Mug shots, fingerprints and a hefty fine.

Yup, we now have criminal records. Here's the story. When we first arrived to Donetsk, Jay Don briefly mentioned to us that we would need to register with the government in 90 days. And of course we forgot and so did everyone at UBI. Well, that is against the law so when we went to the passport office and spoke to the head honcho there she told us about the fines we had to pay and then she made a phone call. Up to this time we had Ludmilla with us and she was helping and translating for us. But when a fellow entered the office he asked us to follow him to the militia building next door while Ludmilla worked on the paperwork at the passport office.

The militia building was an older building that is up to normal standards here. He first took us upstairs where another man took our mug shot. We then followed the man down some stairs that led to a long hallway. I thought to myself, 'this better not be a prison.' Thankfully it wasn't we learned later on that this building was just offices. And so we were seated in a small room that was being shared by two militia officers. We waited some time and then another officer entered with a folder and a mini roller. He then proceeded to put ink on the roller and then take our finger prints, palm print and then full hand print.

After this the fellow brought us back to Ludmilla who then helped us to pay the fine. But this was only the first process on registering our passports. Luckily Ludmilla knows the ins and out of this process so she took this on for us and we will hopefully have everything cleared up by tomorrow. It is good that we did register before we tried to leave the country because the militia would have not allowed us to leave without doing this.

This experience along with many we have had here has taught us to be more OK with ambiguity. We had no idea that we broke the law and were not sure what would happen at the passport office and did not expect to be escorted to the militia to by fingerprinted. If we were on our own I would have been more nervous but with having Ludmilla with us I was confident that she could get us out of any trouble we got ourselves in.

The rest of the week was pretty eventful as well. We had Vova and Lena over dinner on Friday and learned something new about Ukrainians. They like their corn to be very well cooked. We bought some corn on the cob and growing up I learned that you cook fresh corn for a maximum of twenty minutes so that it is cooked but still crisp. Vova told us this was weird.

On Friday I joined Dema and Sergei with renovating an old building. An old culture/theater building was purchased by missionaries and this building was donated to the Church. It was decided then that this building would be transformed into a halfway house for orphans who are on their own. The building is huge so the upstairs is going to be living quarters while down stairs will be a workshops to help the young adults learn life skills and trades. It is a great idea and it was fun to help with this project.

However the building is far from done. As you can see from the pictures the whole building pretty much needs to be renovated from the inside out.






On Sunday I had the opportunity to speak in the service. At first I wasn't sure if I would be able to speak because I was having difficulties finding a translator. Everyone we know is busy this summer with holidays or with work elsewhere. However, once again Ludmilla graciously offered to help me so I was able speak. After the service Ludmilla then offered us lunch at her place. We had our first green borscht and white kvas at her place. Yum yum, I'm finding that I am enjoying a lot of Ukrainian cuisine. The white kvas was very interesting. It is made from 3L water, 9 spoons of sugar, 10 raisins and a cup of 'sea rice.' That is what Ludmilla called it but I have never heard of it before. After you put all these ingredients in a jar you let is sit in the sun for a day while it cooks. You then strain it, cool and serve. It is light like lemonade but has its own unique flavor. I was a bit puzzles as I watched her current pot 'cook' in the sun. It had little bubbles forming inside. Was the rice fermenting? I don't know what chemistry was going in there but it does taste good. She gave us some of her 'sea rice' so we are going to try and make our own white kvas.