Nothing Can Come Between a Girl and Her Router!

"I see you have a router! I have one too!

They're very manly and tough!"

"Ask not what YOU can do for your router, but what can your router do for YOU!"

I tried!

I have tried multiple times to upload pictures and all it gives me is security errors! Its either a problem with the thumb drive, or I am just computer illiterate! Maybe both, I don't know! :P Soooo, I'll just fill you in on the happenings here instead! Honestly, there has been so much going on I don't even know where to start!

BUILDING PROGRESS:
The building is coming along rather quickly now. There is still a lot to do and we won't be even close to finished, but progress is indeed being made! Last week we finished putting the church pews together and put a coat of lock on. They still need to be sanded again and another coat of lock put on, but that probably won't happen until we leave. We have laid particle board down on the floors to get it ready for vinyl (if thats spelled wrong, I blame Jordan ;). Dan made a pulpit last week and needs to put a few finishing touches on it. We have also started to make trim for the windows. They need to have a coat of lock put on. So I think the focus this coming week will be getting the flooring laid and putting trim up. The basement is still in need of a lot of work (walls finished, drywall, joints taped, power run, etc).

NEW FRIENDS AND OTHER ISSUES:
Dan has been getting massages for back issues (did I tell you that already?) and the woman he's been going to happens to be one of the people who were driven out of the church for their belief in eternal security. Her name is Irrenna. She and her husband, Igor, have been talking to Dan for a few weeks and she has gotten involved in helping with the game nights on Friday nights and wants to be involved with the youth summer camps. She is a wonderful woman :)
Another set of new friends are also some who were kicked out of membership in the church (although they can still attend, they cannot participate in services). Their names are Jennyia and Veeca. They have two very sweet little girls, Margarita and I cannot for the life of me remember the others name! They have been incredibly hospitable with us since we met them. They have us over for meals, they come and help us at the church with work, and they come to the game nights to be involved.

Veeca is also a massage therypist (sp?).  She discovered that I am having back issues (such as having much difficulty straightening up after working all day and having a bit of trouble moving around in general) and offered to work on it for me. Now, you would assume that a massage would be relaxing, yes? Well, she got my spine and ribs somewhat straightened out alright! I think their idea of massage is more like a chiropractor. After one of my massages, I asked Jordan to see if there was a little bit of a bruise on my shoulder blades because they were kind of sore. I was shocked to discover the whole top part of my back was very bruised indeed! I found it pretty humerous because that was the last thing I expected from a massage! :) But she assured me it was normal since my spine and ribs were so very out of place :)

My mama finally got here on Saturday afternoon! I'm SOOOOOOOOO glad to have her here! :) Every girl needs her mama :) We hit up the Sunday bizzare this morning, and thats exactly what it was! Almost everything you could imagine was being sold there: clothing, tools, car parts, cleaning supplies, furniture, toys, trees, seeds, produce, milk, eggs, chicken and pigs and rabbits (both dead AND alive), breads, candy, pasteries, etc, etc, etc. QUITE the experience! SADLY, the rest of our Sunday was ALSO quite an experience, but not a good one!

THE BIG ISSUE:
This morning, the church blew up. Not the building, the people! Its really a lot to explain and I don't know if I'm the best person TO explain because, #1 I don't speak their language, and #2 I have not been around the church and the people long enough to know every side of the story. But I will try to give you a general idea. The Ukrainian Baptist Union took it upon themselves to ordain a pastor for the church. They chose the current "leader" of the church, Yulie, who is a fairly new believer and very little experience teaching the Bible. There was a lot of yelling, arguing, and accusations flying every which way. I HAVE NEVER WITNESSED SUCH A SCENE IN MY LIFE!  Jordan, Mom, and I were praying. After a while, Jordan and Mom went to look after the kids. I stayed to give support to some of them women I have gotten to know, hugging them while they cried, weeping with them at this scene of a church seemingly disintegrating before my very eyes, and praying like crazy. I didn't even know what to pray exactly. The only words I could find in my prayers were for God to do battle for the hearts of the people and for Satan to be defeated today. The Union leaders finally left and the issues are unresolved. All I can say is it that it broke my heart for these people!
Please be praying for the church here. Only God knows what will happen and He is ultimately in control!

For Christ and His glory,
Lindsey Kae

A Typical Lunch Time Meal

Here is a typical lunch time for us :)

 Borsht-Beets, cabbage, tomato, chicken, and various other

vegitables.

Meetballs and Mashed Potatoes

Food Art, courtesy of Jordan :)

All in all, we haven't come across anything terribly odd or inedible :)

Our Treasures from Afar: When a Birthday Isn't So Happy

Our Treasures from Afar: When a Birthday Isn't So Happy: "For most children, birthdays are looked forward to with great anticipation. My kids start bugging me daily--sometimes hourly--weeks in adva..."

Know anyone who might be willing? Our family can't until we've had Levi a full year and that leaves only a month to get her home. Though nothing is impossible with God, I have never heard of an adoption process going that quick!
ANYWAYS, pray for her if she comes to your mind! There must be SOMEONE who has a place in their hearts and home!

It's Official!!!

The votes are in and it is officially official! I am indeed the worlds WORST blogger! :P There's just so much to do and with limited internet time, blogging is not always high on my list! Sorry :/

Pictures will have to wait untill we get home (although I might be able to post 1 or 2). The connection here is so slow it takes forever to upload and we only have one computer to get online with and 3 users, so my time here is very limited!

Anyways....catch up....
LAST week we did indeed get all the joints taped, the texture sprayed, and the walls and ceiling painted in all of the appartment except for the bedrooms and master bath. Those will be done (Lord willing!) by tomorrow or Thursday. Since we have 5 people here working, only two are on that particular project now. Dan is bouncing between tasks, and Jordan and I have our own  project this week. Finishing the church pews!

They had the benches all put together and have been using them for some time now, but we are working on putting the finishing touches on them....which is QUITE a task! We have taken all of the benches apart and are currently working on rounding off the sharp edges with my new favorite power tool, the router (I think thats how you spell it :P Its in Ukrainian on the package, so I'm just guessing!), after which we use the belt sander and the orbital sander (My "man language" vocabulary is expanding! :D)! I'm having fun with this process, but it is very hard on my back, leaning over a table all day!
Anyways, we are still working on getting power to the building, but we did get running water hooked up today :) Thats pretty exciting for us :)

In other news, we bought a couple bikes last week to get us around while we're here. After we leave we will give them to Volodia and Luda, the couple living in the Annex. I think it will be a nice gift for them :)

ALSO, the cold snap seems to be over! Its been in the 40's and 50's for the last week! Very nice compared to -10! :)

Prayer wise, Tanya is back in the hospital. This time she is in Kiev. The hospital here in Barishivka set her arm wrong, so they have to rebreak it and then set it properly. She is pretty discouraged!
Also, the previous pastor, Vascilli (he resigned to take care of his family), has broken his leg pretty seriously. He is also in the hospital in Kiev.
Which brings me to my NEXT prayer request, the church here could greatly use some prayer! They are really struggling with legalism here (and I think thats a common theme in Russia and Ukraine). A lot of people are stuck on things like women wearing scarves to cover there hair in church, not wearing makeup, and silly things like that. They are also dealing with doctorine issues, fighting about eternal security vs. losing your salvation in specific. The Russian Orthodox church believes in losing your salvation (I happen to be on the OTHER side of the fence) and it flows over into the other churches. Part of the reason Vascilli left was because one of his children died and some church members said it was because he preaches eternal security and are saying that is the reason he has broken his leg as well. I don't care which side of the issue you're on, that is just wrong! And it has driven his wife away from church. Things like this are really tearing apart the church here. There's so much gossip being passed around and arguments over this and that. So ALL THAT TO SAY....please pray for the church here! They're working on appointing a pastor, so hopefully that will unite them and get them going in positive direction!

Thanks so much for your support!

For Christ and His glory,
Lindsey Kae

All in a Weeks Work!

Ok, well for some reason, we are having difficulty uploading pictures, but we shall post them as soon as possible! :) In the mean time, I'll give a quick update on what we've accomplished so far!

We have the entire building insulated (some parts that were done before we got here had TOO much insulation stuffed in them, so we had to take some of it out. The people here assume that more is always better!), the upstairs is all sheetrocked, some of the basement has sheetrock, but we have run out and will have to order more.

Upstairs, we textured and painted the auditorium and are in process of hanging new lights. After the lights, it will need flooring and trim and thats it! The two upstairs bathrooms are almost complete. We learned to skip trowel (sp?) the walls, which was very time consuming and rather difficult, but lots of fun! They are painted and have drains run for the toilets and sinks. Still have to run water TO the bathrooms and they both need trim and flooring.

In the apartment, we are working on finishing taping and mudding the joints! Thats been a lot of fun to learn :) We will be texturing the entryway, the hall, livingroom, diningroom and kitchen this coming week and HOPEFULLY have it all painted by the end of the week, but we shall see! :) Its very encouraging to SEE the progress being made!

The building will be getting its own power meter soon. If you could be praying for speed on getting power to the building, we are currently running off of power from the annex, and constantly are overloading the breaker! It would be very helpful to get the building on its own power!

Other than that, you can be praying for health! We all seem to be passing around the flu bug, and Dan is having a lot of chest pain because his spine is out of place (or something to that effect!). He's been getting massages daily which seems to be helping a lot, but your prayers would be greatly appreciated!

An update on Tanya, the woman in the car accident....she is doing well. She is healing quite nicely and is actually getting a much needed break from working!

-For Christ and His glory,
Lindsey Kae

A Small Taste of Home!

It's the little things that brighten my days :) One of the girls in the church heard that I like to play guitar and brought me hers to play while I am here :)

I feel verry blessed :)

There's nothing quite like playing a little guitar after a hard days work! :)

Just for you, Mama!

'

You may not fully appreciate these pictures, but they're mostly to make my Mama smile! :)

We miss you Mom and can't wait for you to get here!

<3 Lindsey Kae and JP

Prayer Request

There is a very sweet and very hard working woman in the church named Tanya. She has been so kind and wonderful to us and does so much for the church! She is an AWANA leader, helps clean the church, and cooks for us and for church events.
She was in a car accident recently and it tore up her hand pretty badly! She had surgery already but will need more after she is out of her cast! We went to visit her in the hospital this evening after AWANA was finished and she is in good spirits. She and her daughter Lena lead the rest of the children in some worship songs in Russian, then asked Jordan and I to sing for her. We sang Blessed Assurance, since we knew that they were familiar with it in Russian.

If you could be praying both for her healing and pain, I know she would appreciate it!
Thanks so much!

For Christ and His glory,
Lindsey Kae

Anya

This is Anya. She has been my shadow since I first met her at AWANA. It doesn't seem to matter that I don't understand her language, she chatters away to me anyways :) Its been fun trying to communicate with her. We discovered that there are several universal languages we can communicate through:

1. Playing with hair. Since I have long(ish) hair, she sometimes spends an hour brushing and braiding and pinning my hair! Must be a girl thing :)

2. UNO! Every chance we get, she wants to play UNO! Last Sunday, we spent all afternoon doing just that!

3. Passing notes and doodling in church. I know this probably isn't a habbit I should encourage, but I'm a sucker for little kids and can't talk to this one in words, so I use any opportunity that presents itself! We exchanged notebooks and drew hearts and butterflies and such. Then she wrote questions, passed it back to a Lena, who is learning English, to translate, and we talked a little that way :)

I'm attempting to learn a little bit of Russian, but I just can't retain it very well! Its a very complex language, and Mr. Pollard was saying that what we can say in 2-3 sentances in English, it takes them 5 minutes to explain! But for Anya, I am trying!
-For Christ and His glory,
Lindsey Kae

2 Weeks Down

Jordan started his week off right, with a little bit of flu! :P

Couldn't keep much down all night, and slept (or rested) all day on Monday. We offered to let him sleep the day away in the annex (which is just a little appartment/garage in back of the church) but he prefered to listen to the hammers going all day. At the end of the day when I was quietly playing guitar, he snapped at me about causing the "headache bees" to buzz in his head. Well,  I just figured he gave up the right to silence when he chose to be in there while we were working all day! *Sigh*

He hardly moved all day! Almost same possition exactly :)

This is the annex. We stayed the first week here while we made the

church livable.

This will be the kitchen of the Pollards appartment in the church....

As you can see, it needs a little work :)

This is Jordans little corner of the world. While he was sick,

I let him use my bed because its a bit more comfortable.

And this is Mr. Pollard's corner of the world!

This is the bathroom....another "needs work" area.

I finished drywalling it Tuesday afternoon. This coming week we will be taping and texturing in here.

Its really hard to take a bath in here....It doesn't hold water well :)

DRAT!!! I have beheaded yet another nail! SOMEDAY

 I will get the hang of this! Jordan and I affectionately call these "Bloody Marys"

Lights sure don't do much good on the floor!!!

We did get them hung and all the wiring is done upstairs, so they are now in working order!

This is Stanley! He's my partner in crime!

As I am learning to hang drywall, I am discovering some techniques that are helpful! So far the MOST helpful is using a hammer that is not too heavy for you and fits your hand! The hammer I used the first couple times is a "man hammer"....you know, one of those really heavy, beefy ones with the ginormouse wooden handle? Stanley and I make a MUCH better team (although I still cant nail in a straight line to save my life!!!)!

Mr. Pollard, hard at work :)

 I must say we've been failing on taking pictures overall. We get so busy working and doing things that we just dont get the camera out, but we will try to do better this coming week! :)

Thanks for your prayers!

-For Christ and His glory,

Lindsey Kae 

Disclaimer!

I'm going to be playing catch-up for the next day or so! We just now got the internet hooked up and working here, so the posts from today and probably the next few days will be the "Reader's Digeset" version, as my dad likes to say :) After I'm up to date, I'll try to give a little more detail!

ALSO, if you find a lot of spelling errors, I'm sorry! But the computer is expecting me to be writing in Russian and not English, so according to that, EVERYthing is spelled wrong!

Thanks for your patince!

For Christ and His glory,
Lindsey Kae

February 19: Saturday!

Saturday! Saturdays are good days :) I like them a lot! Its your chance to breath!

This Saturday, we walked to the market to buy some groceries. We get lunch brought to us by some of the wonderful women from the church every day, but still need a few things for breakfast!

We did take our cameras with us on this little excursion, however, it just felt so touristy to take them out and use them! :P BUT, we shall get some pictures of the market eventually! Its pretty interesting :) They have quite a selection of things: LOTS of alcohaul, fish and other meats, cheese, eggs, cereals, and most importantly, CHOCOLATE! These are a chocolate loving people! :) And for that I'm very grateful :) Their meals are served in courses. First is a soup. Second is mashed potatoes and some kind of topping, or rice. Third is Chai (or tea. Probably spelled different in Russian, but as I don't speak Russian, I won't even attempt to spell in Russian!). And for tea time, they have baked goods and CHOCOLATE!

Anyways, enough about chocolate :)

At the end of the day, they had their AWANA club. It was fun to see it done in a different country! For the game time, they needed an extra person, so JP got to join in a little!

Yulia, our interpretor explaining the games to Jordan

It was a lot of fun watching Jordan participate :)

-For Christ and His glory,

Lindsey Kae



February 16-18: Hi-ho, Hi-ho, It's Off To Work We Go!

 On our to-do list for whats left of our week.

Pinoplast (sp?)

Insulation

A tiny bit of Dry Wall

Dan was sick the first couple of days, so we did what we were able.

 Getting serrious!

Well, kind of....not really....not to say we aren't working hard, but we have fun while we're at it.

 Pinoplast (sp?)....not our favorite, I have to say! That stuff gets everywhere!

 UGH! SOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH INSULATION!!!

 Dry walling.....need I say more?

Ok, ok. For me, this was a learning experience. Like Jordan told my Mama, I'm like a little duckling. I follow Jordan around, and he teaches me everything he knows....kind of odd thinking of Jordan as a mama duck, BUT, I didn't say it! He did! I'm gonna need some practice with this dry wall thing! Apparently its not something you're just good at!

This is one of the MANY dogs running around. Lots of little "kick-me" dogs, as my family calls them, as well as the big, mean kind. German Shepards, Rotweilers, and Dobbermans are very common here. They use them to guard against theives.

-For Christ and His glory,

Lindsey Kae

February 14-15: Up Up and Away

25 hours of travel! Whew! Glad that’s overwith!

We left the Pollards home in Salem at 4:00am for PDX and arrived there around 5:15am or so. Mr. Pollard’s flight was at 6:40, so we all checked our bags, got our boarding passes, and went to see the dreaded TSA people!!! Fortunately (for us, and for them!), it wasn’t one of those airports that does all the lovely security checks we so often hear about in the news! I say “fortunately” for them because I firmly believe Jordan is one of those people who would walk through in a Speedo J

Anyhow, our flight was not untill 11:15am so after we saw Mr. Pollard off, Jordan and I had just about 4 ½ hours to kill at the airport :P Glad we’re easily entertained!!! We walked from one end of the airport to the other, searching the little shops for something amusing. We sat and had a latte while we wrote letters, posted on the blog, and Jordan slept for a little while on the bench while I played spider solitair and parused facebook. After that, we decided to walk around some more, hoping we would find something exciting to do. Well, no luck there. However, we did take a few pictures while we were out and about!

Well, the time came around for us to mosey over to our terminal…..and so we did. And off we went to Seattle airport! Riding in airplanes has never sat well with me. I can rarely sleep and it makes me very motion sick so the short ride to Seattle was not so pleasant. In Seattle, we had time to grab a quick burger before catching our next (horrifyingly long) plane. We flew Luthansa air, wich I would highly recommend if you are traveling abroad! Although it was still not particularly pleasant, it was a fairly comfortable ride, and the all of staff were very kind and helpful. We were in the very back of the airbus and it was still pretty decent! We were offered drinks at least every hour or more. We each had our own movie screens. They had a fairly good selection of movies and music. And the food was fantastic (as far as airplanes go!). Dinner was three cheese penne pasta with tomato and basil, a dinner role, a cold pasta salad of rice, peas, and carrots, and a chocolate brownie, washed down with hot coffee. MUCH better than the fish noodles we had on our trip to China in 2006! My one complaint is that I didn’t sleep more than half an hour the whole flight, but I was expecting as much.

Anyways, we arrived in Frankfurt, Germany and made our way to the terminal as directed by our boarding pass. After waiting around for a good while, we decided to go check and make sure our terminal had not been changed. This was prompted by a girl next to me asking where in Canada we were going! Thankfully, our plane was delayed and we made it to the CORRECT terminal with a few minutes to spare. And so we began our final plane ride to Kiev, Ukraine.

We arrived in Ukraine around 1:30pm on Monday afternoon. Going through customs was exciting. A very scary looking security guard wanted to know what was in one of our bags. It just so happened to be baby clothes and a few tools. He kept asking us how much it cost. Well after trying to explain that the clothes were donated and were a gift for our translator, we finally guestimated it to be worth $70, and the suspicious guard begrudgingly let us through. When talking to Mr. Pollard about it later, he said that he probably wanted to tax us on the overall cost. Thankfully he didn’t :P

Mr. Pollard arrived an hour after we did. While we were waiting we talked with our translator, Yulia, and played cars with her little boy, Mark. When Mr. Pollard made it through customes, we loaded up in a taxi van and headed for Barishivka. We arrived at the church around 3:15pm. We got settled into the annex and after a hot meal and tea, we all crashed.

-For Christ and His glory,
Lindsey Kae

This one's for you, Daddy! Reminicent of our first China trip :)

Jordan's letter

Jordan writing said letter :) 

Jordan "pick-pocketing" a satue of one of Oregon's senators, I believe! 

Jordan providing entertainment for passers-by

It's hard to tell what he was doing exactly, but let me assure you,

it was pretty entertaining/slightly embarressing!

In the tube of death to Seattle!

 Our first meal, which was pretty awesome

for airplane food!

Dinner AND a show!

Preparing to go to sleep, these is our

"Are we really ready for this?" faces!

Farewell Klamath!

Sunday, February 13th, 2011
**DEEP BREATH**

Well, its time!!! I cannot believe how fast this past month flew by! But it did, and we're off. Our adventure started early this morning as soon as we got to the train station and checked in, we discovered both of our bags were overweight, and as a result, could not be checked!

This is my "sad face" 'caused according to the scale at home, our bags had been the correct weight!

SOOOOOO......Guess who got to go dumpster diving for a box to put some of our stuff in!?!

Dad and I couldn't resist a good photo shoot ;)

Yes, that's me! :D I even got honked at by a train :P

Though the picture was slightly over dramatizing the situation, we did have to dig a box out to put the air mattresses in so each bag would be under 50lbs.

Nothing like a humbling experience to start of a missions trip, hmm? :) Sure glad I have a sense of humor!

Our journey continues tomorrow morning dark and early! We will be leaving at 4:15am for Portland. Mr. Polard's flight leaves at 6:40am so we get to bum around the airport until our flight, which departs at 11:15am. From PDX we fly to Seattle, WA; from Seattle to Frankfurt, Germany, and from Frankfurt to Kiev, Ukraine! Should be long, LONG travel day.

If you could be praying for our trip over, it would be much appreciated! I'm not a very good plane traveler!

Hold onto your seats folks! Here we go!!!

For Christ and His glory,

Lindsey Kae

At the train station, gotta take a picture for Mom!

Hannah got to ride the train up to Salem with us, lucky Jordan!

Tearful goodbye!

Sophie had kind of a rough time :(

Waiting for the train, so.......why not dance?

The grand finish! :) Me and my Jon Boy :)

Huggin' on my Mama <3

Well, we had to get the sign in the picture so ya'll would know where we left from ;)

Only REAL men wear fanny-packs!

Hmmm, I don't know if I'm ready for this!!!

 

One last look.....and we're outta here!