Friday, December 29, 2006

Valentina Chernova

Last week I went to visit Valentina Chernova at her home. She was doing much better than she was the last time I had seen her (in the hospital) and I was very thankful for that. Just over half of her 14-day chemotherapy treatment was complete. She was taking six pills a day during that time and should have finished treatment on Saturday. Honestly, she seemed much stronger than most of the people I have met who were in the middle of chemo (admittedly, this number isn’t very large).

As if the cancer and treatment weren’t a solemn enough topic, she pulled out the pictures she had of “her Sasha” at his funeral. He passed away this past May after a long battle with asthma and other health complications. It has been a tough year for Valentina.

We talked about the future. She was very interested to hear Laura and my plans for the next stage in our lives. She was also rather adamant about her own future plans. She wants to return to working at Good Shepherd Center, but not as the director. She wants to help in “any way she can.” She wants to help the kids with homework and just have time to talk to the kids. She wants to be the night watchperson (which seems to be about the last job anyone would aspire to). I could tell that she just wants to serve again, like she has been doing for so long. Most of us who know her have difficulty seeing her any other way.

Dave

Mikhail Ivanovich Vodalazhsky

The book in the picture is part of an amazing story. It is the sort of story that I have only read about and this was the first time in my life where I was able to hear it first hand. I will not do the story, or the storyteller, Mikhail Ivanovich Vodolazhsky, justice. But talking with him has been one of the highlights of my time here. I apologize about the quality of the photo, the book is amazingly small and my hands aren’t so steady when holding a camera.

Mikhail Ivanovich is either 92 or 93 years old. He was born before the Bolshevik Revolution on a farm in the Kharkov region of Ukraine. Around his eighth birthday his father’s farm and work were taken over by the government and became a part of a collective farm. Times were tough. Mikhail Ivanovich dropped out of school and moved, along with his two older brothers, to the city in search of work.

In his late teens he did his time of service with the Soviet army. His commanding officer fell out of favor with those above him and an order came down from above, requiring 100 men from his unit be sent to the “Gulag” labor camps. The officials searched through the soldiers’ personal belongings and found 200 “enemies of the people.” He had a journal in which he had written some of his favorite Bible verses and Sunday School songs so he was included in this number. He was sentenced to eight years at a Gulag 100 kilometers north of Magadan, in the northeastern part of Siberia.

Mikhail Ivanovich had not yet married his fiancĂ©, and she told him she would wait for him “even if it took 10 years.” He was sent to a camp where he and many others prospected for gold while serving their sentences. Each was required to dig a hole, 1m x 1m x 1m every day, rain or shine, in the frosty soil and send it off to be panned. Fortunately, Mikhail Ivanovich was skilled at repairing the felt boots worn in the winter months and was therefore moved indoors during the coldest, hardest months. Many of the people in his Gulag died; almost all lost one or more extremities to frostbite.

He was released after eight years, but was forced to remain in the region for a period of exile. His fiancé learned of his release and exile and somehow, miraculously, traveled across the 13 time zones to meet and marry Mikhail Ivanovich at the train station, almost exactly 10 years after their last meeting.

They lived there for several years, and their three children were born there. At one point in time, they were told they could return home. They gave away or sold the majority of their possessions and packed the rest for the long journey “home.” Unfortunately, on the day they were to leave they were told they could not go. They went back to those who had their possessions and collected their things. Fortunately there were no problems with this because, according to Mikhail Ivanovich, after living through the hardships together the people there had become “closer than family.”

It became known that Mikhail Ivanovich was leading small church services in his home. He was immediately sentenced to another 10 years in the “camps.” This is where the Bible pictured above comes in to the story. During his first sentence he and 20 other inmates shared a contraband Bible which belonged to one of his fellow inmates. During his time of exile, his wife had given him his own Bible, which he in turn shared with around 10 others. He talks about how he was “overjoyed” to have the opportunity to have the Bible on Sundays, his day off. He would go off to some isolated place and read “under a blanket” as they often say here when referring to clandestine behavior.

Midway through this term, “Comrade Stalin” died and Mikhail Ivanovich and others were exonerated by Khrushchchev. The family left Magadan for the 9-day boat ride to Vladivostok, on the far east coast of Russia, then a 17-day train ride back to Kharkov in Ukraine. They have lived there until now. Now Mikhail Ivanovich (front left in picture) and his brother, Pyotr Ivanovich (front right), live in a small room built on to the house where his son Yura (back) lives with his family. The “grandpas” spend most of their time talking and studying their Bibles, now above the blankets.

Dave

November Economic Conference

November 17-18 we had an economic conference for all the MCC partners that I work with. The fact that I am posting a blog about it over a month later is either a testimony to how busy I have been or how lazy I am. I thought that some of you would be interested to see the “brothers” that I am referring to when I talk about “partners.” Representatives from 12 of the 15 loan funds and credit unions from different regions in Ukraine were in attendance, and presentations covered a variety of topics.

While I feel that my Russian continues to get better all the time, I am still not quite to the place where I can lead discussions well. I’m sure I said some stupid stuff when trying to explain some things but I did my best and already was acquainted with most of the people there. Fortunately, as the picture shows, Ionka Hristozova (our country director) also attended all of the sessions and led the discussion in what I thought was the most important session which dealt with planning and reporting. This encompasses the majority of my responsibilities and I was glad that she explained why we are doing it and what we are looking for.

The conference required a lot of planning and turned out well. It seemed that those who participated thought it was interesting and beneficial.

Dave

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Partners visit















Last week Dave and I returned from a whirlwind “partners visit.” Now is the time when the loan funds MCC works with (run by Ukrainian Baptists throughout Ukraine) are writing year-end reports and plans for next year. The planning process has changed recently, so Dave has been visiting most everyone to help out. I had a one-week break from classes, so I went along for the first time. On this trip we took the train to Cherkassy (central Ukraine), then south to Odessa, took a bus west to the village of Kilia on the Romanian border, then the train back to Odessa, up to Kiev and home to Donetsk.

The biggest impression the trip had on me was the contrast of life in the village to life in the city. Back home, in the part of the Midwest where I’m from, the standard of living in the “country” is no different from that of the city. That is not the case in Ukraine, and I often forget that. Running water is not a standard in the village, it’s a luxury. Hot water comes from the top of the stove after you’ve heated it in a pan. Houses are heated with coal or wood-burning fireplaces that double as ovens and sometimes as beds. (The traditional “Russian Stove” is a huge affair with a large flat space on top to sleep on). The toilet is usually, as they say in Russian, “in the street” (an outhouse). Potatoes, noodles or kasha (porridge made from grains or oatmeal) are standard fare – fruit is a luxury for special occasions.

People were very hospitable and I especially enjoyed meeting the people Dave has gotten to know since beginning this job last year, and putting faces with the names he’s talked about. The photo is a gathering of babushkas in a village north of Kiev. Notice everyone is wearing their coats, boots and headscarves. Although we sat around the stove (the small door in the wall to the left), it wasn’t warm enough in that house not to stay fully dressed.

Laura