works here with a fam of 6), and I love our daily jaunts to the store.

On the way to the store

Usually just Jed or I will head out in the afternoon with a kid or two and pick up the few things we need for that evening’s dinner and the next day’s breakfast. I love walking down the street in the fresh air, holding on to Addy’s hand just enjoying being with her. No radio blaring, no traffic to navigate, just me and my girl or sometimes my boy, walking down the street to our corner market. It’s precious. We’re learning labels together, learning what stores we like for what items, stretching our legs, breathing in fresh air, feeling the sun (wishful thinking) on our faces. I like it a lot.

New Friends.

Duh. This one is HUGE. We have some wonderful friends here in Zhitomir. Thank you Jesus!!! Our friends Oleg and Tanya have been so good to us. They’ve ordered water for us for home delivery, helped me buy boots for my frozen Oregonian feet, taken us for coffee, celebrated a birthday and Thanksgiving with us, calmed my nerves when I heard unexpected fireworks and Jed was gone for the weekend (I was a wee bit nervous…), told us which brands of food are better, translated for us with our landlady, translated for us with our neighbors when we got the unfortunate “don’t flush the toilet paper” news hehe, helped us figure out our address, called taxis…and on and on and on. They’ve pretty much saved our bacon way too many times already. They probably feel like it’s been a heckofalot longer than one month too!! 😉

(Insert cute pic of friends…apparently we’re too busy drinking coffee and such for pics. Will remedy soon!!)

Mission to Ukraine friends have been AMAZING too. From the moment we walked in their doors on November 14th we’ve felt so incredibly welcome. They are excited to have us and we are so excited to have them!!! The MTU staff puts up with our blundering Russian with such grace. Bless their hearts!! They invite us to church, find lawyers to help us with our visas, feed our kids cake, hug us and kiss our cheeks, and on and on. One special family from MTU (mom and daughter both work there) has especially taken us under their wing. I feel like they are God’s special precious gift to us. Sigh, God is just too good. And that’s just the Zhitomir friends! Don’t even get me started on the treasures He’s given us in Kiev…

Romaniv.

Oh my precious Romaniv! I was there again today and I am in love. Last week Jed and Nina, the AMAZING volunteer from Zhitomir that comes each week to the isolation room, discussed implementing more structure for the time we spend in the isolation room. Today Nina and I followed the plan the best we could and the boys responded immediately. Our time was so much more peaceful than the last time I was there! At one point we were feeding the boys bananas and Nina and I looked at each other in disbelief. It was SILENT in the room. The boys, for that moment, were content and quiet. It was such a moment of hope. God gave us all a bit of wisdom and then He blessed it. The boys responded fabulously and I can’t wait to see how they do after the structure is implemented week after week. Yay!!!!

On the road to Romaniv

Those boys have our hearts, big time.

Nina helping wash hands 🙂

Today I got to hold Andrei, one of the most active boys, on my lap for a bit. I figured out if I tied a long piece of cloth to a plastic slinky it would catch his attention and he would sit still for a moment. He let me hold him, rub his head, and hum into his ear for almost 10 minutes while he bounced the slinky up and down, up and down. Wow. That may not seem like much, but for a boy who never ever stops- always stimming, always shrieking, always running- this was big. For a moment he was at peace. For a moment his brain was developing a little further up the brainstem. For a moment prayers were whispered in his ear. Magical.

There’s so much more I could share. So many memories made, so many funny and embarrassing stories…it’s rather humiliating to live here, FYI. We make fools of ourselves all the time, everywhere. 🙂

Off to go make some embarrassing Russian blunders!

Just know that life is good, very good. It’s not all sunshine and roses and some days we struggle, but we have not one speck of doubt that we are exactly where God wants us to be. Things are quite crazy in Ukraine right now. We have no idea how it will all play out with the current government and the wishes of the people. Ukraine is at a very critical point in it’s history and we are here for such a time as this. It’s no surprise to God that we arrived right at the birth of a revolution. Who knows why…only God. But we do know that there is purpose in it and we don’t plan on missing out on that purpose.

Would you pray with us for Ukraine? This place and these people have grabbed our hearts. We’ve only made Ukraine our home for a short month, but we are all in. These are our people. Please pray that God has His way in Ukraine and that His Kingdom will come here and now. Pray that many, many hearts are turned toward Him during this unstable time.

Thank you friends! Thank you for your love and encouragement this first month. It has been awesome to journey with you!

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