(In the above photo: Gif, John and Simba are on the beach of the Azov Sea in Berdyansk, Ukraine.)
We are now in Berdyansk, Ukraine! We arrived late Sunday evening and this concludes the travels that have consumed the past three days! We arrived and were met by Svetlayna from the Mayor’s office. She treated us to s delicious meal and then took us on a walking tour of downtown Berdyansk. This is a major port of call for the Azov Sea and so all is oriented toward the sea going business. After the tour Gif, Simba and I wearily collapsed.
We began the next morning with an early breakfast and then began on-site inspections of the delivery of the container of special needs children’s equipment that we shipped out of Little Rock in January. We visited 5 locations and were shown the building that is being renovated for children’s physical therapy because of our container. Each location has about 200 special needs children that are assigned to them. One of the locations just began offering therapy for autistic children. The director of the autism program, Irina, has been working only two weeks.
At one of the locations we met Elina who thanked us over and over for shipping the container. She said that in the container was a child’s guitar and that one item has been the greatest thing for the children. She also showed me a toy car garage that was in the container. I remember both of these items as we were surveying the items Easter Seals said we could have. We decided to ship these but really thought they may not be wanted. We were wrong!
Natasha was with us the entire day. She is a mother in one of the parental support groups for special needs children. She presented us with gifts from the children. There are special times during the year when all of the crafts that the children make are displayed and awards are given out to each one. Natasha said that often these crafts are sold to interested people and the funds are used to help provide for the children’s needs.
The day Monday ended and we took the road for the 4-hour trip back to Zaporozhye where our Tuesday schedule was to start early and take us to two children’s special needs schools and the District Infectious Disease Hospital. It has been a long day!
Simba’s thoughts…
After several days of travel it was a relief to finally get to Ukraine. Ukraine is nothing like what I had expected. The weather here is incredible and the cities we’ve visited have been fascinating. Our translator, Tonya, is a very kind woman who is fascinating to watch when she translates. I’m not sure if she thinks in two languages, but I’m pretty sure that’s the only way she’s able to translate so quickly.
I finally got to live out my dream of being on a train in a foreign country. It was very bumpy and hard to sleep on, but I had a lot of fun nonetheless.
We were able to worship at a congregation on Sunday where most of the worship was led by younger men. It was encouraging to see and I was surprised to hear that most of the songs they sing are the same as they are back home. I’m looking forward to the next few days that we spend here before getting on yet another train.
Gif’s thoughts…
If you’ve ever seen the film Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (you’re welcome in advance for the addition of the Oxford comma to the title) then you have a pretty good idea of what our last few days have looked like. Granted, we had a much more positive experience and actually got to our destinations on time, but it has been a lot of traveling.
The immediate reaction I had to being in Ukraine was, “The weather here is awesome!” Not hot, not cold, just pleasant. The architecture here is incredible and has really lived up to my expectations. Everyone here wants to offer me coffee and I am more than happy to accept it. We have one more long train ride to look forward to this weekend and then a break from traveling for a couple of weeks. While I’m going to be glad to be in one place for a bit I’m pumped about being on a train for 24 hours!
Things are still going very well and getting better!
Continue to pray for us as we continue in this mission.
John L. Kachelman, Jr.
