The Alliance Children’s Foundation compound was immense and was centered in one of the most expensive real estate quarters of Kiev. Inflation was in place and the rental property was a relative match to Manhattan. Martin walked through the stately gates of the A.C.F. feeling uneasy. His ideas of second-world ministries were nothing like he had observed. He knew there were people in the field, missionaries who suffered along with those they ministered to. This was not it. This was where they organized and networked all those missionaries. They also networked with hundreds of other non-profits in the country through what they called “partnerships.”
The A.C.F. resembled to Martin a little of the American government in the way that they were the dispenser of major funds, allowing them a far-reaching oversight of likely too many things. His little rag-tag group had gathered outside one of the doors on the third floor. He reached them and heard that he missed the tour of the state-of-the-art television studio. Apparently it was breath-taking.
He couldn’t have been less interested if he had desired to be. Why he came all this way in the first place, Martin wasn’t sure, but it wasn’t to meet-and-greet TV personalities or ogle electronic equipment in a studio. He took a place next to Jenny and they followed the team down the many stairs and out into the parking lot. The chief of the A.C.F., recognizable to Martin from his previous fretful Internet searches, walked out of the building with a couple of his aides following close behind. The man seemed bothered, a bitterness masked by a smile that Martin had seen before from so many salesmen.
The leader of the mission led the group closer to the chief and by the van that was to take them to the train station.
“Hello, everyone. Welcome to Ukraine. Translated, it means Borderland and you guys are headed to our southernmost border region today. I tell you, I envy you your work in Mariupol. Word has gone ahead and the children are very excited. The director is as well. I have known her for many years and I think they will be as much a blessing to you as you are to them. Thank you again for your heart for the Ukrainian children.”
The chief gave more energy to his final smile, waving before disappearing back into the building.
“What’s his name, again?” Martin asked.
“Chip Stiles. He’s really nice,” Jenny replied.
“So just his little speech sucks?”
“Stop it,” she whispered.
“Fine.”
On their way to the train station Martin had made it his goal to try to understand the Ukrainian traffic signs and rules. Was driving and parking on sidewalks okay all the time or just at certain hours? They encountered a traffic light at several intersections where the rule seemed to be that all cars met in the middle and fought their way across.
It was early evening by the time they arrived at the Kiev city train station. Their group was guided into the station, a place as bustling inside as outside. The airport had nothing like the volume of people in this place which showed to Martin that this country relied heavily on the train. Looking around the entryway he saw that the ceiling reached at least 100 feet high, held together with giant and ornate stone columns. Hanging from this incredible height was the largest chandelier he had ever seen with large baroque style fresco paintings bordering the highest rim full around the room. Did they have Soviet symbolism in the same way Masonic temple buildings back home had mystical meanings?
Jenny tugged him along with the rest of the herd to the window where they could exchange their money. These little currency exchange stations seemed to be everywhere. Martin had little interest in the people on his team before today, but now they made themselves pronounced, annoying, and embarrassing. An older couple bickered with the exchange agent and between themselves. Another man still complained about his having missed lunch. And one woman spoke loudly of how she was so humbled by the poverty she had seen on the way to the station.
Martin finally found the words to pray, but the answer was apparently ‘no’ because they were all still talking.
“These people, Jenny.”
“Stop it. It’s fine,” Jenny said.
“Yeah, okay. But come on.”
“You don’t like groups or crowds. You don’t like anyone taking care of you. It makes you crazy.”
“Da,” he said and laughed.
“Oh, the language. You have to have an interpreter. That must be killing you. I’m sorry, it’s not funny.”
“It’s like I’m a baby, you know.”
“You’re my baby.”
The A.C.F. people walked them all to their track where they boarded four to a cabin. Martin had not thought ahead to how this would play out, the men sleeping in one room and women to the other cabins. He had a book though, his salvation. The pretty stewardess appeared at his door to take drink orders. The word for coffee was so close that he did not have to offer help in translation for the other members of his group.
As she turned and walked out of the cabin, Martin watched as all eyes of the cramped cabin followed her out. Two of his cabin mates stood and followed her out of the cabin, pretending some other purpose. One of the men intensely read a wall placard written in Russian, and the other man pretended to be interested in the view out the window, glancing repeatedly back at the stewardess as she walked down the corridor. Martin smiled for the first time in days. Even landing this job must have been competitive and the woman’s looks had likely been her salvation.
When she returned with his coffee, he took it to Jenny’s cabin, interrupting her chat with the other women. She always looked so happy to him, so excited about most everything they did. This adventure might as well have been one of her weekend shopping trips to Tulsa with her girlfriends.
They linked hands, walking a few cabin doors down.
Jenny stopped them and spread the curtains on a window. She squeezed his hand while he stared at her looking out at the passing urban landscape.
“We’re almost out of the city now. What are all those metal boxes? Mini-storage?” she asked.
“No, I don’t think so. Those are assigned car garages for the nearby apartment buildings.”
“Oh. That makes sense. There are a lot of small cars here.”
“Really? Whatever.”
“What?”
“Look at those garages. How can you validate them? They’re ugly welded steel boxes. And the apartments are worse than our ghettos at best.”
“What’s your point, Martin?”
“Nothing. I feel weird here. Everybody zipping along a never-ending junkyard and acting like everything is normal.”
“This is their normal. Get some sleep,” Jenny said.
She smiled and kissed him good-night.
Back in his cabin, Martin climbed into his top bunk. He lay there; face three inches from the ceiling, struggling to breathe for several hours. Though brochures declared some trains were now fitted with air-conditioning, his was not. The train shuddered through several slowing-to-stop experiences. One seemed to take longer to slow than others as outside lights flash-filled his cabin. Sensing the big city he saw on the map earlier and still in his clothes, he crept quietly out of the compartment and out onto the terminal platform.
A monotone Russian female voice echoed through the air reading something informative and boring over the station loud-speakers. The tone reminded him of that hollow flat gong and dull sound of the Greenwich Mean Time statement on short-wave radios. The kind his uncle gave when he was a kid. The one he had fiddled with in lieu of having friends. The station was