New Semester, New Students

We started a new semester last week. This semester I am teaching first semester Hebrew and Exegesis of the New Testament. It was really great in Hebrew. Students really enjoy learning the names of God in Hebrew. It is always a blessing to me to help them read the name Elohim in Hebrew for the first time.

And today, just after classes, I was a part of one of a few teams of teachers who were interviewing prospective students. Thank the Lord, We had about 40 students apply this fall. Some of them had amazing stories to tell of how the Lord brought them to this place. One student spent 7 years in China and wants to return as a missionary. Another wants to get involved in television to be a positive Christian influence. We are hopeful that these students will join us and that the Lord will continue to answer our prayer to send out laborers into his harvest field

Camp News

This past week we had the camp for those with disabilities. The Lord really blessed the 11 days we spent at a church and campgrounds about 45 minutes outside of Kiev. About 45 people in all attended. I wanted to include some pictures below. We had some good time of worship services and games. I got to play chess and checkers with some of the folks at camp. I didn’t know that Ukrainian checkers has different rules, but it does. We’ll just say that it took me quite a while to get the hang of it.

Anna’s Graduation

Here are some pics from Anna’s graduation ceremony that happened yesterday, Friday here in Kiev.

Our Graduate

Anna is graduating in a few weeks, and we wanted to invite you to her graduation

Accepted

We were excited today to find that Anna had been accepted to the second of her two first-choice schools. She got her acceptance to LeTourneau University back in January, but Texas A&M sent word yesterday. We are so thankful! Pray with us as she tries to decide between the two!

March 2009 Prayer Letter

We just sent out a prayer letter update, and so I thought I would post a PDF copy here. Somebody mentioned that I got Anna’s age wrong at the top. The info in that heading doesn’t change very often and I just didn’t do a good job of checking. So you can download a PDF copy now, it is in color, and Anna’s age is correct. Thank you for your prayers. Click on the link below:

March 2009 McDonnel Prayer Letter

Snow and Stuff

“The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof” So says the psalmist in Ps. 24. We are thankful to the Lord in the midst of some pretty freezing temperatures. I am teaching the book Isaiah this semester and am enjoying seeing God’s glory. The picture above was taken this morning.

Fun Moment

The phone rang just now and a little voice asked, in Ukrainian, “May I speak to Abby?” Abby asked who it was, and in answering that it was a friend from school, the little girl heard me and said, “It’s her friend, Nastya”. What a blessing!

We Have Heat

It’s early Wednesday evening here and we just wanted to let you know that we still have heat, despite the cutoffs of natural gas in other parts of Europe.

We have had below freezing temperatures – and in the last couple of days, near zero temperatures – since Christmas day, so without additional heat, it would be around 65F in the apartment in the morning.  Mark’s parents encouraged us to go out and pick up some space heaters yesterday, and we are now as warm as we want to to be.

Other parts of Europe are not faring as well, Bulgaria and Slovakia in particular.  I am including a link here to a list of countries affected.

Do be praying for those who cannot add any heat to what is supplied by the centralized water-radiator heating provided here.  Do pray, also, for this conflict to be resolved quickly and adequately.  It feels a little bit like Ukraine is playing chicken with a huge 18-wheeler (aka Russia), and the long-term ramifications of any settlement will definitely include that we tried to defy the bear.

Subtle Difference

Yesterday afternoon I was washing some dishes and noticed the water was coming out kind of warm instead of hot.  I didn’t really think about it too much until something clicked and that comment from Sunday, ‘and this’ll happen all winter’ came to mind.  I thought to myself, ‘Oh, the hot water’s going off again.’

I mentioned this to Mary’s tutor who was there for a lesson.  She said, yes, but it’s maddening when the water still comes out of the tap, lukewarmish, because it’s a different animal than having no water at all come out.

She enlightened me.  When there’s water coming out, albeit not hot or warm, then the city counts that as ‘having hot water’, versus when there’s no water coming out and the city says, ‘the hot water has been shut off.’

Ira’s frustration was in the fact that in the former case, we’re still paying for hot water, whereas in the latter, we’re not.  Subtle difference – not hot, not warm, but still there = still billable; not there = not billable.

The city’s financial woes – and my education – continue on.

Oh, and it’s 27F outside this morning, and, thankfully, still 70 inside.

Cold

It’s cold here in Kiev. Twenty-five degrees outside, around 70 inside the apartment. For now.

Last Thursday night around dinner time, someone went to wash hands or dishes or something and noticed, ‘Hey, there’s no hot water.’ Sometimes it’s a case of cold water coming out of the hot tap, sometimes, as was now, there is no water coming out of the hot tap.

Well, this happens from time to time. The timing was a little unusual in that if someone is doing work in their apartment and the water is shut off, it’s usually during the day so that it can be back on again when people are home from work and in their apartments. The unusualness of it led us to conclude there was some sort of ‘avaria’ or accident, causing us to sympathize with whoever probably had some sort of flood in their place.

It didn’t come back on the next day, and by then, it was pretty noticeable that the cold water was really cold. Hurts your hands cold. Oh well. Washing dishes (no dishwasher to heat the water for you) and brushing teeth and washing hands go on. Thankfully there’s now a small water heater in the bathroom for short showers and such. Do hurry in the shower, Abby, you’re going to run out of warm water if you keep dawdling. Baby, I’m sorry it’s cold, but we’ve got to wash your hair. You guys put a lot of gel in when you were doing each other’s hair and it has to be washed.

There hasn’t been an accident. The city and the power company and the gas company are in a fight over unpaid bills, and the power company shut off the hot water. I read about this in a newspaper Saturday morning. More than 5000 buildings are without hot water and many don’t have sufficient heat, because the apartments here are water-radiator-heated, fed by centralized heating plants.

The fist fights in parliament are having a more personal effect, at least for us – and thousands of others; the heating stations serve large sectors of our city of three million. Leaders and politicians are arguing about what they are arguing about, problems go unaddressed and unsolved, and in the meantime, it’s kind of cold.

We learn a lot about ourselves here, and a lot about how ‘the other half’ lives. Pray that we’d glorify the Lord no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in, won’t you?

Addendum: We just came in from church and the water is on and warming. Friends at church were all comparing notes, who had water, who didn’t. But the consensus was that although it was expected to be back on by Monday, we’d see more of these shutoffs this winter.

It’s Done

Thanks for praying, guys.  It’s done.  The wallpaper (and walls and everything else) is done.  Sveta and Victor finished today, packed up their stuff, and we began the final cleaning.  I’ll try to put some pictures on soon.

Word Problems

No, I’m not having trouble expressing myself – well, yes, I am, but that’s normal! – but I wanted to share something a little more lighthearted.  Going to Mary’s math class with her has been one of the more rewarding and challenging aspects of the kids being in Ukrainian school this year.  Mary is very good at math, is quick to understand new concepts, and is, in general, one of those people that others scowl at when they’re struggling with the problem that she is sailing through.

The challenge, of course, is getting the concepts being presented fast enough so that I can find the related words in English and pass them along to her.  Since we’re doing fractions – and fairly complex stuff at that – words like ‘common denominator’, reciprocal, ‘(mathematically) simplify’ and so on are running through my head at breakneck speed as I sort out which one it is we’re talking about in a given moment.

So far, so good.  Especially when the kid gets it so you don’t have to keep coming up with the words.  She looks at the math and, regardless of the words, can make sense of it.  Whew!

But then there are word problems.  Mark and I have always laughed when we look back to when we were doing this with Anna, knowing very little Russian and no Ukrainian, and there was that train problem, with the two trains heading out from the station at such-and-such a speed and so on.  Well, we’ve met the trains, and the automobiles, and the heater boats (just call it a boat, why don’t you?!); we’ve repaired so many percentage of road in one month, another fraction in the next month, and 45 more meters in the last month and then figured out how much road was repaired in all.

But the swimming pool has me stumped.  I’m sure I’m just tired (wallpaper and such can do that to a person, I’ve heard).  But my inner puzzle solver who always lives for a puzzle just up and practically shouted, ‘Enough!’  So for the mathematically inclined, I ask a favor:  please show me how to set the problem up?  I couldn’t even set it up!

Here goes:  A swimming pool is filled up using one pipe/hose in 10 hours.  The pool can be filled using a second pipe in 1 1/4 times less time than the first pipe takes.  How long will it take to fill the swimming pool if both pipes are used at the same time?  Having used both pipes to fill the pool, what fraction of the pool can be said to have filled by each pipe?

I was flipping through the book one day last week and saw the word ‘Jerry’.  Upon closer inspection, Tom and Jerry were up to something, but I’ll save that for another day.  I’ve still got to find out how long the bus stops at each stop if the route is 20 1/4 km long and travels at a speed of 45 km/hr and can do the whole route in 7/10 of an hour (oh, there are 10 stops)…

Financial Matters

Well, it seems like the whole world is going to pieces. Markets are falling and probably there will be difficulties for some time to come. I am thankful that we trust in God who is above all of this and guides our future. Right now the currency in Ukraine is falling. Our dollars are worth now over 5 greven. This was a matter of prayer for us. When we returned earlier this summer, the greven was around 4.5 to the dollar. That together with inflation made things really hard.

Well, we need your prayers. Our landlord just came and raised our rent $300 higher. This is quite a jump. We budgeted when we were on home assignment knowing that he would raise it to some extent, but a $300 jump all at once was a bit of a surprise. But we know that we are in God’s hands. Please pray that the Lord will provide.

Handicapped Camp 2008

Dear friends, I wanted to point out a new page on the right underneath the handicapped ministry. I have made a page of pictures for the camp we had this past summer near Kiev. Thank you so much for your prayers and please enjoy the pictures. You can click on the link on the right or click here.