Mormons, Mormons, Everywhere.

It's a fascinating thing to be asked if you're part of a cult. But here in Ukraine, pretty much any religion other than Russian or Ukrainian Orthodoxy is considered a cult. So according to the average person on the street, I am a member of a religious sect/cult. Just as I believe that the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses are cults, so the people here believe that I am a cultist.

A basic Christian definition of a cult is, "Any group which deviates from Biblical, orthodox, historical Christianity...i.e. They deny the Deity of Christ; His physical resurrection; His personal and physical return to earth and salvation by FAITH alone."

The Bible says that there is one way to heaven and that this one way is through belief in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It says that God sent His only Son into the world, where He/Jesus was both God and man and He died for us, taking the terrible burden of all the sin- past, present and future upon Himself that we, through faith in Him, would no longer have to be separated from God. It doesn't say good works will get us to heaven, it doesn't say going to church will get us there, it certainly doesn't say that going on a two year mission will earn us the right to be in heaven. It's simply impossible for us to earn our way there, because we are imperfect and full of sin and He is perfect and spotless.

I've noticed several Mormons here in my neighborhood, but never had the chance to talk to them until today. This afternoon, as I headed out to the dreadful task of paying my bills, I spotted a group(not so hard to do) of Mormon boys going door to door just down from my building. As I had to walk by them anyway, I decided to cut right across their path and give them an opportunity to try to save my soul. I walked right up to one and asked in Russian if he spoke English. He was very excited by this question, as they were handing out advertisements for free English lessons. He replied in the affirmative and I asked where he was from. "Utah," was the answer given. Imagine that- a Mormon from Utah.

We started with small talk until his older, more experienced partner joined in. He asked what I was doing here and I told him. Then he wanted to know about IM and how a mission could be non-denominational. I decided that this was a fabulous chance to share the gospel with those boys and so proceeded to lay out the doctrinal statement of IM, which of course is a very clear gospel presentation. I explained that my goal in being here is to give people hope: Hope that is only found in Jesus Christ and in His gift of salvation; Hope that can not be attained through anything we ourselves can do; Hope that gives us assurance of eternal security and life with God after death; Hope that gives us complete confidence in our future, knowing that we have no control over it and it's completely in His hands. We had a good little chat and I waited for them to counter my gospel presentation. The best they did, however, was ask if I had ever read the Book of Mormon. I told them that I had indeed read it, as well as attended a Mormon Temple several times, lived with two Mormon girls for two years, had the Elder's weekly meetings in my college apartment for one year and spent many hours debating and discussing my beliefs vs. theirs. I said, "We all did our best, but I didn't convert them and they didn't convert me(Praise God!)." They didn't quite know what to say and just offered me their phone numbers if I had any questions. I smiled, wished them a good day and moved on, thanking God for the opportunity to very clearly share the gospel with two young men who have been so incredibly deceived and are now trying to pass that deception on to others.

Please pray for the country of Ukraine and the neighborhood of Tairovo. In a neighborhood of 250,000 people, there are multiple empty Orthodox churches and many busy JW's and Mormons hurrying to earn their "salvation" by converting others to their futile faith. As far as we know, our small church is the only gospel preaching church in this neighborhood. Please pray for us to continue to build relationships within this neighborhood and through our lives and our Hope, to draw people to the ultimate Giver of Hope.

One of Life's Great Pleasures

Those who know me well know that I love ethnic cuisines, but there is one which outshines all others according to my taste palate: Mexican food. It matters not whether it be authentic or Tex-Mex(though I do draw the line at Taco-Bell), I pretty much love it all. I can't think of too many family traditions that my family has, but eating at Mexican restaurants is one of them that draws us together. I can't even begin to tell you how many Sundays my family has spent enjoying the fabulously tasty goodness of Mexican food. I may not want to eat it every day, but every week?? Nooo problem. I currently find myself in a sad situation, however- in a country where people say, "What is salsa??" This seems a very tragic question to me, as salsa is the very foundation on which every good Mexican meal is built. Actually, I probably like salsa more than any other part of the meal. Salsa can be made pretty easily here, so that is not a problem. The acquiring of corn chips, however.....well, that seems to be an impossibility. People don't even know what they are.

So, as soon as I found out that my brother would be in Odessa for the weekend, I began to dream of going to one of the two or three "Mexican" restaurants here. After all, who better to go with than my brother, another great lover of Mexican cuisine? I had heard of one, but didn't exactly know where it was, but we decided to try to find it anyway. We wandered around and around in the center of town, asking multiple people if they knew where one was, with the answer always being no. Finally, a taxi driver told us there was one, but not near where we were. We decided to keep walking, because I had been told there was one in the center and we finally stumbled upon it.

We walked in and were greeted by the Ukrainian wait staff and sat down to examine the menus. We were so excited to see that they actually had chips and salsa, even though we had to pay $5 for it. We were curious to see what the chips would be like and once they arrived, we spent quite a quite a while trying to figure out what they reminded us of, until it finally hit me: hushpuppies!! They tasted like hushpuppies. So we enjoyed our small basket of hushpuppy chips and our two tablespoons of salsa that came along with them. We commented on how dad would have had a hard time with this, since he usually eats that much salsa with two chips. Will wanted to try the stuffed jalepenos, which turned out to be some other extremely hot, long red pepper, which about blew us away with its degree of heat. It was so hot that we didn't even end up eating the third one and you know that's saying a lot with our family. Dad would have enjoyed it, though.

We both got the chicken fajitas, which came out sizzling hot and were very tasty. I'm guessing the right spices are hard to get ahold of here, because the meat, peppers and onions were cooked in soy sauce. I really wanted to get the chimichanga, but the only option was rabbit chimichanga and I wasn't feeling that adventurous last night.

I did plan ahead and brought my camera along to record this wonderful event, but sadly, I forgot to recharge my battery after the trip down to the port and I only got one picture of this momentous occasion. It was extremely expensive and not quite Mexican, but still, very tasty and a lot of fun. I got my "Mexican" fix for the next little while until tomatoes are ripe again and I can make my own delicious salsa, chips, and other tasty goodness. Fun was had by all.

Odessa on Ice- part 2

Is that a bunch of penguins that I spy?

Going down 191 steps is much easier than going back up.

The walk along Primorsky Blvd.(literal meaning- before the sea)

Outdoor skating rink on the main pedestrian street in the center of town.

Odessa on Ice- part 1

Snow and ice are pretty rare here in Odessa, much like in NC. And yet, we've had snow consistently since mid-December, and a good bit of it. I've been told that it's a present for newcomers, so I guess it's all my fault. It's a good thing that I really like snow! I was at the MK school again today(in the center of town) and decided to walk down to the Odessa Sea Port to take some pictures for you. I didn't want to post another facebook album, so there will be quite a few pictures that I'll put on two different posts. They're so lovely, though, that it was difficult for me to choose just a few. Enjoy!

I don't know what this is, but it was interesting to me. =-)

A view from the Mother in Law bridge

Graffitti is very popular here & I usually hate it, because it's on beautiful old buildings. But I kind of like this one, because of the color contrasts.

Heading down the Potyomkin steps to the Port. The steps are very wide and are covered in snow here, except for the small path down the center.

Yes, those are seagulls. Like I said, ice and snow are very rare here. So the poor seagulls are still here, trying to get food from under all of that ice.

Are You Ready For Some Football??

I know the Super Bowl occurred in America on Sunday evening, but here in Ukraine, we finally got to watch it Wednesday night(it took a couple of days to download). And though we already knew the outcome, I still enjoyed getting to see it. And the thought of everyone in America taking part in parties all over the entire country had me thinking, "Hmm, what would a Super Bowl party look like here?" When you think of a Super Bowl party, you typically think of a huge amount of junk food. Very little of what Americans have at their parties is available here, so I decided to take my camera to the store and come up with a Ukrainian Super Bowl Party menu for you. This is based entirely on foods that do not need to be cooked and can fall into the category of grab and go. It does not include sweets, since my camera batteries died before making it to that area of the store. Sooo, I present to you the following fabulously tasty Ukrainian finger fooooooods!!!!!

Always popular, a daily treat, and great for seed spitting contests: Sunflower seeds. As a further note, these are immensely popular here and you'd be hard pressed to have a day go by without seeing someone walking down the street spitting out shells.

Bacon flavored peanuts: guaranteed to be 100% tasty!!

Caviar flavored dried bread pieces

Pickle flavored cream cheese

Salo!! This is a Ukrainian delicacy & immensely loved here: pure, salted pork fat

Lard paste? I'm not really sure how else to say it. You can eat it spread on bread or along with your potatoes.

Fish jerky

Fish with mustard seeds & black pepper in oil

Sardines

More fish

Bigger fish

Lots of dried fish. In case you haven't gotten the idea, they really like fish.

Caviar

Crab flavored potato chips

Squid flavored potato chips

Bacon flavored potato chips

Sausage and cheese on bread(the camera batteries died before I made it to the cheese & bread aisles). They really like their sausages here, as well, though they're different than ours.

And to drink, you would of course have your choice of: Hot tea orrrr......

Vodka!!(please remember that this is a hypothetical Ukrainian menu, therefore I must stick to the truth). =-D

So there you have it: Anna's Ukrainian Super Bowl menu! Anyone want to come next year???

The Packrat

My grandmother, blessed woman that she is, is a packrat. She keeps the most random things( that cost very little to replace) and uses them over and over and over again. I've always thought this an odd idiosyncrasy of hers, since the vast majority of people in the U.S. would simply go out and buy a replacement. I've always assumed that it's because she's cheap(I'm being honest, so those who love my grandma dearly, don't hate me), but living here has given me another perspective on things.

First of all, I simply can't get everything that I was used to purchasing so easily in the U.S. Ziplock type bags are just being introduced and come only in one size(that I've seen anyway) and are cheap quality and basically worthless. Thankfully, I knew that I couldn't get them here and I brought plenty of all sizes(except large). And I use them, turn them inside out, wash them, and let them dry. I'm also hesitant to give anyone food in my larger bags, because I probably won't see them again. Tacks? You can only get flat ones, so there again, I'm very careful about where I use my tacks. Ny-Quil is another thing you can't get here. I began to get worried this past week as I took Ny-Quil several nights so that I could sleep through my cold and sinus infection. I looked in my medicine cabinet and did the math on how long my Ny-Quil supply will last if I get sick many more times this year. Going with the average number of colds per year, spread out over the last few years, I determined that my supply should hold through approximately two more colds and I breathed a sigh of relief. Glitter pens are not available here and as I have been teaching over the last month at the MK school, I have had to hold my breath and remind myself that I am an adult. I watch the little girls scribbling away with my glitter pens during Art Time and see that precious ink quickly dwindling away and I think, "Oh, color gently, little girl. You will use it all up in five more minutes at this rate!" And then I hear my thoughts and wonder if I'm losing my mind. Glitter pens? Really, Anna? You're worrying about glitter pens??!!

But as I walk down the street here and sit behind people on the crowded buses, I begin to understand my grandmother's mindset. You see, I was born in a time of prosperity in the States. Granted, my family didn't have much money when I was young, but we always had enough. But my grandmother went through the Depression. In addition to that she was widowed at a young age with two very young boys. She learned how to live on very little and how to survive. And I see much of that same mindset here. This is a country in unrest, where the average monthly income is $280 per month. So when my eyes take in the torn jacket sleeve hastily stitched back up, the threadbare socks filled with holes, the stocking cap ripped and still worn, I'm ashamed of myself. I'm ashamed that my mentality since I've been older has always been to just go get something new. I've never had to seriously do without and I've never had to repair and mend and fix anything over and over and over unless I really wanted to. I've never known poverty or hunger or fear of where I might be sleeping come tomorrow. And I've met all of that here; much of it with the students with whom we work. They look polished and presentable, yet their lives are falling down all around them and they fear for their country and for their future.

And while they contemplate if their country can ever be fixed, if their educations will ever get them a job, if they'll ever be able to support a family, and if there's any hope in this life, I sit here worried about my ziplock bags, tacks, Ny-Quil and glitter pens. You know, all it takes is just opening your eyes to what is going on around you, to bring a little perspective into your life. When I lift the blinders from my eyes, I'm ashamed of my goofy concerns and cares. I have everything I could possibly need and so much more. Instead of getting caught in ridiculous thoughts about dwindling gel pens, I want to be focused. I want to use this time(however long or short it may be) to pursue relationships here. Because people need to understand that they can have great hope and that hope comes from the Giver of all good things(even gel pens). =-D

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jer. 29:11

Pictures of the Week

I was feeling a hankering for some delightfully delicious Nova's Bakery bagels. Unfortunately, however, Nova's hasn't franchised yet in Odessa and thus I was forced to learn how to make bagels myself. It's actually super, dooper easy and the results?? FANTASTISCHE!!! Next project? My all time favorite: cranberry orange bagels. ohhh yeah

Due to the footprints found in the snow outside my window, I'm forced to the realization that I might have a Peeping Tom(or two or four) lurking around on my balcony.

It's a dog's life. Poor wild doggies. What are they to do? They're fed by grandmas, have the run of the land and someone threw out some ginormous couch cushions for them, so that they would have a bed up off the snow. Don't they look happy? One evening the entire pack of nine was on this cushion, but I sadly didn't have my camera with me.

This little guy's not stupid. Why share with the big guys, when you can have your own?

1000 Gifts- Thankfulness

" Because You have been my help, Therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice. My soul follows close behind You; Your right hand upholds me." Ps. 63:7-8

Things for which I'm thankful:

81. That I can rejoice in the fact that I'm in the shadow of His wings
82. That He shows me what perfect love looks like
83. That He is patient
84. That He is lavish is his displays of affection towards me
85. That He is my Protector, Provider, Comforter and Friend
86. That He heals broken hearts
87. That He gives all that is necessary to live in this messed-up world
88. That He is in control
89. That I am an unfinished masterpiece in the hands of the Creator of the world
90. That He is the Unchanging, always Loving, ever Faithful God!