Category: Bruce Posts (Page 113 of 211)

Cafe staff making pizza at our house during our little party this past weekend.

Packing for a 2 month adventure in our family is something to behold.  It’s sort of a evolving time-lapsed thing over the past 3 weeks.  Deb is amazing.  Suitcases appear, then move around from day to day.  Eventually the loads of laundry migrate to our living room.  It looks like a bomb went off, but Deb has it under control.  Being the practical husband that I am, I want to desperately throw things into the suitcases and be done, but there’s a system, a method to her madness so I dare not touch.

I need a bag to hold the passports for our family!

After 3 weeks of packing, planning, communicating, we’re finally ready to go!  Bags packed neatly by the door.. back packs being assembled with snacks and gadgets.  This time tomorrow we’ll be flying over the Atlantic, back to Canada where we’ll spend the Holidays.

On Jan 3 we will embark on our first ‘family missions trip’ across the US.  We have been lining up visits with friends, churches, and generally asking God to ordain and guide our steps.. and wheels.  We are going to spend a month in the US, including a week in Texas with our home church Crossroads.   The kids are excited, but they don’t really know what they are in for.. 9,000 km in a van is something we’ll all remember!

Please pray for a few things:

– Cafe: We are leaving the Cafe open, and have a semi-trained staff in place (4).  Pray for wisdom for Dema, for grace upon the difficult situation with heat and intermittent electricity.  We will keep it open as long as we can function and sell Coffee.

By the way, we are posting more photos and videos on our Facebook page – please check it out if you haven’t already, and LIKE our page… share it around to other believers and missions minded folks! – https://www.facebook.com/lighthouseukraine

– Ukraine: We feel for this nation.  It’s battled, weary, and economically fragile.  Folks are struggling to maintain hope that their nation will eventually be free in the political sense.   Pray for those churches that are on the front line, praying, giving, serving down in Mariupol and other areas where the sound of mortar and moving military equipment has become their ‘new normal’.   Pray for peace, for the winter to move by quickly for those who can’t afford heating.

– Our Trip:  We have a vision on our hearts for 2015 which includes more strategic discipleship.  We will be sharing more of this when we are in Canada/US.  Please pray God would connect us with partners, churches, friends that will share in this burden.  It’s an odd feeling knowing God has called you to something you can’t do on your own – you trust Him, but you are cautious to get ahead of yourself.   We’re stepping ‘out there’ even on this trip, the finances for it are minimal, but God is our supply and I am excited for my kids to experience God’s provision when you step on the water.  Pray God refreshes our hearts as well, as we seek to bless others too.

– Gas – Oh go ahead and pray one more time!  The gas line literally is within inches, but now we need more documents (why not!) for the pizza oven and boiler before they can switch it on.  Documents we don’t have, and can’t get.  Four guys came to Cafe last week at night from gas company and wanted personal documents from me as well.  I just smile at this point and in russian say, ‘talk to Dema’.   Things progress, but often backwards.. just part of life here.

Thanks for checking in, see some of your very soon!  We return to Ukraine Lord willing end of Feb.

Bruce & Deb

So close, yet so far away.

Still no gas.  They’ve brought the pipe within inches of our furnace and ovens, but not connected them.  We are now daily requesting the bill for the metal pipes they installed so we can pay it, which puts the onus back on them to finish.  Been a solid week of waiting for the bill.  Once we pay it, they are telling us they will turn on the gas for a ‘test week’, then turn it off and we need more paperwork, including an installed gas alarm system which they provide minimal details to.

I read today that in Madagascar it takes over a year for businesses to get electricity.  We are in year 2 not just to activate ‘new’ gas line, but simply switch it from private to business.

The Cafe has remained open the past two weeks despite random daily electricity shut offs.  Yesterday we had the power go out in our home and Cafe three times, for 2hrs at noon, 2hrs at supper time, and 30 minutes at 11pm.   Tonight we have a concert at the Cafe, and are planning to not have electricity – generator will power coffee machine, rest by candle light.  Wednesday nights we get a lot of students – so we’re looking forward to a unique evening!

Bronwyn getting creative without electricity – toast by candle light.

We leave in less than a week.  I feel for those who will have to endure daily power outages.  The worst part is that the government has not communicated when it shuts off, so you can’t plan.  It’s hard to believe they can’t at least provide a schedule for its citizens beyond a simple ‘it could go off in these times daily’.  Our hearts and minds will be here during our trip to Canada/US for the next two months.

Bruce & Deb

For months citizens of Ukraine have been preparing for a challenging winter.  The government warned that electricity and gas supplies were limited and services will be interrupted at some level.  With limited information folks went about cutting trees, installing alternative heating systems, and doing whatever they could to prepare.

November went by without a hitch.. our Cafe electricity was fairly stable, and although we didn’t have gas, our electric heating system provided enough warmth.  Consistency was such a nice luxury, especially for a new business and growing customer base.

So much for that! December has begun and our entire town is on utility rations.  Today I picked up a schedule (see below), hand written, and as official as I could find, and very thankful I could even find this through a business friend in the center.  It outlines the streets of our town, and the hours we can expect our electricity to be cut off.  The problem is nobody knows which times, on which days.. but it’s a start!

The official schedule of electricity rationing for our town – effective Dec 1.

Folks in the West will have a hard time understanding the difficulties of ‘doing life’ in this country right now, particularly if you are running a business.  Ukraine was already extremely corrupt and antiquated, but now it’s even more challenging because those that used to take bribes or just ignore the antiquated ‘anti business’ laws, are nervous for their jobs and paying more attention to what is ‘legal’.  This is, on the outside looking in, a good thing.  However on the inside of this mess, it’s brought the country, and I’m afraid will continue to bring the country to it’s knees.

Reform is needed fast, because businesses cannot survive without  reasonable rules, a tax system that makes sense.   Businesses employ folks, that money then pays for heat, food and helps to keep other businesses open.  I get that there’s not enough energy to last the winter, that’s the situation and it can’t be ignored.  However, making no distinction between private residence (who can survive a few hrs every day without electricity) and businesses that employ the residence is an ignorant mistake on a national scale that will have a national impact.

When I talk to other business owners in Ukraine a few of them have come close to tears – they ask, “In America does your government do this to your business?”   I can hear the anti-Obama folks declaring, “yes!” but you have no idea what you are talking about.  At every step, the country is defusing the entrepeneurial spirit in its people.  If the borders opened up, 50% of the population (especially the young) would be gone in a second.

So close, yet so far away!

Ok, enough venting!  The gas company has spent over a week installing a pipe on the exterior of our building.   It has also connected our new meter, come inside our building with the new pipe and has left the pipes inches from the Pizza Oven and Range.  So close, but so far away.  We’re not allowed to touch it.   They’ll be back.. sometime.

We could REALLY use the gas kotyol turned on right now as the temps have reached below -10C and it’s a tad chilly inside the building.   Folks still come in daily, and are enjoying the new Christmas decorations, and music!

Here’s Vlad helping us out yesterday grind a couple holes in our oven vent for the new Gas line.   I like when friends show up at the Cafe just in time to help us do something!

Pray for Gas, for an understanding of our electricity rations, and an appropriate response to them.  If we don’t have power during our best business hours, it won’t be financially or logistically possible to remain open during the winter.  It would be  real shame, with all the effort/momentum we have built up, but it’s a situation many businesses are now facing.