When we first moved to Sumy and started Open Arms Ukraine back in 2008, we didn’t have a car. Our everyday life, ministry, and movement involved constant use of buses, trains and taxis. Life and ministry became significantly easier when we bought our van, Dusty the Peugeot, a few years later. When Dusty became unreliable and was constantly in the shop, we upgraded to Ariel, the Mercedes Vito. We’ve loved that van and it has served us well since somewhere around 2016. But then we moved to the village. And Ariel is a princess. She just wasn’t made drive to and fro in the village on a regular basis. The roads here are riddled with potholes, full of dirt, water, mud, snow or ice depending on what season it is. We were constantly bringing the van in to get something fixed as she was getting beat up by simple, everyday errands. So last year we spent a whopping 900 bucks to get Yoshi, the 1984 green Lada. That little old soviet car has been one of the best decisions we ever made! It handles the village roads way better and is way easier and cheaper repairs than any of the other cars we’ve had. So the Lada has been our around town car and we’ve kept the van for long trips and when we needed to transport more people. But like I said, the van is a princess and the Lada is about 35 years old.
Just yesterday we were about out of drinking water and needed some groceries. It’s a melty, icey, snowy, muddy mess in the village at the moment so we weren’t sure if we’d even make it out… Watch the video below to get a glimpse of what it’s like trying to get anything done here.
The village of Ivanivka is tucked about 15 miles back on a two-lane road (if you can call it that) from the main “highway” road. If we want to get anywhere outside of the village, we have to take this road to get out. It’s horrendous and it’s constantly breaking our cars. You really should be using 4-wheel drive to get around. So… we’ve been working to get the Mercedes fixed and in good working condition to sell it and attempt to buy something more village-proof, some kind of truck or SUV. The van had just been fixed and made ready to sell and then decided to break again a few days later (they say it might be the motor). We’ve been speaking to our mechanic and friends about what would be best to buy and cannot wait to hopefully make the switch. But so far we haven’t had any buyers interested in the van. Please join us in praying that we can successfully sell the van (and keep her working until then!) so we can then purchase something more reliable here. We’ll keep you posted as we continue on our car search and work with what we’ve got in the meantime.