kievlife

A Priest Methodically Reveals Ukrainian Jew's Fate

2007-10-07T05:05:00.000-07:00

A Priest Methodically Reveals Ukrainian Jews’ Fate

By ELAINE SCIOLINO
Published: October 6, 2007
PARIS, Oct. 5 — His subjects were mostly children and teenagers at the time, terrified witnesses to mass slaughter. Some were forced to work at the bottom rung of the Nazi killing machine — as diggers of mass graves, cooks who fed Nazi soldiers and seamstresses who mended clothes stripped from the Jews before execution.

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Photographs
Remembering the Holocaust
Multimedia Feature
Witness to Genocide (memorialdelashoah.org)
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Antoine Antoniol for The New York Times

"I cannot react to the horrors that pour out. If I react, the stories will stop."The Rev. Patrick Desbois

They live today in rural poverty, many without running water or heat, nearing the end of their lives. So Patrick Desbois has been quietly seeking them out, roaming the back roads and forgotten fields of Ukraine, hearing their stories and searching for the unmarked common graves. He knows that they are an unparalleled source to document the murder of the 1.5 million Jews of Ukraine, shot dead and buried throughout the country.
He is neither a historian nor an archaeologist, but a French Roman Catholic priest. And his most powerful tools are his matter-of-fact style — and his clerical collar.
The Nazis killed nearly 1.5 million Jews in Ukraine after their invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. But with few exceptions, most notably the 1941 slaughter of nearly 34,000 Jews in the Babi Yar ravine in Kiev, much of that history has gone untold.
Knocking on doors, unannounced, Father Desbois, 52, seeks to unlock the memories of Ukrainian villagers the way he might take confessions one by one in church.
“At first, sometimes, people don’t believe I’m a priest,” said Father Desbois in an interview this week. “I have to use simple words and listen to these horrors — without any judgment. I cannot react to the horrors that pour out. If I react, the stories will stop.”
Over four years, Father Desbois has videotaped more than 700 interviews with witnesses and bystanders and has identified more than 600 common graves of Jews, most of them previously unknown. He also has gathered material evidence of the execution of Jews from 1941 to 1944, the “Holocaust of bullets” as it is called.
Often his subjects ask Father Desbois to stay for a meal and to pray, as if to somehow bless their acts of remembrance. He does not judge those who were assigned to carry out tasks for the Nazis, and Holocaust scholars say that is one reason he is so effective.
“If a Jewish taker-of-testimony comes, what would people think — that this is someone coming to accuse,” said Paul Shapiro, director of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. “When a priest comes, people open up. He brings to the subject a kind of legitimacy, a sense that it’s O.K. to talk about the past. There’s absolution through confession.”
Unlike in Poland and Germany, where the Holocaust remains visible through the searing symbols of the extermination camps, the horror in Ukraine was hidden away, first by the Nazis, then by the Soviets.
“There was nothing to see in Ukraine because people were shot to death with guns,” said Thomas Eymond-Laritaz, president of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, Ukraine’s largest philanthropic organization. “That’s why Father Desbois is so important.”
The foundation helped underwrite a conference on the subject at the Sorbonne this week — the first to bring together Western and Ukrainian scholars — and has begun contributing funds to Father Desbois’s project.
Some of the results of Father Desbois’s research — including video interviews, wartime documents, photographs of newly uncovered mass graves, rusty bullets and shell casings and personal possessions of the victims — are on display for the first time at an exhibit at the Memorial of the Shoah in the Marais district of Paris.
The exhibit shows, for example, images of the 15 mass graves of several thousand Jews in a commune called Busk that Father Desbois and his team discovered and began excavating after interviewing several witnesses. Among hundreds of other items on display is a black-and-white photo from 1942 that shows a German police officer shooting naked Jewish women lying in a ravine in the Rivne region.
Traveling with a team that includes two interpreters, a photographer, a cameraman, a ballistics specialist, a mapping expert and a notetaker, Father Desbois records all the stories on video, sometimes holding the microphone himself, and asking questions in simple language and a flat tone.
In Buchach in 2005, Regina Skora told Father Desbois that as a young girl she witnessed executions.
“Did the people know they were going to be killed?” Father Desbois asked her.
“Yes.”
“How did they react?”
“They just walked, that’s all. If someone couldn’t walk, they told him to lie on the ground and shot him in the back of the neck.”
Vera Filonok said she was 16 when she watched from the porch of her mud hut in Konstantinovka in 1941 as thousands of Jews were shot, thrown into a pit and set on fire. Those who were still alive writhed “like flies and worms,” she said.

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United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

In a World War II photograph, a member of a Nazi SS paramilitary group prepared to execute a Ukrainian Jew, one of 1.5 million put to death during the war.
Multimedia

There are stories of how the Nazis drummed on empty buckets to avoid having to listen to the screams of their victims, how Jewish women were made sex slaves of the Nazis and then executed. One witness said that as a 6-year-old he hid and watched as his best friend was shot to death.

Other witnesses described how the Nazis were allowed only one bullet to the back per victim and that the Jews sometimes were buried alive. “One witness told of how the pit moved for three days, how it breathed,” Father Desbois recalled.

Father Desbois became haunted by the history of the Nazis in Ukraine as a child growing up on the family farm in the Bresse region of eastern France. His paternal grandfather, who was deported to a prison camp for French soldiers in Rava-Ruska, on the Ukrainian side of the Polish border, told the family nothing about the experience. But he confessed to his relentlessly curious grandson, “For us it was bad, for ‘others’ it was worse.”

There were other family links to the German occupation of France. One maternal cousin who carried letters for French resisters perished in a Nazi concentration camp. Father Desbois’s mother told him only recently that the family hid dozens of resisters on the farm.
After teaching mathematics as a French government employee in West Africa and working in Calcutta for three months with Mother Teresa, he joined the priesthood. His secular family was horrified.
He started as a parish priest, studying Judaism and learning Hebrew during a stint in Israel. He asked to work with Gypsies, ex-prisoners or Jews, and was appointed as a bridge to France’s Jewish community.

It was on a tour with a group in 2002 that, visiting Rava-Ruska, he asked the mayor where the Jews were buried. The mayor said he did not know.
“I knew that 10,000 Jews had been killed there, so it was impossible that he didn’t know,” Father Desbois recalled.

The following year, a new mayor took the priest to a forest where about 100 villagers had gathered in a semicircle, waiting to tell their stories and to help uncover the graves buried beneath their feet.

He met other mayors and parish priests who helped find more witnesses. In 2004, Father Desbois created Yahad-In Unum, an organization devoted to Christian-Jewish understanding run from a tiny office in a working-class neighborhood in northeastern Paris, backed and largely financed by a Holocaust foundation in France and the Catholic Church.

To verify witnesses’ testimony, Father Desbois relies heavily on a huge archive of Soviet-era documents housed in the Holocaust museum in Washington, as well as German trial archives. He registers an execution or a grave site only after obtaining three independent accounts from witnesses.

Only one-third of Ukrainian territory has been covered so far, and it will take several more years to finish the research. A notice at the exit of the Paris exhibit asks that any visitor with information about victims of Nazi atrocities in Ukraine leave a note or send an e-mail message.
“People talk as if these things happened yesterday, as if 60 years didn’t exist,” Father Desbois said. “Some ask, ‘Why are you coming so late? We have been waiting for you.’”

Oh the Kiev I will miss!

2007-09-26T02:31:00.000-07:00

Aah...Kiev...

The great diesel Smell that fills your air and the trash that lines your streets and parks...I will miss you.

I will miss the 2 months of no HOT WATER so far this year...and cold showers, especially the first month of married life...that was so nice to boil water - and have my new wife stressed.

Oh Kiev...I will miss not being able to find a parking spot anywhere in you, and especially when I come home at night past 7 pm...and there is no where to park by my apartment so I must find a piece of grass kilometers away.

I love the waste land outside my window with is "suppose to be a park someday" - but has been blowing sand and trash since this region was created 10 years ago...and the fact that NO ONE can park there because of the sand...and large Cement barriers that serve no purposes.

I appreciate the sound of the hardest language in the world buzzing throughout the town, even at American Restaurants so that there is no chance for an English speaking person to get around with ease. I appreciate only Ukrainian on the menus so that all the Russian foods I've learned serve no purpose when ordering food.

I love the crowded bowling lanes and being kicked out of restaurants as soon as I finish my meal, even if the place is empty.

Oh Kiev, you've treated me well...as I have spent double the money to live in your safe haven of smog.

From your dirty water, and dirty rivers...it's always a pleasure to never swim here and purchase water to drink.

Oh and lastly, what I really appreciated the most is when I really need the Internet...to watch American Football with a group of people that spent 2 hours in traffic to get here...that's when you decide to "turn off" for the night. How can I ever repay your kindness and welcome to me.

Your slave,

Rick

PS - I appreciate no movies in English too...unlike all the other European countries that have respect for the "language the movie was produced in" - and play them non-stop throughout their cities.

The crazy week

2007-09-19T08:26:00.000-07:00

Last week and the beginning of this week...made it hard not to do to some cheating...

mainly because it is hard to handle a long-hard few days of stress in Kiev, without stopping to eat and not get something tasty, and the lack of "fast-good/healthy" food in this city. There literally isn't any good, fast food, and well, there isn't any "fast food" in this country except McDonald's anyway.

Yesterday, I was in traffic for 3 hours to get to an appointment and 3 hours getting, the total round trip was about 60 Km's. That's something like 36 miles. So on average I traveled about 6 miles every HOUR! I decided that I could certainly ride a bike much faster, but who wants to do a 36 mile bike ride?

And my friends, I am not lying about this traffic, I didn't make this up...this city is completely ridiculous and I believe I am done with it.

For some reason I don't believe I can handle this kind of "lack of motion" or "wasted time" anymore. It just doesn't make sense. And I don't want to get to heaven and say, "well, I spent half of my life in traffic and half of that I was really angry at it!"

There were so many people driving crazy, almost had an accident a few times, no one will let you change lanes in this country, the road system is terrible with HIGH traffic stopping points like 5 lines going down to 2 lanes all the time...and people driving on sidewalks and making it impossible for the "nice driver" to get anywhere, because the "cheaters" keep using the "red light" and by the time the lane goes forward...only about 1 car goes out...

Anyway, if I come back to Ukraine...I don't think it will be Kiev...I must focus on a smaller town where I can be more productive and not so stressed on a daily basis...

this farm boy who grew up in a small town...misses it like crazy, almost daily or every other moment.

please pray I can continue strong until I leave in November....

blessings, Rick

Football Tonight:)

2007-09-10T06:01:00.000-07:00

Well, an amazing thing happened in Ukraine...this week.

I have a break-through in Technology that is making my life so much better. I, through the help of my brother-in-law, discovered and was able to make "workable" LIVE AMERICAN FOOTBALL!!!

Tonight, this Monday night, we have 4 die-hard Green Bay Packer Fans coming over to the house to watch the whole game! I can't believe it and I am still THANKING GOD!!!!!

oh, the hard part, the diet, I want to order Pizza, eat chips, and be American!:((:(

The food deal

2007-09-08T13:31:00.000-07:00

Today -

had 2 eggs, a little meat, tomato, and 1 piece of bread for breakfast...little jelly, so about 300 calories.

Then, I ate a sandwich with one hot dog, 2 pieces of bread, and some little tomatoes, etc probably about 400 calories.

Then, I had 2 patotoes, 2 little sausages, with butter and some ketchup, probably about 600 calories.

Then about 5 cups of coffee, about 30 each, so 180 calories...

total for today - 1,480...calories...it was rainy, so I didn't run, or walk my 3 miles today, but did spend a lot of time running around and cleaning house and entertaining the English Club, making food, etc.

how do I feel? very hungry right now, at 11:30 pm...need to just drink water and sleep.

Friday was my cheat day, and I cheated on a not so tasty meal at a wedding...so, I had to come home and actually eat some chocolate, because the food wasn't tasty - I certainly think I should keep me cheat meal open for a more "controled food situation" -where I can choose what I want to eat.

peace out, Rick

PS - September 12th, Wednesday will be the 1 year date of meeting my wife in Person...we will have a nice evening meal together, making it my cheat day for next week. That's 4 days away, then I have to wait 1.5 weeks for the next Sunday cheat meal...man...that sucks.

The Work out So far...

2007-09-07T01:51:00.000-07:00

Well, I am now a definite 220 pounds...down from 228 when I started almost 2 weeks ago.

Of course, today is a friends wedding and I am using the reception as my "1-meal a week cheat" - and will probably not lose any calories on this day.

The last few days I have successfully walked 3 miles or more and kept within my 1,500 calories, yesterday, I had 1,450 calories.

Anyway, last night I had a huge desire for Cake or Chocolate or something sweet, I lived through it by eating 50 calories of dark chocolate and eating Peanuts and drinking some diet coke. So, I survived with probably only 200 calories, but the Peanuts are healthy fat - the kind of fat that helps you burn fat...fat:)

We are trying to sell things in our apartment and that has created a non-stop flow of neighbors into our apartment. We still are 2 months away from moving to the USA for sometime, but everyone wants our things now...the word of mouth here is better than the Newspaper or the gossip column at a church:)

It has been a headache - my wife and I only have the evening together and we can't get through a meal without someone knocking or calling and saying they are coming over. That's been since Monday - and today is Friday - I am almost glad I won't be in, because I am going to be at my friend's wedding.

Interestingly enough, I got a ring at the door while writing this...and I tried to answer it, but they wouldn't answer back, and I don't open the door if you can't speak to me...but I saw it was my neighbors again who want to take everything...man, can't a guy just get dressed for a wedding?

Alright - today -ate 2 pieces of bread - 200 calories.
Peanut butter - 200 calories, and Jelly 120 calories.

I am already shooting a lot of calories at 520 - plus about 30 for coffee, so 550 calories for breakfast, man, that's too much, someone should have stopped me:)

blessings, Rick

Kiev, Ukraine...do you really know it?

2007-09-05T02:25:00.000-07:00

The Kiev Life (the picture to the left explains a lot)

Living in Kiev presents you will a whole new set of rules. Foreigners don’t know the rules and Ukrainians change the rules as soon as you learn them. I have to admit that some days its hard to get much done in this city, even though I go to all the right places and have all the right intentions. For instance, did you know it takes about 2 hours to get your car washed in this city and costs about 38 dollars? Did you know that it takes well over an hour to get a hair cut, even for me, who just needs a trim? Did you know it takes on average about 1 hour to travel about 15 miles in this city (almost any part of the day now)? Did you know that it takes over 3 hours and costs $168 dollars for an OIL CHANGE here? Did you know that you can’t open windows in your house or a bus to cause a breeze even in HOT summer weather, because you could get sick and die? Did you know that Ukrainians work from 9 to 5 with an hour break from 1-2 PM and many 15-minute breaks along the way (and yes, the stores, kiosks, banks, government building all close their services during those times)! If you don’t time things right in this city, you can waste a whole day stuck in traffic, arrive during a break, and then have to wait for the line that was before you—basically accomplishing nothing for that day! So, you see, this is why I started my new blog called http://kievlife.blogspot.com/ - which tries to explain and show some of the reason behind the City of Kiev (and Ukrainian life). Also, I am using this blog to tell about my own struggles and successes in trying to lose weight. Yes, I am getting very serious about living healthy, because it is not just for me anymore, it’s for my wife and future family.

Weight loss...it's crazy

2007-09-04T04:29:00.000-07:00

Well, my friends,

it is Tuesday in Ukraine, I was awaken by my cousin calling me for about 3 hours...at 6:30 am. It was a great conversation and I am glad that God is doing things in our families lives. He gave me great testimonies of things that happened at my Grandfather's funeral, I really wish I could have been there.

I drove the wife to work, and we did some passport work, bought diet type foods, and got home around 1 pm. Super tired.

Last night we had a birthday party for a friend until late and my dream of a day off and some rest is still far away.

Anyway, that being said, I am somewhere between 222-223 pounds today.

At the start of this diet a week and 2 days ago, I was 228. So, that's good, I feel thinner, but don't look like it much yet. I know I am getting better...but it feels like it will take a life time now.

my friend Lloyd has been on the Aktin's diet for about 3 weeks 3 days...and he has lost 15 pounds of fat already. You know, that is a lot of fat...wow! But, I just can't do it long term, so I am doing the slower route, of hopefully, 1-2 pounds every 3 days. Every 3,000 calories I shave off, is a pound and I try to only eat about 1,500 a day, which means, about 500-1000 a day net loss. Or about 1 pound every 3 days, but I work out now, and that burns more and of course, I used to eat about 4,000 calories a day - which is why I was gaining all the time, but it takes a little while to turn around this boat.

Today, I ate 2 cups of grapes (200 cal)

I piece of bread with PB & J - about 200 cal.

then, One American cold-cut - about 400 calories.

so I am about at 800 so far today.

ok, got to do some more work, but man, I feel like a nap.

Rick out

the Weekend...

2007-09-03T01:04:00.000-07:00

This weekend was busy, with Friday night hanging out with some other missinoaries, and Saturday English Club and the Church Fair, and then Preaching on Sunday, getting car repaired and now driving my wife and then some other people around the city.

Friday, I had the 1,500 calories, without working out - or did I only walk for 1-2 miles, I think.

Saturday, I ate more calories, somewhere around 1,700 - because of too much red meat.

Sunday - I allowed myself anything at dinner, I had a Salad and French Fries...but they were expensive in calories, probably ate around 2,000 that day...

No really "work-out's" - so that's bad...but I feel pretty good today...
except for only 5 hours of sleep.

got to go...later, Rick

today's food intake so far...

2007-08-30T05:12:00.000-07:00

OK, I didn't work out yet today, because I have so much paper work to do - writing a newsletter and preparing a sermon, and emails, blogs, and other thing...

however, the reason I didn't exercise yet is because that is something I can do when my wife is home, that way she is happy to see me work out and also I need to be extra thought-filled time, without distractions while doing this paper work....so it all "works out". Tanya is at work again and we got another step done today for her visa...it is such a long process...but praise God - it is starting to move along, only about 3-4 more huge steps of paper work and we will be close.

OK, what I ate so far, because I don't want to forget:

3 cups of coffee, always fake sugar, the coffee is 9 calories each cup, but the fake creamer is where I add 40 calories just to be safe, so about 150 calories there.

A little watermelon - 50 cal.
A few grapes - 50-75 cal.

about 1/3 chicken, over two meals - about 400 calories.

2 cucumbers - 40 calories (20 each)

1 tomato - 20 calories.

I am getting my information from http://www.calorie-count.com/

which is the best source for this calorie information ever!

so far about 685 calories so far - and I feel like I ate a ton!!! It is so interesting, when you eat "green" things they don't have much calories - and fruit is so sweet, it is like all the dessert that I need. I think I can, at this point, continue this diet forever. However, when I think about America and big juicy Hamburgers and fries...I start to fade away from that determination. Also, the last two days I have been mostly around the home, so it has been easier, we'll see when I start going out tomorrow and this weekend at the church picnic:)

A Church in Need in Kiev...for heat this winter!

2007-08-30T03:54:00.000-07:00

The following is a letter from a dear friend and pastor of a great church here in Kiev. Pastor Dima helps me with many of the orphanage projects we do around Christmas time (because we only go to orphanages that have a regular church-based outreach weekly to). It would wonderful if you could or wanted to donate something to help him in this time of crisis. Thanks for your prayers and support!

Dear family of God!

Greetings to you form Ukraine. Right now we have great hot weather and the need that we have seems little. But in a few months we will have freezing and our heating system needs to be working. We have the order from the State Natural Gas Company to improve the gas counter. This project will cost us $2,200 (after two month of negotiation). Without a new system we will be not able to heat the church buildings! As a church, we created the buildings fund for that and already got, Praise God, $750 over the regular budget for the counter. We are still short, but not hopeless. Please support us in this prayer need so that our church and children’s room will be ready to conduct three services every Sunday. God is saving people!

We love you and it is blessings for us to have you.

Pastor of Grace Evangelical Church

Dima Bulakh

2Co 8:14

what I ate yesterday...

2007-08-29T16:57:00.001-07:00

Well, today wasn't so bad...

Although I am working on my sermon for Sunday and forgot that I have to do my newsletter for missions...I still didn't finish either.

As to what I ate (and you wish you knew about)

I had a yogurt in the morning - 100 cal.
Then, a little chicken breast, and cucumber - about 250 cal.
Then - I walked/jogged - 4.5-5 Km.

Then, ate about 1/3 of a chicken - but no skin or fat...just have been about 400 or so calories.

Then, the wife came home and made me a salad - cucumbers, lettuce, tomato, chicken again, peanuts, and dressing. That dressing was for sure 100 cal. The salad itself, couldn't have been over 250-300 cal.

Later, about 2 cups of grapes - 200 cal. - and some watermelon - I have no idea what watermelon is, but I know it is mostly water:)

had two cups of coffee with cream (fake sugar) - about 100 cal -

total calories - 1,450 on the high side, plus the watermelon.

I learned that 2,000-2,500 steps burns 100 calories. How many steps in a mile? One mile is equal to 5280 feet. Most people say it takes about 2000 steps for every mile. I walked about 3 miles or more. So, I did lose 300 calories at least during this day exercise, on the top of the fact that I only ate ruffly 1,500 calories.

not too bad for day three...but I still want to keep up the good fight - maybe do weights and ride bikes with the wife tomorrow.

Be blessed my friends...Rick out

yesterday's workout/meals

2007-08-29T03:02:00.000-07:00

I did OK, yesterday not as good as I wanted, but I was busy most of the day and was out with the Pastor and didn't have the chance to eat exactly when and what I wanted...etc.

So, I did my bench press, arm curls, sit ups, and tri's...in about 30-40 minutes.

I ate...

a banana, one cup of juice, one roll of sushi, one chicken breast, a Cheese thing (300 cal), some grapes, 1 yogurt...

I had 3 gummy bears - and a little, little chocolate...and a hand-full of peanuts, or so...

I would say I ate around my 1,500 calories...but not too bad, not too good, wish I would have had a little mor healthy food.

The Rick Diet...starting today! Help me Lord!

2007-08-27T03:39:00.000-07:00

Today is one of those revolutionary days...

It's one of those, "OK, I've had enough" days...

It's one of those, "why did I let myself go this long" days...

And...yes, sometimes these days are short-lived. Sometimes we let the feelings pass and keep on doing the same things as always...

But this is not one of those days. I have decided, after seeing myself in recent pictures, that I have really let myself go...and I am more big (fat) than I have ever been in my life.

On my Russian (piece of junk scale) my weight is 228 pounds....yeah my friends, I am only 5 foot 8 inches and 228 pounds! Now, it doesn't look as bad as it sounds because I have a strong upper body and my legs are mostly muscle because I do like to walk and run, when possible.

that's to say, there is some muscle in there - and it weighs a lot too.

However, I would admit that I probably could tone down to anywhere between 175-185 and look my best with all my muscle. The smallest I was in my adult life was 165 and that was with no fat at all basically - only muscle Russel.

Anyway, lately when I try to lose weight I get down to about 200-205 and then stop and get climbing up again. I used to think I was SO fat at 200. As a matter of fact, I thought I was huge at 190. Now, I would love to get to 190 again. Anyway, I noticed two flat line times in my eating process, one comes usually (when I was starting at 220) around 205 and another at 190. And so, there will be about 1-2 weeks that I don't see much difference and those weeks are my hardest to press through. Which is why I most often quit after a few week/months if I only make it to 200-205 lbs.

This time is DIFFERENT - I know we always say that - but the only big difference is going to be this ONLINE "accountability" - or this blog if you will.

I want to write my feelings and what I do and eat for the day for the whole "world" to see. I am aware that only a few people see this site, but it's at least out there...and people will know what I am doing and how I mess up or don't.

Another factor is - I am coming back to the USA in November. The problem with that is...I usually go food crazy for a few weeks when I am in the States, and probably even more so since I have a new wife and want to show her all the awesome places in America that I eat. It will be completely hard to stay on a diet at that time - the hope is that I build up some kind of pattern or some kind of "life-style" change by that time and can keep thin, or at least eat less when there.

The other pressure is that I just don't think Tanya signed up for, or deserves a husband with a big belly - it doesn't look good and it only encourages her to do less to maintain her weight, etc...too. I want us both to be healthy for a long time as with kids, we must be...and we need to change our patterns now...before kids come along.

Lastly, and a major just wise factor, I need better health. I feel more drained and more lazy with this belly and always trying to feed it. I feel like I am addicted to Coke and sodas...and that's not good for me. But mostly, my back is KILLING ME. It hurts more and more and I know it is a 45-pound strain on it that's not doing it any good.

Let's see - I am 228 and my goal by November 12th is going to be 185- wow, that's a huge goal.

That's a net loss of 43 pounds! Today is, August 27th.

The last time I tried this 1,500 calories a day diet in 5-6 meals, with exercise everyday (with Sunday off) was in 2001. I believe I started around 205 pounds (maybe more) and reached 185 within 6 weeks. It was January 1st to Mid-February. I should have totally continued, but my goal was reached and I stopped, that's one thing about this diet...I might need another goal with this is over.

Other factors - I was working construction - burning calories - plus a lot of exercise. I was 25 years old...so it was easier to lose at that age for sure.

Basically now, I have a desk job for the amount of daily exercise I get. I also go to many more meetings and greetings, which makes it hard to say NO to people's hospitality.

So, if I say, I can lose at this age and time - about 15 pounds every 6 weeks, including flat line times...that means...I am in trouble. Because that is only 30 pounds in that time, to about 198.

This diet I carved out is only 12 weeks. The first 6 weeks ends October 1st. I could possibly lose that 20 pounds in that time...but that next 6 weeks might have a few flat line times. Of course, it all depends on how faithful I am to this diet and if I step it up a notch on some of the work-out exercises.

If however, I step it up and for some reason, lose 40 pounds in 12 weeks, I will only be 3 pounds off of my goal, if I keep my diet a few more weeks, until around Thanksgiving time in America...I should reach my goal. We will put an extension on it then...if I still don't have my goal.

Alright - today, day-one. Monday - I wrote up and did about a 50 minute walk - or 4.5 KM. This walk only had a little jogging because my back hurt most of the time and I am trying out new, but rather crappy shoes from the market in Kiev.

What I ate so far today:
meal 1 - yogurt - around 170 calories
meal 2 - some chicken and little potatoes - around 250 calories.
drink - 1 coffee - about 50 cal. - sugarless sugar.

The plan.

Eat 5-6 meals with about 200-250 calories each, every 2-3 hours.

Don't eat anything past 9 pm or 4 hours before I might go to bed.

Exercises - 4-6 km runs, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Lift weights and sit-up workouts - Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday.

Maybe allow myself 1 meal a week to eat anything (although I didn't do that last time, I might need it or maybe it will hurt me, we'll see) I am thinking Sunday after church for this meal, since it is usually with people and downtown at a restaurant.

Car Washing, In Ukraine, you got the time, they get the money!

2007-08-22T05:22:00.000-07:00

I would love to try and explain why it is so difficult to do simple tasks in Ukraine, but until you experience LIFE here for yourself...you will never understand.

And I don't mean the short-term (3 months or less) trips, where a contact basically shows you around and provides all necessities for living. Helping you find housing, cooking food for you, or otherwise nicely taking care of all the little things you can't see.

Getting my car washed must be one of my most hated wastes of time in Ukraine!

It takes at least ONE HOUR - if there is NO LINE, which there always seems to be a 30 min-1 hour wait for the car wash, no matter what car wash you go to. The good thing, I guess, is that it is washed by hand...I have only HEARD RUMORS that there is an automatic car wash in town, although, I haven't seen it. The rumors could be greatly exaggerated.

Total car wash experience, usually 2 hours.

The cost of this car wash...today - as the price seems to go up by 3-6 dollars each time I do it - was $34 dollars!!!!!!!!

If you only want the outside cleaned...it's something like $20-25 dollars - so why not get it all done, you just waited one hour to get it cleaned!

Now, that begs the question...why not just do it yourself?

First, the inside of my car is usually spotless, except for dust (and vacuuming the floor) - I don't allow anything in my car, because any shinny object, even trash could make a boy curious and he will smash my window to get that shinny object.

Here's why I CAN'T do it myself. I live in an apartment building, on the fourth floor, there is NO HOSE, or way to get WATER to wash my car. Even if I "washed it" it would have to be with many buckets of water and would prove fruitless (bigger waste of time), the only other way to wash your car here is IN THE RAIN, which I have seen some people try, but if it's a DIRTY rain, which is often is in this DIRTY city...it's all fruitless labor.

Next, NO Vacuum! For some reason all Europeans think that CARPET is DIRTY and only really poor people would have it...I guess carpets will carry disease, like the wind does here*, and kill you. Long story short, I have no carpets in my apartment, only really junky linoleum. Which means I never purchased a vacuum cleaner. My uncle Jerry couldn't sell a Kerby here if he gave them away.

That my friend...is how you wash your car here, and since 90 plus percent live in apartments and must wash their cars...that's why it is soooooooo expensive to get one.

Last two times I washed my car - 7-06-07 (before wedding) and today (8-22-07). Can't imagine Americans would wait 2 hours and pay $34 dollars for a car wash weekly in America:)

* The wind - a breeze or the wind (inside your home) is the cause of all major illnesses in Ukraine - yes, Americans have never heard of it, because it is a "wife's tale" as we would call it in America. You will get a cold, yes, in the dead heat of summer, if you open two windows in your house and get a breeze flowing. And yes, my wife believes this - so don't talk about it too much with her around. The doctors here even teach it.

Anyway, you can't even open two windows on a mini-bus full of so many people you can't even breathe...because that fresh air will kill you! I have walked many miles because I couldn't stand riding on those buses with that ignorant heat making me almost die!

Next, it is not just a cold - it is ear aches, head-aches, sore backs, or if any of your bones hurt for some reason, it is because of too much wind. Runny nose, or stuffy nose...also caused my wind. you name it, people ask first, "were you working by a window", if you say you are sick. I still can't understand it after almost 2 years of being here. Don't even try to understand it, just try and live without dying of heat-stroke most days in Ukraine. Live long and prosper, without a breeze!

Kiev...traffic: "we are driving ourselves mad"

2007-08-20T14:08:00.000-07:00

just so you know...

Today I spent 1 hour 30 minutes in traffic to buy some materials for orphans...

I only went 1 kilometer.

I turned around...

went home...

waited...

a few hours later...

picked up all the things in a different store...total time in store, 30 minutes.

total job...with waiting...4 hours.

in America...it would have taken, 20-30 minutes total - because the store had long lines too.

sometimes it is just crazy. It certainly is a different world over here.

peace out, Rick

Cesar or God: Who is Dead?

2007-08-09T01:29:00.000-07:00

Cesar or God: Who Is Dead?

by Donald Devine

Nietzsche declared God dead 100 years ago. Look at Sweden. This is a country that following the Reformation had an official church supported by taxes, where as late as the 19th Century evangelization by other churches was outlawed. Today, it is the country with the lowest belief in God, lowest religious attendance and lowest level of saying prayers in the entire world. By happenstance, recent changes in law allow almost a pure scientific experiment of Nietzsche’s hypothesis. In 2000, Sweden abolished the established church tax and created a “fee” that would only be collected from church members. What does reason say would happen to membership under these conditions?

In 2001, Church of Sweden membership dropped dramatically. Almost all were expected to follow in the next few years. The now secularized population confirmed economic rationality and voted themselves free of the fee. So Nietzsche was proved correct, right? Then something curious happened. Now that there was a choice, a limited market, church officials mounted a publicity drive supporting Christianity and urging church membership. Miraculously, membership stabilized and last year the Church received $1.6 billion from 78 percent of the population in a country where barely three percent attend church services other than weddings and funerals. In another odd recent situation, the largest hotel chain, Scandic, accommodated a complaint from an atheist and removed Bibles from its rooms—but was later successfully pressured to reverse course.

How do such things happen in the most secularized country on earth? Something similar happened in Italy, where less than one-third of the population attends church each week (compared to almost 40% in the U.S.). In 1984, Italy shifted from exclusive support of the Roman Catholic Church to a “religious tax” of 0.8 percent that would allow taxpayers to choose between it, other religions or a secular humanitarian fund run by the government. What happened in this market test? The latest figures show the Catholics get 89 percent and the state humanitarian fund gets a mere pittance.

This is secular Europe. It is interesting that a similar situation existed in early America. Sociologist Rodney Stark estimates 17 percent attended church in 1776, about the same as Europe today. But when the eleven states with established churches ended their monopolies and other denominations entered the religious “market,” 50 percent were attending by the 1900s. Stark concludes that churches run by Cesar with monopoly control have no incentive to work for membership. The taxes provoke resentment. Even those who support the established church can end up alienated. In Sweden, the Ecclesiastical Department minister who ran its state church for years was a well-known atheist. A former Archbishop of Canterbury was called “red” to symbolize his attachment to Marxism. Such church leadership can hardly instill orthodoxy or spur membership.

Somehow Europe’s Christianity survives. The polls even find that most Europeans say they pray several times a day. Even Swedes (and Frenchmen) say they pray “several times a year.” Why at all? Why do they insist on Christian marriage and funerals? When given a choice in polls to choose between being called a Christian, atheist, agnostic or “no religion,” why do 68 percent even of Swedes (the lowest in Europe) choose Christianity? It is well over 90 percent in Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Norway, Finland and Denmark and the U.S. It is hard to avoid the conclusion these peoples are Christian if they say they are and act on it, even if they are less than enthusiastic about showing up at their once state-run churches except on big occasions.
At the same time, Cesar is at an all-time low. Since the rise of nationalism in the 16th Century, people have identified more closely with their monarch and nation-state and have literally died in the hundreds of millions in their wars. With the rise of the modern welfare state, it looked like government could keep expanding benefits to win the loyalty of all. But then the babies stopped. It takes 2.1 children per childbearing aged woman to keep the population going and Europe sank to 1.4 by the early 21st Century (with the U.S. at 2.0) and the money machine stopped. The population aged and drew more benefits and few young workers were there to pay the ever-expanding bills. The very socialist political parties that built the entitlement programs were forced to lead the belt-tightening, making them as unpopular as their conservative opponents.

As the state claimed more and more functions, an increasing number of different ideals and interests conflicted and the government seemed able to satisfy fewer and fewer. As a result, Europe has suffered a two-generation stagnation, refusing economic rationalization from the center and supporting increasing protectionism from below. Even the United States has ignored the massive increased resources that will be demanded to pay federal health and retirement costs in the very near future. In fact, every politician is promising more and more. Its national agencies increasingly seem not to work—they cannot win wars, or keep contraband off airplanes, or secure borders, or run elections or secure records or maintain bridges or pretty much anything. Katrina’s conflict between national security rules and local immediate response capability for disasters demonstrated the centralization trade-off for everyone to see and no one trusts the government to do better the next time.

Cesar is in big trouble and it is directly related to the fact he is big. The more national governments do, the more things collide. Unlike the market (including the market of local governments) which has proved it works, national bureaucratic rules kill initiative. And moral rules set by the governments, the secular dream since Rousseau, win no one’s heart—not even in so-called secular Europe. Secularism cannot even provide the impetus to have enough children, surely not the world’s most distasteful obligation. Cesar is incompetent and childless and just about dead. God looks like he will survive.

Donald Devine, the editor of Conservative Battleline Online, was the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management from 1981 to 1985 and is the director of the Federalist Leadership Center at Bellevue University.

Kiev from a Million Miles away...is really quite close!

2007-08-03T04:15:00.000-07:00

this is a bird's eye view of the city from thousands of miles in the sky, probably...

So, for those of you who wanted to know what Kiev looks like, where I travel to, and where things are in my big old city of Kiev...can enjoy this link. I have where my apartment, church, orphanages, Russian school, friends houses, and notible places. Take a look and enjoy.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=115563460446024905207.0004367b1fb932fef2020&ll=50.447886,30.568085&spn=0.413628,1.277161&t=h&z=10&om=1

Again, trying to get photo for site

2007-08-02T10:07:00.000-07:00

and one more...

are they serious about making this photo thing so hard for this site...seriously...want to just go back to MySpace now....

Posting photo to put on my site...

2007-08-02T09:53:00.001-07:00

I guess this is one way to host a photo...so here goes...

Why not another?

2007-08-02T09:25:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone on this thing...

basically, I wanted to start posting comments on my friends sites, and this thing almost makes you sign up...or did it? I don't know - all I know is that I am here and ready to join this craziness. I have so many blogs and websites, it is starting to borderline drive me crazy and it seems like everyday someone wants me to join this or that new blog. Anyway, I am not doing facebook, because I have a great MySpace account that I keep up to date. It is at www.myspace.com/missionsupport - and I have my ministry website with blog at www.jesustalks.com/blog - I also have kept my wedding site, at least for a little longer - at www.rickandtanya.com - that might be interesting to you, if you are interested in the fact that I just married on 07-07-07. Ok, blessings, and peace out...this is my Kiev Life Blog.