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	<title>Sparks Ministry</title>
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	<description>Updates and Activities of Steve and Dawn Sparks Serving Christ&#039;s Church</description>
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		<title>Happy May Day and other tidbits</title>
		<link>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=705</link>
		<comments>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=705#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 01 May 2012 08:33:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dawn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kyiv]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=705</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The month begins with &#8220;May Day&#8221;, which is normally a holiday for both May 1 and 2.  The celebrations continue with Victory Day on May 9, which usually also means a 2 day holiday.  Finally, the month ends with &#8220;Kiev Days&#8221; on the last weekend in May which is just a big celebration, primarily centered around &#8220;Andreivski Spusk&#8221;.  This street normally has many vendors of everything from tote bags and nesting dolls (matryushkas) to beautiful hand crafted items of all kinds.  On Kiev Days, there are about 3 times as many vendors there for the celebration. The month of May is also usually when Spring has definitely arrived.  Trees and flowers are blooming and it has finally gotten consistently warmer.  Sometimes you might still need a light jacket in the shade or evening, but usually you can finally be free of all the extra winter layers of clothing.  As a Florida/Texas girl, you can imagine how much I look forward to this time of year!  I talked to Steve yesterday and he said it was warm enough yesterday that people were wearing shorts outside.  Ahhhh!  Although it can be a challenge to complete any kind of official business in May [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Women&#8217;s Day 2012</title>
		<link>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=697</link>
		<comments>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=697#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 07 Apr 2012 15:04:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dawn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Kyiv]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=697</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One of the biggest holidays here is March 8, International Women&#8217;s Day.  When I lived in Ukraine before, I enjoyed this holiday because it wasn&#8217;t restricted to just mothers or just those who had a &#8220;valentine&#8221;, but all women were celebrated with flowers and gifts.  I was all in favor of that!  Now, with Stevie in preschool, I see that this holiday is even bigger for mothers.  To give you an idea, the school has 2 special programs each year &#8211; one for Christmas/New Year&#8217;s and one for Women&#8217;s Day! In preparation for the big day, the art class included making cards.  Since I attend the class with Stevie, I participated in making my own card . On the inside, we glued a Ukrainian poem to Mothers.  I&#8217;m sure it was lovely, but my Ukrainian is pretty rusty.  Here it is for your enjoyment: In addition to that, they learned special songs in music class to prepare for the program.  Since one of the classes that the full time students (we only go 2 days/week) take is English, some of the songs and recitations were in English.  Our pastor&#8217;s daughter, Marta, attends this school as well and she is the [...]]]></description>
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		<title>New Ministry Opportunities</title>
		<link>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=687</link>
		<comments>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=687#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:42:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dawn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Kyiv]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ministry News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=687</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A couple of weeks ago, 2 young women from our church came and asked me if I would meet with them to help them practice their English.  There was a third one who was interested in that as well.  They said they could come to my apartment whenever it was convenient for me.  I was really honored to be asked about this.  I think the transition to life here with a family has taken me a lot longer than I expected.  The routine jobs of daily life (grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc.) are much more complicated with a toddler!  I feel like only recently have I begun to feel more comfortable in the daily routines.  At this point, I try not to think too much about how everything will change again with the new little one! At any rate, we had our second meeting together last night (Monday).  Each of the women knows English fairly well but they all feel somewhat insecure in their level of speaking.  What they asked was for time just to speak in English and get more practice in order to feel more confident.  The great thing about this proposal is that it requires limited preparation [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
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		<title>A Day in Our Life &#8211; Routine??</title>
		<link>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=682</link>
		<comments>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=682#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:44:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dawn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kyiv]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=682</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Today was a pretty average day in our lives, so I thought I&#8217;d share it.  It&#8217;s not really the kind of day that results in any pictures being taken!  This post may help you understand why I often seem to be stumped by the question &#8220;Describe your average day.&#8221; Our plan for the day was as follows:  Dawn take Stevie to preschool in morning (leave house at 10, walk to school, return home around 12:30), Stevie takes nap, eats lunch, plays in the late afternoon.  Lena (babysitter) comes at 6:30 to watch Stevie while Dawn meets with 3 Ukrainian girls from church.  Meanwhile, Steve works from home focusing on making good progress in reading the book for his seminary class that needs to be finished by the end of the week. Well, here&#8217;s how our day actually turned out: Stevie woke up first at 5 am, but I was able to get him back to sleep until 6:30 (his normal wake up time). We got up and had breakfast (oatmeal for Stevie and yogurt for me).  I then looked at our thermometer and saw that the temperature was between -15 and -20 degrees C (in Fahrenheit between +5 and -9). [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
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		<title>Baby, It&#8217;s Cold Outside!</title>
		<link>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=667</link>
		<comments>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=667#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:27:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dawn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kyiv]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=667</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Evidently, Ukraine&#8217;s weather is making the news all over these days.  It is definitely cold outside!  Ironically, we had a pretty warm winter (around freezing) with no snow (at least, none that stuck to the ground) until the middle of January.  However, once it started snowing, it snowed a lot.  And, once it started snowing, winter came in full force!  Here are some pictures of the snow from in and around our apartment.  Unfortunately, Stevie got sick right before it got really cold so he hasn&#8217;t been outside a whole lot in the last few weeks.  Although we have some warm snow things for him, when it gets down below zero in Fahrenheit it doesn&#8217;t really matter how warm your coat is if your face is uncovered! &#160;]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Protecting the Gift</title>
		<link>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=657</link>
		<comments>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=657#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:16:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dawn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Books]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ministry News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=657</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[After the recent events at Penn State, there were a number of blog posts and other articles dealing with various aspects of the fallout of those sad events.  One blog post I read recommended a book called Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane) by Gavin de Becker.  The statistics about sexual abuse are shocking and because it hasn&#8217;t happened to me, I sometimes fear that I&#8217;ll be too naive to protect my children.  We did get some training on this as part of our pre field preparation with Mission to the World, but I thought this book sounded like something I should read for additional knowledge. The risk of abuse does not go away just because you serve as a missionary in a foreign country.  In fact, there are some ways that the missionary situation can even put your children more at risk.  I am very thankful that our mission understands this and seeks to train us on how to prevent such situations as much as possible.  I&#8217;m also thankful that our mission supports the fact that our primary mission field is our family and that ministry decisions based on what is best for the family [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?feed=rss2&#038;p=657</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>Loving the Little Years</title>
		<link>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=653</link>
		<comments>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=653#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 21 Jan 2012 12:03:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dawn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Books]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=653</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I read a recommendation a few months ago for a book by Rachel Jankovic called Loving the Little Years and decided to request it for Christmas.  I didn&#8217;t really know much about it beyond a vague idea that it was helpful for mothers of toddlers.   When I read on the back that the author was a mother of five children ages 5 months to 5 years, I almost didn&#8217;t read the book!  Frankly, with only one two year old, I can barely manage the occasional blog post or productive use of an hour or two.  The fact that she was actually able to write a book made me feel like I would not really be able to relate to much of what she had to say. I decided, however, to start reading despite my negative first impression.  The first sentence of chapter two changed my opinion. I remember a time when I used to be much godlier.  It was sometime in junior high and my room was clean.  It must have been beautiful weather outside because the lighting was very nice in my room where I was reading my Bible every day and feeling really good.  It was quite clear [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Varenyky</title>
		<link>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=647</link>
		<comments>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=647#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:42:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dawn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Kyiv]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=647</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is a continuation of my Christmas Feast post.  Although I&#8217;ve made pelmeni (Ukrainian/Russian meat dumplings) before, I have never successfully made varenyky.  I decided this would be the year to succeed!  Fillings for varenyky include potato, cabbage, or cherry.  There are probably other options, but those are the most common in my experience. For Christmas, I decided to make potato and cabbage varenyky.  I tracked down the recipe for cabbage ones here.  The potato filling is basically just mashed potatoes so I knew how to do that.  I mentioned my plans to Lena, Stevie&#8217;s babysitter, and she was interested to learn how to make cabbage varenyky.  This is another recipe that isn&#8217;t difficult, just time consuming and it&#8217;s much more enjoyable with company so we decided to combine our forces!  She made the dough and I made the fillings, then we assembled them together.  There is a recipe for dough in the link, but Lena made the dough we actually used.  Her secret is to make the dough a couple hours (at least) ahead of time and knead it every 30 minutes or so. The fillings are prepared and ready to go: Now for the dough.  The recipe I [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>Ukrainian Christmas Feast</title>
		<link>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=629</link>
		<comments>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=629#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:32:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dawn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Kyiv]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Recipes]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=629</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Here in Ukraine, they celebrate Christmas according to the Orthodox calendar on January 7.  The most traditional Christmas meal is eaten around midnight on Christmas Eve and is made up of 12 different dishes.  I found different lists of what is usually eaten, generally vegetarian and fish dishes.  However, there is one food that is always listed first and is, as far as I can tell, only ever eaten at Christmastime.  This is something called &#8220;kutia&#8220;.  I had eaten this dish once and remembered liking it so I decided to try to make it myself.  In addition, I decided to make both potato and cabbage vareniki (or &#8220;varenyky&#8221;) as well as borsch (I replaced the cabbage in the linked recipe with sliced mushrooms.) to round out our Christmas meal.  Since Steve was out of town on Christmas Eve, we enjoyed our meal on Christmas Day. Although you can see the recipes I used in the links above, here are some pictures of how my attempts came together: First, I made the kutia a few days ahead of time because most recipes recommended letting the flavors sit for best results.  I had to call a friend to find out what &#8220;wheat berries&#8221; are called [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?feed=rss2&#038;p=629</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Advent/Christmas Traditions</title>
		<link>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=618</link>
		<comments>http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=618#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:12:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dawn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kyiv]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://sparksministry.org/blog/?p=618</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Lately I feel like life is coming in waves.  Sometimes I think I have the rhythm of the waves figured out and I get into a routine of posting updates to this blog a couple times a week.  Then, the waves crash over me and I can&#8217;t manage to post anything for a few weeks!  I guess most of you probably have similar lives.   Steve and I do appreciate all of you who pray for us and support us in other ways and we want to keep the blog as current as possible to give you a window into our lives and ministry since you are definitely a part of that! One thing that often changes when you live cross culturally is the ways you celebrate holidays.  For one thing, you get to add the holidays of your host country .  For another, you may have to find substitutions for favorite dishes (like some Thanksgiving foods) because things may not be available in your host country.  (Or, you can get people to ship you things for those items that are just not &#8220;substitutable&#8221;.)  Another thing that often happens is that you end up blending the ways a holiday is [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
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