The Golden Kitty

So I've always know we as Americans get a little crazy when it comes to our pets. You know, clothes, pedicure's, gourmet dog biscuits, beatiful haircuts and so on and so on. My family had a dog named Gracie. She got diabetes and we had to give her insulin everyday. The poor dog was blind and ran into everything. I loved the dog, but I thought maybe she should just go.
Why am i talking about pets and their royal treatment?

Get this, i have a very close source that works in Ukraine's biggest jewelry factory. According to the source, the mayor of Kyiv, just recently made an order for his cat "Yasha". What did he order you ask. A set of six golden plates, spoons, and cups with the words "Yasha" engraved in them. Yes for his cat. We estimated the cost at around $20,000. Come on Mayor are you really that dumb, dont you know people are going to find out and be enraged, epecially since Kiev is in it's worst financial crisis ever as a nation?

For the record, our dear Kyiv mayor was elected pretty much by the church, or several Kyiv churches. I remember when he was running and all these big churches were backing him and telling everyone to vote for him. My wife Anya was one of the ones that was bombarded with brochures and other information encouraging her to vote for him. She was pretty convinced that he was a good guy and voted for him, against my recommendation. I could see from his ideas and his platform where he was going to take the city. Take from the rich and give to the poor was one of his biggest reforms. Another was that he wanted to take away all government privelages, cars, homes, medical stuff, things that should be provided for by the state. Well anytime you take away privelages on that scale, your going to get a bunch of politicians seeking money from other sources, which in turn leads to largescale corruption.

So here we are how many years later and our taxes have gone up, public transportation has gone up 400%, our utilities are in the process of being jacked up 300%, you have to pay to go to the cemetary now and just as of yesterday we learned that the awesome mayor wants to tax those with air conditioners and satellite TV, because they appear wealthier. He sings, he dances, he tells the pensioners in the city he understands them and he listens to God. Then he turns around and spends $20,000 on a cat.

Two thumbs down for our great "cat loving" mayor.

News!!

February, February. In Ukrainian it's called "lutyi" which is like ugly, unbearable, nasty. Something like that anyway. But February has actually been kind of nice weather-wise for us here. No snow and quite warm temperatures for Kiev. The political and economical climate is more like the Ukrainian translation, not the weather climate.

It's been a pretty busy first part of the year for us, the Schlegel family. One of the first big things is that we are now heading up the organization of the U of N seminar, which will take place on Youth With A Mission's (YWAM's) campus this September. Anya and I were approached and asked to take the lead in organizing it, we prayed and felt like it was a great opportunity for us and our ministry, as we will be exposed to a wide range of leaders and people. The seminar figures to be about 400-500 people, so we have our hands full. I have to admit, i feel a bit like the an Apprentice contestant, you know at the end where they go head to head organizing a big concert or other event. So anyway we are excited and looking forward to this event.

Anya has been working her tail off editing and working on Fundamentos. We never thought it would take so long. But technicalities and translation, editing, finding heroes for a nation that is less than 20 years old has been a challenge. The good news is we are done with the editing of the text. Woo hoo and Praise God!!!! The bad news is we are not completely finished. We have two more heroes to find to fill in the last two principles. Then with some design work and some other little details we should be well on our way to getting this thing into our first school. We are disappointed it has taken so long, but realize we have worked hard on it and this is what God wants, it will happen when he wants it to happen. We just keep moving and getting our job done.



Anya as well took her first prayer trip. It was an awesome time, her and a team of just women, travelled to Ternopil in Western Ukraine and prayed for a whole weekend. The team just loved it and was amazed with what God was opening up to them about their country. Ukraine is in a very dark time right now and every team member felt the deception the nation is going through, the history and where all the deception started from. I am sad i wasn't there, but anya feels this is a women's movement and that's why Tanya and Melanie are coming in March. They as women of God, are going to March for Ukraine in March. Praise God for this nation and what he is doing.

I as well took another trip to one of the orphanages with the Dental Ministry. It was great to see the kids again and serve them. This time was so cool in that they remembered me, and that we just got to hang out with the teachers and the children and just minister to them by spending time with them. I really feel a relationship has been built there.



Our family is doing well, we just got off of a 21 day cleanse in which Kyle lost 20 plus pounds. Yeah, I'm the man, you can say it. The girls and Anya are doing just great. Please pray for Denae as she did something to her ankle and/or foot. She cant walk on it. We took her to the hospital for X-rays and they came back negative for a break or crack of any kind, so that is good. We are keeping her off of it for three days and then we will see.

Adios......

Virus

Ah yes, viruses. So much fun aren't they. This was a virtual virus. It shutdown our PC for a couple of days, and thankfully enough we are up and running again. Thank goodness that I had enough brain to save our documents and projects to a flashdrive before the whole thing went kaput. Thank God that our Fundamentals project was on that flashdrive. What did I learn throughout this whole scary moment?
Mac is better than PC :)