Spring is here - the storks are returning

Good Sunday afternoon
It was a rather early start today since we were going to Lutsk for the Breaking of Bread. We were a van full. It was a pleasure to see Timothy Sloan again as well as Anatoly and the other Christians there.
Saturday we went to a small town about an hour from Lviv to visit a senior's home. Marcus and Rachel had been there last fall. We were told the director wasn't there since it was the weekend. We had come with some clothing and soaps and left those with the workers. We had also bought some oranges and bananas and they distributed those to the residents allowing us to come along to the different rooms. Flora had mentioned that we would like to speak to the residents but the staff didn't do that. Maybe it was too much trouble for them or maybe they simply didn't want to, in any event the residents didn't gather anywhere and we didn't really get a chance to speak to any of them. We have definite plans to return there again soon, during the week, and find occasion to speak to these people. Some of the residents were physically handicapped, quite a number were in bed. One thing was encouraging here and that was the fact that they are in the middle of renovations. There was new drywall on some walls, other areas were waiting to be tiled. I always find it difficult to take pictures of places like this or in a hospital because there are people there at the mercy of the bad conditions. Some of these people only have their dignity left and to go around snapping pictures just seems like an invasion into their lives. So at one point when there was no one around I took a picture in the hallway, wanting to show what they are living with. Wouldn't you know it, a lady come out of her room and asked me if I was a tourist!!! I was very embarassed and told her no quite emphatically. She told me not to take pictures because they were in renovations and it didn't look nice. The several ladies that were in this building were quite friendly and chatted with us and Flora told them what we were there for. It is very unfortunate that we couldn't talk to them as a group.
We returned home and decided to tackle the storage room. The word to describe this area right now is "chaos". We know we will be getting more boxes and if we don't get around to sorting everything out properly we will have major difficulties. It is quite a task but we got a lot done and Monday I plan on staying at Flora's after my lessons and working on further organizing the shelves.
Friday we stayed in the city and visited with Luda, Paul & Andre's mother. She is housebound due to health reasons. Her two sons, both in their mid twenties are both working, one out of the city and the other in the city. Her other son, mentally challenged stays at home. They live in unbelieveable conditions, the 2 room apartment for 4 people. They all sleep in a room that is not more than ten by ten. It is stuffy and dirty beyond description. Stephan our driver could not even stay with us while we visited. After we got back in the van Stephan had a lot to say. He cannot believe anyone lives like that. We left her with some groceries and Flo spoke with her.
We also went and visited Petro's wife. Petro & his wife and daughter used to live in a "chicken coop" building and had an apartment purchased for him a few years ago. The apartment is nothing special but it is much better than what they had. Lilla, Petro's wife has Parkinson's Disease. The poor woman was having a very very bad day. When we arrived she had just taken some medication and she was waiting for it to take effect. This is the first time I see the full impact Parkinson's has on a person. Lilla could not stop moving because as soon as she "relaxed" her legs and feet and arms and hands would just tremble terribly. She said she wouldn't wish this disease on anyone. Flo spoke some words of encouragement and I reminded her that in heaven there will be no tears, no pain, no sorrow, no death. Thank God for His promise of a better place.
Oh, we had a nice surprise at the Ruka Vitchka grocery store. Last week when I had some fruits weighed, I thanked the young man who served me and he answered me in English. I just had a word or two with him and went on my way. So Saturday we were there getting bananas and oranges. This young man's english is extremely good and we had a chance to chat with him. He was so happy to have someone who could speak English converse with him because he said he never has the opportunity to practice what he knows. We will stay in touch with his young man. He certainly could be used as an interpreter and also we would like to have him visit us at the apartment and hear the gospel. His name is Andryi
I apologize for the length of this post. There had not been any connection at my apartment for two days. Today I changed the server telephone number and it finally worked. I sure hope that this is the end of the problems. Flora is unable to use her email since she cannot access the internet except late at night if at all. Please drop us a line. It is always nice to hear from home. God bless
Happy Birthday my dear Gilles.

Thursday evening update

Good Thursday evening
Forgive my delay in adding anything to the blog for the last couple of days. I was a little "ill" from frozen pizza purchased & consumed on Monday evening or from just the plain old flu. Very early Tuesday morning I knew it would not be one of my best days and I was right. After sleeping and waking over the next eighteen hours, I started feeling better.
On Tuesday morning Ruslan and Flora headed out to Drohovitch around the Mikolaiv area. (I stayed home and slept) They visited a school with approximately 300 students and were able to present them with the good news of salvation of how Jesus willingly became a substitute for us by taking upon Himself the punishment for our sins. Only through faith in His finished work at the cross of Calvary can one be assured of a place in heaven. All grades were included in this school and Flo informed me that they were very well received. One book we purchase from the Bible Society is a book that helps to teach children from the Bible itself. Some copies were left with the teachers and they were very happy to get them.
This week we purchased cleaning supplies and disposable diapers and such items from money sent from exercised individuals or assemblies. Various clothing and footwear were packed and we visited Viliky Lubin, Starry Rosedille, and today, Bookva the home for handicapped girls. The visit with the directors of Lubin and Rosedille were basically the same, in that these two men are having to handle homes for children with special needs with very few funds from the government. The wages for the staff is minimal.
One thing that has come up on several occasions already is the fact that the director of these homes, Yosopovitchy included, have to account for everything they receive. If they get a visit from government officials, they are given the third degree about where the extra food or cleaning supplies come from. It is such a problem that the staff hides fruits or vegetables or anything else that are brought to them for the children. They didn't tell us what all happens, if anything, or if they are just given a hard time. I'll try to remember to inquire about this.
Tomorrow we plan on visiting those we know in the Lviv area. I have lessons tomorrow morning. I have been trying to upload pictures to the blog but it is proving very difficult with the dial up connection. I'll keep trying.
That government owned gas station I mentioned previously has found fuel!!! They are all opened and are selling their gas cheaper than everyone else!
For a peek into an average person's life here.......the man driving for us presently (Ruslan is unavailable for a few days) also has a job as a security guard at a government firm. He works 15 24-hour shifts per month. So every second day he does a 24 hour shift. His monthly salary for this is 700 hryvny. I will let you do the math on this one. One Canadian dollar is presently worth 4.75 hryvny (today's exchange rate) For each of his 24 hour shifts he receives approximately 47 hryvny. My math isn't always the best but I am pretty sure at this point we all have something close to $10.00 for a 24 hour shift!! And this is Lviv where the price of gas is actually higher than in most places in Canada. His wife also works and with their combined salary they make 1500 hryvny a month. How do they live? We are still asking ourselves that question.

Cleaning supplies at Viliky Lubin

It was another overcast morning in Lviv, but the sun finally came out and warmed the ground enough to melt the snow that had fallen during the night.
I met with Olena my Ukrainian teacher and we did a lot of review from the lessons we had done last fall. She was pleased at what I remembered and I was surprised that I remembered all I did. I have gained a certain measure of confidence in speaking with people but my thinking isn't fast enough to have an actual conversation with anyone.
After my lessons we drove around gathering what cleaning supplies we needed to bring to Viliky Lubin, an orphanage/school that we visit regularly. When we finally got there to deliver everything, we were told that the children were not there. They were gone on holidays. Some of the kids there have some family though I am not sure what the arrangements are and if this is direct family or distant relatives. In any case there are some children who get taken out from time to time. We spoke with the director and we were given a list of medications they need. They told us that they have a child there who is epileptic and they cannot even buy the medication for him. Flora mentioned that we would like to have more contact with the children. There was a time when we were able to speak to all the kids together but the last several times we have been there, it has been impossible to speak with all the children. Our reason for going there in the first place is to speak to the kids about God so we hope to have more time with them.
Some mandatory repairs were done on the vehicle again. The roads in the city are pretty bad so it takes it's tole on the van. Ruslan was commenting this afternoon about this one certain government chain of gas stations. They are all closed, all across Ukraine. I'm not entirely sure why they have no gas but other companies are able to keep pumping their gas. However the price of the fuel is so high now in comparison with the salaries that we all wonder what will happen next. We saw one gas station with their diesel at 6 hryvny which makes it equivalent to $1.30 a liter Canadian.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) we will be visiting a school and I will take the opportunity to speak to the younger children. Maybe I'll try my Ukrainian on them. Kids are usually more forgiving than adults!

Visit to the Gypsies

Good evening from rainy Lviv
The day got off to a good start this morning. I made my way to Flora's apartment on foot, since I needed to know how much time I would need on Monday morning to walk to my Ukrainian lessons. 40 minutes got me there. Another thirty minutes got me to Flo's apartment! Oh did I mention that it is uphill all the way?
We were off to Ruka Vitchka, our local wholesaler to purchase the necessary food for the families of gypsies we were wanting to go visit. Some clothing and shoes were packed and off we went.
This is the fourth time we meet with this particular group of gypsies. They are starting to know us a bit and I think are becoming confident that we will return. Flo spoke to them in the gospel for a little bit. Most of the men were out somewhere but there were several younger women there all with children. We distributed the food to each family and they asked us to distribute the clothes for them. I think there may have been problems with leaving the clothing there previously. So we gave out the clothing as best we could and outfitted some of the children with shoes which were badly needed. Some were in sandals and others in boots which no doubt belonged to someone with bigger feet. Every time we leave there, we always have a discussion about the way these people live. It is indeed something which is totally foreign to us. These children are getting no education so even if they wanted another life when they get older, they have no way to make a living....they cannot even read. It really is sad. In fact we cannot even leave bibles there as the great majority do not know how to read. The ones who do know how to read do have a New Testament. We know of one man who is a Christian among them.
I had an interesting experience tonight. Having plugged in too many items at the same time in my apartment, I tripped the breaker and was in darkness! So I went to see my neighbour. Suddenly the language gap grew very very big as I couldn't even ask the little boy who answered the door if his grandmother was in! The puzzled look on my face probably clued him in to the fact that I needed help so the grandmother came to the door. She was very kind. I had met her before since Ruslan introduced us when I moved in last fall. Tripped breakers require the neighbour to call a neighbour who gets in touch with the man with "the key" to open the door to access the breaker. Even in my limited Ukrainian I could understand he was telling me not to plug in more than 2 things at a time. They say French people use their hands a lot when talking....well that sure came in handy for me tonight.
Tomorrow we will meet at Flo's apartment for a gospel/ministry meeting.
God bless you all...... Helene

From Ireland back to Lviv

Good evening from Lviv
Flora and I are finally back from the conference we attended in Ireland. It was a great joy for both of us to meet with so many Christians and to sit under the Word of God for three days. The conference was taken by three brothers, David Gillilan, Colin Hutchinson and David Alves. The ministry was intensely practical for our daily lives.
We were a day late in arriving in Ireland because our flight out of Warsaw was one hour late and that didn't leave us enough time in Paris to change terminals and get through security. They held Flo up for some reason. That kindly little old grand-mother look of hers didn't fool them!!! They went over her stuff.....who knows what they were looking for. In the long run the reason we missed our flight was because Air France was one hour late, so Air France put us up in a nice 4 star hotel and fed us a delicious supper. The one thing that was very remarkable was the friendliness of the Air France staff in every aspect of our trip. From the ticket agent, to the flight attendants, to the clerks who rearranged our flights the next day....everyone was very very friendly and smiling.
Finding the airport in Warsaw was very interesting as there are no signs indicating which roads to take. We saw two airport signs and that was it.....Buying a map of the city seemed like a good idea to us, but our driver (no it wasn't Ruslan) just didn't seem to see the value in this and kept stopping and asking the drivers behind us if we were on the right road!!! Rather strange way of travelling, but we finally did find our way there and after much driving around in circles, managed to find our way out of the city when we returned. Needless to say finding our way back to our apartment in Lviv was a relief after all that travelling.
So now we are rested and the plans are for tomorrow to get some groceries and to go find the group of gypsies in an area we had visited before. It is always a good opportunity to speak of Christ.
There is a school lined up for the upcoming week and also we are to visit the senior's home that Marcus and Rachel had visited late last fall.
Internet connection permitting, I will be adding to this on a daily basis now that we are home and have set plans to distribute bibles and visit people.
To all those in Kapuskasing, we will be thinking about you as you are having your annual conference. I hope Jesse's idea of inviting people on Facebook worked. Let us know.
Ukrainian lessons are starting on Monday. Pray for help in this.

Ready to go!

Howard Pratt and I are booked to fly to Lviv on April 5th and stay for the month of April.
We will visit Ivano Frankivsk and hopefully have some meetings there.
We value the prayers of the saints while we are there that God will give us souls for our hire.
Your brother in Christ.
Malcolm Stanley

Bandon, Ireland

Good morning from Ireland.
The owner of the B & B here in Bandon has kindly allowed me to use his computer this morning, so I can add a little something to the blog.
It has been an interesting trip to get from Lviv Ukraine to Bandon Ireland.
The drive to Warsaw from Lviv was uneventful but a real eye opener into the trouble it is to get out of Ukraine into Poland. The one kilometer border area took us two hours to get through. It is a maze a fencing with guards everywhere and transports backed up for miles. Over and over again they ask for your passorts, check them out, check your car etc and that is just to get out of Ukraine. Then you enter the other area which allows you in to Poland and it is the same thing over again. I am not sure how much you could do from one check point to the next that they have to look through your car again and again. However we went through with very little looking over because our driver told the guards that she had "Canadian people who were going to Warsaw to catch a plane" At one point the guard allowed us to get in front of the very long queue of cars simply because we were going to the airport. I doubt that our driver mentioned that we were only flying out the next day!!
Our flight out of Warsaw to Paris was an hour late due to computer difficulties in Brussels. That made us late for our connecting flight out of Paris. The Charles De Gaule airport is so big, it is actually difficult to describe. Suffice it to say that there are six terminals and you cannot go from one to the other by foot. They have shuttle buses going every few minutes from one terminal to the next. Air France provided us with 4 star accomodations for the evening and the next morning we flew into Shannon Ireland. Wendell Webb was there to get us and then we came to Bandon for the conference.
Flo and I are looking forward to the conference and also looking forward to speaking about the work in Ukraine. People are very interested in what is happening in that country. Wendell will make a short presentation about the work in the Lviv area.
Please remember us in prayer as we look to the upcoming days and as we anticipate our return to Lviv to get to work. There is much to be done there. May God bless you all.

Family visits

Yesterday (Monday) we drove up to Stryi to visit the carver/doctor and also to visit the orphanage of Yosopovitchy. Our first stop was at the orphanage where to took a few pictures of the repairs that we done there in the fall. We also found the the roof is literally caving in in one area. We have asked for estimates for repairing this as it is a terrible problem. We brought some cleaning supplies for the home. Many of the children were absent, some in the hospital with the flu and others in bed at the home with the flu. That is a very common health complaint. We hear that there has been an epidemic of the flu here.
The carver/doctor in Stryi was overjoyed at the carving tools we brought over from Canada for him. A brother purchased these for him as this is the only means he has of making a living. To say he was overjoyed would be an understatement. We purchased groceries for this family and when we arrived we were told that they had just used up their last onion. The mother of this household of 8 has a strong belief in God and she told us that every day they pray for "loving Flora" and "sweet Helene", names that their oldest handicapped son has given us.
Today (Tuesday) we visited Maria and Oxana and left groceries there. Maria was being kept by her grandmother, as her mom was out at the bazaar. With the intentions of returning soon after our trip to Ireland, we asked about any needs and told them we would be back in a week.
Then we visited Roman with his five children in a small village near Lviv. Again groceries were left and after a short visit and a talk with the kids and dad, we left with the intentions of returning soon after our return. A washer had been purchased for them last year and we were happy to know that it was still running properly.
Now this really is my last report till we return from Ireland. I am next door using Oleh's high speed connection since our dial up is not functioning at Flora's apartment.

We had a meeting this morning with several people out. Just as the meeting finished Natala (from the center...with the 5 children) arrived with two of her kids. She had the wrong time for the meeting. We were very happy to see her. A few years ago a fridge was purchased for her and her family as they didn't have one. We have visited her on many occasions but this is the first time she comes to one of our meetings. After visiting with her Flora asked her if she needed anything for the kids and she said "Thank God no, we don't need anything" It was good to hear.
Yesterday we went and visited Stefka in the village for a bit. She told us of her brother passing away lately.
We are in the process of getting boxes ready for the gypsies and also for Stryii. We hope to go to Stryii tomorrow. We are getting boxes ready ahead of time because onWednesday we will be driving to Warsaw and then flying out to Ireland for a conference on the weekend. It will be an interesting time and we are both looking forward to it. We met with Wendell Webb from Cork Ireland last fall when he visited Ukraine and spent a week with us in Lviv and he invited us to the conference. So I will not be posting anything on the blog till we come back (March 19) because we are not bringing the computer.....unless of course someone there lets me use their's!!
So remember us here, pray for us.......

Safe arrival

Good evening. After several attempts, finally success!!! The internet connection is terribly slow which makes going from one page to the other on the net practically impossible. However....
We arrived safely in Lviv at 2:30 Thursday March 6th. We wondered if we would leave Toronto because of all that snow falling, but it cleared up and we had a perfectly clear sky to fly into.
To all our snowbound friends, you will be happy for us since there is absolutely no snow here. The weather about 10C. Very nice.
We visited the money changer today to convert some money to hryvny. The Canadian dollar is worth 5.05 hryvny. However the price of diesel has gone up and is now equivalent to the Canadian price. We did the mandatory "replenishing" grocery order (Remember that one Jeannette?) and visited the Bible society.. Overall it was a slow day as we are still trying to get over the jet lag.
Thursday evening we had a nice visit from Volodia and Halla, two young believers. They had many questions to ask and it was a nice time with our conversation centered on the things of God.
It is late and I will leave this. As you are changing your time tomorrow, please remember that until we change ours there will only be six hours of time difference with us (for those in the Eastern Standard Time.)
God bless you all.

Departure for Lviv

Dear Friends

Flora Kancir and I (Helene Plourde) are leaving for Ukraine March 5th. We hope that by keeping a blog on a (more or less) daily basis, all who are interested in the work in Ukraine will feel more up to date concerning what is going on there. Gilles will be meeting up with us in mid-April along with Avrell Bowden from Portage. Also, Malcolm Stanley and Louis Smith purpose to be in Ukraine during the month of April.

Please feel free to drop us a comment about what you read. We love to hear from people back home.

This will be it for now....Flo and I are leaving Kapuskasing this afternoon to go to Kenogami to spend the night at Robin & Howard Pratt's. Tomorrow Howard will drive us to Toronto where we will spend the night at Alex & Irene Dryburg's and the following day we fly out.

We value your prayers for us, for direction and guidance, for preservation in every aspect.

May God bless you all.