Summary of Trip Europe  
January/February 1999

 

Photo Album of the Mission 

Our mission has been a success. We had planned this medical mission since June of last year and achieved the objectives of helping an impoverished people by distributing thousands of pairs of eyeglasses, treating 300 patients through four dentists, giving 1000 flu shots and the examining and diagnosing dozens of patients for spinal and other nerve problems through Dr. John MerrittOn Monday, January 18th I left for Holland. I spent the week in Utrecht travelling to the eastern and northern parts of the Netherlands.  

On Sunday, January 24th I flew from Amsterdam to Budapest, Hungary and waited for my wife Bev to arrive from New York the next morning. After she arrived we took the train to the Hungarian/Ukrainian border at Zahoney/Chop. There we were picked up by Mission Nazareth director Victor Pavliy and Mission Ukraine 99 began.

Our team was composed of 27 members. Some were optometrists, others dentists and one was a medical doctor. We felt that we did make a difference by helping desperate people. It was an adventure, too, as our accounts will tell.

Bev and I worked before the arrival of the team on Friday to set up housing and finalize the location of the temporary clinic. Most of the work ended up being done at Mission Nazareth and in a mountain village of Lipovets.

We enjoyed the camaraderie of all working together...most of us who had never met each other. I was impressed by the professionals on our trip who took time from their practices to help people in this land of substandard health care.

We are all housed in private homes. Bev and I stayed where we customarily do: at pastor Vasyl and Svetlana Mondich's home. Their daughter Luda was getting married during the time of our stay. I had the opportunity to speak twice in their churches along with Dr. John Merritt who became a quick favorite of the Ukrainians -  "Dr. Johnny" he was called.

After the Mission Bev and I continued north to the Baltics. We had trouble getting a transit visa through Belarus, so we took an overnight train to Kiev, flew to Vilnius, Lithuania, then spent part of three days with the Henrikas Klovas family in Kaunas. From there we took a similar bus route that he takes once a month to serve our Estonian brethren in Tartu. While the distance looks short on a map, it is a long bus trip of almost 400 miles. We had a five and a half hour layover in Riga, Latvia and then were delayed another two hours because the bus taking us to Tartu had broken down.

We arrived in Tartu late Friday night February 12th. It was so good to see our friends. The next day 13 of us met at Luule Lepik's apartment. Through the week we arranged for the hotel for the Fall Festival and worked out arrangements for other activities. 

At this writing we're still not home. More detailed accounts will be posted, but first I'd like to post a photo history of the trip in several installments.

Vic Kubik

Photo Album of the Mission