November News

Just like it does everywhere, time flies here in Ukraine!  Weeks go by so fast and I suddenly realize it's been a month since my last post.  So here's a little of what has been going on:

We took a trip to the village with friends to celebrate my former roommate's birthday. Lyuda, her husband, and their two children live with her mother in the house where Lyuda grew up.  She and her husband have been slowly remodeling and updating the house, including the additions of an indoor toilet and bathtub...which her 70(ish) year old mother had never had in her life.  We enjoyed the day of fellowship and food around the fireplace with friends. 

Rehab continues to welcome new patients and we are working to improve our processes and equipment to better serve our patients now and in the future.  This is Sasha:

Sasha has a traumatic brain injury as a result of a car accident a year ago.  He has been coming to rehab for about two months now.  He lives on the 5th floor of a 5-story apartment building, which means there is no elevator, so we started rehab with him at home.  Everyone knew he would get the most benefit by coming to the center, so some of his friends agreed to help him up and down the stairs in his wheelchair.  They didn't last long however, so now our driver, Dima, bumps him up and down all 5 flights twice a week!  As you can see, Sasha is no small man so it has to be a workout for Dima.  And we are seeing some progress.  Sasha was a professional volleyball player and was traveling in Europe at the time of his accident.  He is always SO happy and our center is more lively and joyful when he is with us.  He loves to use his limited English to talk with me.  And to my surprise his first response upon hearing I was from Oklahoma was "Thunder!"  It's rare for me to find someone who loves basketball in Ukraine, and Sasha loves it enough to know our Oklahoma team!  Vadim is his primary therapist and has been working hard with him.  About a month ago, Sasha's wife brought in a walker for us to try with him.  The picture below is from the first day we tried it.  Somehow 5 people became involved in helping him walk about 10 feet.  Thankfully we have all improved since that first day and Sasha can now walk 4 laps in our center with only Vadim, Sveta, and I assisting.  I wish I had a picture, but you'll just have to trust me for now.

Sasha is not the only one benefitting from his walker.  We want to find a scooter to use with our kids, but for now we've managed to use sliding boards and this walker to create a make-shift one.

We created this scooter when we met Stasik.  He's a precious 4 year old who had a brain tumor removed 2 years ago followed by several post-op complications.  While he is definitely behind on his motor skills, his greatest deficits are his inability to talk and eat and his breathing difficulties which require him to have a tracheostomy.  His family is hoping to take him to another country for further medical evaluation and treatment of his oral issues and we are trying to help as much as we can with all of his challenges.  Please pray with us that his family can get the answers and treatment he needs to maximize his progress with eating and speaking (whether that's in Ukraine or in another country) and that we have wisdom in how best to help him.

 

 

We concluded November like all of you - with a Thanksgiving celebration!  Even though it's not a Ukrainian holiday Sveta and I wanted to find a way to celebrate it with our friends.  Our apartment can't hold too many people, so Sergiy Bolchuk (the leader of our ministry) agreed to host a joint celebration with his birthday, which was the day after Thanksgiving, at his new house.  The guest list grew and grew and we ended up celebrating with over 35 people!  This was my first (and very possible my last) time to attempt cooking for that many people, made more challenging by searching for ingredients in a foreign country and cooking in a smaller-than-the-US-standard oven.  But we made ourselves responsible for the turkey and some traditional American dishes and then asked everyone to contribute a dish to complete the meal.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the evening, the food, and the fellowship with one another.  These friends are my Ukrainian family so I was thankful to get to share this holiday with them!

 

Dads do this everywhere!

 Kids being kids!

 



 Sergiy Bolchuk - the birthday boy

 

   The dessert table included my favorite - cherry pie!!!

 

Last Sunday our ministry led the church service.  Below is a video presentation of our ministry from the past year that I hope you to enjoy!

 



 



       

Traveling West in Europe

Tanja and I returned a week ago from our trip.  Thank you to the many of you who prayed for us!  The road from Ukraine took us through Poland, Holland, and Germany before ultimately arriving in Switzerland and it required multiple buses, a plane, and a car...but we made it.  God was good to protect us and to provide people along the way to help us.  I wasn't sure how driving in foreign countries to unknown destinations might go, but God blessed us and our rental car came equipped with a GPS which helped immensely in navigating the many miles we covered. 

The primary objective of our trip was to attend a working conference related to the integration of people with spinal cord injuries across Europe.  The conference took place in the beautiful little town of Nottwil.  Most of the attendees of the conference, including the 4 other participants in my group, were people with spinal cord injuries.  My group is focused on the topic of mobility, which suits me perfectly as a physical therapist.  I had the opportunity to describe the situation in Ukraine related to tops such as poor access to mobility devices (wheelchairs and walkers) and lack of accessibility to buildings and transportation for wheelchair users.  Our working groups continue for the next 2 years and I am hopeful that we will have some solutions to offer in these areas when we complete our work.  I am also praying that some of the contacts we made with people from other countries that have more resources than Ukraine will be beneficial in some way for the work we are doing in Lutsk.

The view from the conference center in Nottwil

 

 

Sunrise

 

Before the conference, we were blessed to spend almost 3 days sightseeing in Switzerland with a friend of mine, Amanda Volkman.  The pictures should speak pretty well for themselves on the beauty of this country:

 

Good morning Switzerland!!!

Looking over Lake Neuchatel

 

 

Grindelwald and Interlacken:

 

 



 

Geneva:

The Reformation Wall

Flower Clock

 

 

 

Lake Geneva - see the Alps?

Lucerne:

 

 

 

 

 

Swiss countryside - vineyards everywhere!

 

Good night Switzerland!

Heidelberg, Germany (on our way back to the airport after the conference):

 

 

On the last night we were staying in Aachen, Germany and while searching for a dinner spot we happened on to this little bakery.  Like the name?  So do I!  Their pastries are pretty delicious too!

 

Hope you enjoyed the pictures!  I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to witness the majesty of God's creation in other countries and to get a small taste of other cultures.  We serve a big and mighty God! 

The Changing of Seasons and the Changing of Lives

We had a beautiful fall here in Lutsk!! God blessed us with many warm days for which I was very thankful! Now winter seems to be upon us...the bold colors of fall have faded to brown and the trees are almost all bare. The days are much shorter and the nights are no longer just "chilly." 

But, we did our best to enjoy the fall days.  We spent one day at a campground just outside Lutsk with many of our friends with disabilities, enjoying fellowship and shish kabobs. 

And Sveta and I went to a nearby park on a Saturday afternoon to walk and read. 

 

 

 

Sunday after church

 

 

I have always loved nature and while watching the changing of the seasons this year I have been reminded again that our God is the Creator and Controller of all.  Not only of nature but of lives and hearts.  Meet Volodimir (and his sweet little wife in the background!)...

 

 

 and their son Artem...

In mid-September, Artem came from another city to spend a month receiving rehabilitation for his progressive muscular disease.  He had met Alla, one of our therapists, at a Christian conference earlier in the summer and wanted to come and receive rehab.  Not long before he left home his dad, Volodimir, had a stroke. After Artem had been with us a few days, he mentioned his dad and asked if he could come sometime for rehab.  We told him the time is now and his parents made arrangements and came.  Volodimir has received rehab 5 days a week since his arrival 3 weeks ago and his progress has been tremendous.  He has gone from not being able to stand to walking with help from one person and climbing stairs.  And he is slowly improving his voluntary control of his arm.  He, his wife, and their son are pleased with his progress, as are we!  While other patients with stroke have come to our center for rehab, none have come this soon after their stroke.  Typically when they are discharged from the hospital they just go home.  We are only contacted months to years after their stroke and our progress is usually very limited.  Working with Volodimir has been a good learning opportunity for our therapists, particularly for Alla who has been his primary therapist.   

 

Top of the stairs with his therapist, Alla

 

And while we are excited for the physical changes in Volodimir, we are absolutely thrilled to witness God's work in him spiritually.  Artem and his mother, who are believers, have been praying for Volodimir for a long time, but he wanted nothing to do with God or church.  However, since they live in the spare room at our rehab center which is on the church grounds, he has spent much time around the people of God and has attended church services and small groups.  And at the close of last Sunday's service he repented!!  What a blessing from a gracious God to change this man's life! And what an encouragement to our team...we reminded ourselves that it is why we do what we do.  Please pray for Volodimir's spiritual growth and for continued physical progress during the remainder of his rehabilitation. 

 

 

Our rehab team: me, Katya, Sveta, Alla, Ira, and Vadim

 

To give an update on the prayer requests from the last post: we are still seeking a wheelchair for Mark, Katya now attends church almost every Sunday at Fimiam, and Igor received a wheelchair from social services before he went home. Thank you for praying!

 

Please also be in prayer for a trip that I will be taking this week with my friend Tanja, who is a quadriplegic. We are traveling by way of buses, planes, and cars through Poland, Germany, and ultimately to Switzerland for a working conference this weekend.  The work groups are composed of people throughout Europe and we will be working on different topics related to the successful integration of people with spinal cord injuries.  My group is discussing mobility aids and assistive devices.  Since locating the needed equipment for our patients is one of our biggest barriers to increasing their independence, I am excited to meet people from other European countries and possibly have some contacts for our future needs.  And I am praying that as I share about the work here, God would open people's hearts to the gospel.  Please pray for both of us, for our travels, and for our contribution and witness at the conference. 

 

What a privilege we all have to serve a great God who changes the seasons and changes lives!

 



Settling in...

It’s been almost 5 weeks since I moved to Ukraine and God has answered many prayers.  This past week, with 6 days to spare, everything was finalized and I received my 1-year residency passport! There were a few bumps and surprises along the way, but we are praising God that the process is completed for this year.  Also, we found a foreign language school that is only a 5-minute bus ride from our rehab center so I now take 1:1 Ukrainian language lessons twice a week.  In the mornings, I typically stay home for about 2 hours to study and do my homework while Sveta and the other therapists get started in rehab.  I join them later to provide input or assistance where needed until lunch.  I have my lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays after lunch, but otherwise our afternoon schedule has been variable up to this point.  Several new patients, both adults and children, began this week at the rehab center so the schedule is filling up more and more.  Also, since I mentioned it was off in the last post I should mention that the hot water was restored.  And this week a friend installed a holder for our hand held shower head, so showering has become a much faster and more convenient process again!  Thanks to the many of you who have been praying for these and other requests – I am so grateful for your prayers and our God who hears and answers!

My new passport



 

Prior to resuming work with patients 2 weeks ago, we spent several days deep cleaning and preparing the center.  Among my assignments was to clean out and organize the closet where we store the many medical items that have been collected over the years.  Many of these items were donated in America and myself, Krista, and others have carried them in our luggage on many previous trips.  We have a vast array of items, including positioning boots, braces for every joint, shoulder slings, children's and adult's AFOs (I will explain later for non-medical people), and all manner of random straps, Velcro, padding...just to name a few!  Some of these items were custom-made and the likelihood they will fit another person is small, but we keep them anyway.  There were several items that I saw and thought "We'll never have someone come to us who needs this."  But I sorted them, organized them and stored them anyway.  Why do we keep these things?  Because many medical items just aren't available in Ukraine.  Medical equipment, like the smaller but important items mentioned above, along with larger items like wheelchairs and walkers, can be difficult if not  impossible to get in Ukraine.  Meet Mark:

 

 

I used to work with Mark in 2009 and 2010 when he was just a little guy, but he had that same big, heart-warming smile!  Now he's probably 7 years old and Sveta has been working with him 3 times a week for the past year.  Mark has cerebral palsy and has limited control of his limbs, head, and trunk.  He has outgrown his stroller so his mom now has to carry him.  At home they have a large and improperly fitting stationary chair that he can tolerate sitting in for short periods of time, but he needs a properly fitting wheelchair.  We don't have access to one to give him and his mom has been searching for one with no success.  Please pray that a wheelchair can be found for Mark.

 

Meet Ihor: Well, for now you'll just have to imagine him.  This was his first week at our center and he wasn't yet up for pictures.  He is 27 years old and is a quadriplegic following a diving accident last summer.  He, his wife, and their daughter came from another city to receive rehab at our center for a month.  This is his first rehab in the year since his injury.  His injury is at C7, meaning he has very good arm function and because of this he has tremendous potential to function independently at a wheelchair level.  But he has spent this year almost entirely on his back at home, sitting up for only 10-15 minute periods of time.  Somehow his family received an electrical wheelchair, but he doesn't use it.  With what I've seen of Ukrainian village homes, it's unlikely that he could even try to use it in his home.  So he moved to Lutsk for rehab and when our driver went to pick him up on the first day, he had to carry him to the van and into the center.  Then we discovered that our storage center is depleted and we don't have a wheelchair to give him either.  A wheelchair has been loaned by another patient for transportation during this month, but we are still searching for a wheelchair he can take home.  Please pray for God to supply one.

 

Now meet Katya.  She is 30 years old and has had neurological deficits for 8 years due to her previous addiction to drugs.  She is also a new patient at our center this week.  She has a very slow gait with multiple impairments and after watching her walk and talking with her evaluating therapist (also named Katya!), I headed into that newly organized closet to see if we had anything to improve her right leg control.  She needed an AFO (which is basically a lower leg brace that provides some foot, ankle, and knee control) so I dug through the box.  All of our AFOs were custom-made for someone else so it's very difficult to find one that meets the needs of this patient AND fits them probably.  But by the grace of God we found one!  Katya took 2 steps and immediately felt less pain and more control in her knee.  Now to solve the next problem...a shoe that was big enough for the brace.  Katya didn't have any and may not be able to afford new shoes.  So I went back to the closet and my eyes landed on one of those items I thought for sure we would never use - a cast shoe!  Actually we have 3 or 4 and after Katya settled on the one she liked best she was thrilled!  As I watched her walk I was so grateful for all those small and large items that have been donated to our center in the past years so that we could make a difference now in Katya's life and hopefully many more!  Please also pray for Katya to understand and believe the true Gospel.  She talked with her therapist about a visit from some men earlier in the week and what she reported hearing was false doctrine, so please pray for Katya (the therapist) and Katya (the patient) as they talk during their sessions about the true Gospel.

 

 

Please also continue to pray for the situation in eastern Ukraine.  Starting on September 20th, the Christian mobile medical clinic that Sveta has joined previously will spend 8 days in Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, providing medication and medical attention to those in need.  Sveta is praying about going, but for now I have been counseled not to go for various reasons.  Please pray for those who do go and for those they will serve. 

 

Thanks to everyone who prays for me and for the work here and also for those who have sent me encouraging messages and emails! Now to conclude with a few photos from the past weeks:

 

Walking in the park with friends

 

Picking raspberries in the village

 

A weekend in Zhitomir, Sveta's hometown

 

Sveta helping Sasha transfer

 

A smoky evening