Thursday, October 30, 2008

Ups and Downs!

We’re slowly settling into life here in Kharkov, enjoying it all very much! On our way to language school, we took some pictures, so here they are. The leaves are really nice right now and we’re enjoying all the fall colors around us. Tuesday seemed to be the popular “rake leaves” day because we saw people everywhere raking leaves. There was even a machine (see picture below) that was out in the big park in the center picking up the leaves. It’s nice when the leaves are raked up because walking can be tricky if there are leaves everywhere. As you can see (in picture further down), their sidewalks aren’t always nice and smooth… there are plenty of drop offs to trip you up. The leaves do a good job of hiding those particularly from me. I seem to find the uneven surfaces all the time… and I walk with my eyes on the ground! I just laugh and then remember that snow isn’t going to be much better... I will then have to account for ice as well! :)

Last week I had a head cold which I kindly passed onto David. Oops! Just as I think we’re both finally about over that, David took a turn for the worse last night. The McDougles also got the bug, and they are currently all passing it around their house, so keep them in your prayers as they get well and also pray that we don’t pass our bug onto the Hindmans! The weather has been a pretty steady temperature of 40-50˚F, but we’re still waiting for the heaters to be turned on inside our apartments. That means most evenings my toes freeze, reminding me I need to bring the heater in whichever room I’m in and turn it on! :) The heater was definitely a good investment!

This week we’ve been having a bit of trouble with our electricity in our apartment. Since we moved in, we’ve kicked the breaker off several times just getting used to how much power we can have on at one time (for example you can only have one electric thing running in the kitchen at a time... I found that out the hard way when I turned the oven and our electric kettle on at the same time). But, when we go to flip the breaker back on, it sparks and sizzles a lot at us. David has started using a wooden spoon to do this now because it looks pretty scary. Well, Wednesday something popped while we were cooking in the kitchen and we can no longer get power to one wall of the kitchen. So, that means the oven is inoperable at the moment. Fortunately, we were able to buy matches and we can still use the stove! Hopefully that will be taken care of soon, but we’re not holding our breath for it to be done quickly. As of yesterday, the Hindmans had become our internet and oven resource! But then late Wednesday evening, the electricity went out in our whole apartment (we think for our neighbors as well)... and it's still out this morning. So, I made my little trip to the Hindmans to cook up a little something for David, bringing with me the stuff in our fridge that had a potential to go bad quickly. As of today, the Hindmans have become our internet, oven, fridge, and electrical resource! Please be praying we can get all of this sorted soon!
These two pictures are of our apartment building and the courtyard across from it. We live on the second floor.

Language classes are going well… we’ve had two full classes now and have learned quite a bit! It all seems very basic and is very basic, but we’ve begun! It’s pretty comical to hear us try to repeat what our language teacher says. Our tongues aren’t used to the letter combinations they use yet! We are happy with the teacher we found at the International House (she does speak pretty good English which is great), and we have another one trading off with her throughout the week. Should be good! Rob Hindman is also taking Russian with us, so that is nice to have an extra person in there learning at the same time!

Thanks again to you all for your prayers and encouragement. We’ve been so blessed by the comments you’ve been leaving on our blog, the emails you’ve sent, etc. etc. It keeps us excited knowing you’re excited about what we’re doing. Keep them coming!

These last two pictures are inside our apartment building and our apartment door. Hopefully we’ll get a video up soon of the inside of our apartment! Be watching for it!

7 comments:

Mihills Family Blog said...

It makes me cold just thinking of you being there without any heat. It's not nearly that cold here, yet, but I've turned our heater on twice just to get the chill out of the air! Hope the heat AND the electricity comes back on soon.

We think of you and pray for you often!!

Love to you both,

Debbie

Another day in the life of Beau Hart :) said...

It's almost like a game, ha! Which wall has electricity, or even do we have it all, ha! Glad to hear things are giong well for you guys :)

Dwight said...

Hey Nelsons,
Isn't it amazing how much we have come to depend on reliable power? I hope the "electricity problem" is not a recurring one. I hope you are able to pick up Russian quickly and easily. Wouldn't it be nice to have the "gift of tongues?" May God bless you as you begin your work with Him in Kharkov.
Dwight

Anonymous said...

Pictures are worth a thousand words. Loved them. Thanks. One guy from Moscow who I talked to on the plane said that Kharkov does not get much snow!! Probably a relative term -- 100 inches is little compared to 1000. Love you. Dad

David and Olivia said...

Good News! We have electricity back! Thanks for the prayers!

Timbra said...

oh, the joys of trying to get "set up" and "figured out" in a foreign land. hopefully all your troubles will be over soon. our landlord in fiji was responsible for bringing us the electric bill and he didn't one month and they just come and turn it off. and it's a big to-do. another month he had some astranomical water bill that he was supposed to be making payments on and missed a payment and they shut off our water, and we didn't know who the account was under and he was gone for a few weeks. . .it can be so annoying. anyway, just thinking of you guys, thanks for the updates.

Joshua Tucker said...

Looks just like Russia... glad you guys are getting set up well.