GOOD FRIENDS

Lydia and Melinda


Among the many wonderful friends with whom God has blessed me in Kherson during my 10+ years in this city, are two very special ladies – Lydia (whom I refer to as my Ukrainian Mama), and Valentina my interpreter, Russian tutor – my right arm. We celebrated with Lydia this past week her 85th birthday. These two dear friends are among the first people I met when I first moved to Kherson. I'm very, very grateful for their friendship, kindness and encouragement to me all these years.


Melinda and Valentina

FIRE!

I confess being a bit irritated by the foul smell of trash burning (an all too frequent occurrence.) as I stepped out of my apartment building to make a trip to the market, To my surprise, as I rounded the corner of my building, I discovered that it wasn't trash burning but rather a first floor apartment in the building across the street.

I noticed someone breaking the windows (presumably a fireman) and throwing what appeared to be buckets of water out the window. Though a fire truck was on the scene, I didn't see any fire hoses! Walking around to the entrance side of the building, I found a small group of on-lookers. Smoke billowed out of the entrance to that section of the building, and up the stairwell to the top (5th floor) – engulfing an adjacent 5th floor apartment where I saw two young ladies leaning out their balcony window in an effort to escape the smoke engulfing them. I had to go on to the market – but I began thinking and wondering – whey were these young ladies still in that smoke-filled apartment,? For that matter how does one escape in case of fire? The only options are to exit through the stairwell to the street, or jump from a window – no fire escape. I later looked at the building in which I live to find an outside ladder/escape of some kind. At the end of our building is a ladder which extends from the roof of the building down to about the second floor level at which point it's cut off – so I suppose one is to jump from there.

Sometime later returning from the market, the fire was out – but it was evident that the apartment was gutted. Sadly, the story according to one of my neighbors was that the resident of the apartment was a drunk and burned to death.

Safety doesn't seem to be much of a priority.

CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS

Cindie doing the Advent with her children in Sunday School.



Ladies celebrating together the Light of the world, Jesus.

MERCEDES

Me with my “Mercedes “. Sure makes life easier! My wheels get me through the market and home with several kilos of groceries, bearing the load for me and saving some of the wear and tear on the joints. It's great!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NADIA!

Nadia and her Auntie Mel enjoyed lunch at one of our favorite pizza places in town in honor of Nadia's 10th birthday. Just happened that we were number 10 waiting for our pizzas to be served to us.
A fun day out!

HUM - HOW FIRM IS THE FOUNDATION?!

Good question! One way to discover the answer is to see what happens when the water pipes under the builing burst filling the basement with knee-deep water. Having just arrived home from a trip after and overnight train ride, how I was looking forward to a shower! With our water schedule the water is usually turned on again around noon. Noon came - but no water. I saw commotion going on outside with some of my neighbors which prompted me to go across the hall to my neighbor, Nina's to ask what was happening. To my dismay, I learned that we would be without water for several days as the old pipes under our section of the building had given way. Unfortunately,
this is not an uncommon occurance here. The good news was that we have people in our building who immediately took responsibility for seeing that the problem was resolved as quickly as possible - which, sadly, in many cases doesn't happen. However, though the water was shut off within a few hours after the flooding was discovered, it was long enough for the building to settle causing some damage, directly under where my apartment is located. I confess, initially I was a bit nervous about what might happen and wondering how much more the building might settle.This is the first floor apartment, two floors below me.



My apartment - the second balcony above the ground floor apartment, hidden by the trees. My kitchen window us just to the right of my balcony.

FIRST BELL - SCHOOL BEGINS

September 1st always marks the beginning of the new school year - in Ukraine known as "First Bell" - a wonderful and special celebration of the first day of school. With the beginning of the new school year, was the beginning of a new Sunday School year at Kherson Church of the Holy Trinity.

Cindie Pike together with her interpreter, Maxime, are shown introducing the children to their Bible lesson. Thankfully the weather was great for that first Sunday, since, as sometimes happens, there was no access to the key for the room in which they were to meet. The woman dressed in black standing next to Maxime is one of the supervisors, Olya, who brought the group of children who come each Sunday from a nearby orphanage.