DENTAL MISSION TO UKRAINE

by Suzan Johns and Nancy Stephens

September 17, 1997

Date: Tue, 16 Sep 97 14:33:40 +0400
From: "Mission Nazareth Hust"
Organization: Nazareth
To: vic@kubik.org

Dear Vic & Bev,

Tuesday, Sept. 16

Yesterday Maria and the technician came to the Mission to check over the equipment. He can work with all of it and do the electrical conversion on all of it except the compressor. We will see what we can do about getting another one. We could not find one piece for the chair, the part that holds the chair on the base. We came back last night and found it.

We went to the market with Brenda. What a place! It is an open air market and looks like something out of the last century, a little of this and a little of that. We are going to go back and take some pictures, but Brenda wouldn't go with us if we took our cameras. I guess she didn't want to attract any attention.

We went to Victor's house for lunch. Anna served us a delicious lunch as usual. Then we went on an excursion to Shayan with Victor. Brenda has been doing almost all of our translating for us. We went and saw two bakeries, the mineral spring water, the sanitoriun, and scenery in general. Ukraine is abundant in natural beauty.

We then came back to the Mission, when we found the part, and then headed back to Turbaza.

This morning we went to Maria's office and toured the state dental offices. The conditions there would best be described as deplorable. The equipment is terribly outdated, the building looks OK from the outside, but very poor on the inside. The lab is unbelievable. We took a lot of pictures, so you can see later for yourself. Maria and Igor (another dentist) took us to see two private dental offices. They were somewhat better. One was a surgeon the other a GP. They did use fairly good filling materials. There was one Xray machine in the state clinic, it was an old one that is not even allowed in the US. The private offices had no Xray machines. It's like we have taken a step back in time, at least 50-60 years. I hope I don't have any dental problems here!!

When we arrived back at the Mission, they were clearing out one of the rooms. We then went to lunch at Ivan and Nina Yurishko's house, we again had a wonderful meal. We again exchanged pictures, and took some. When we returned they had completely cleared out the room, and Anna Pavliy is in there patching holes in the plaster. I guess we are lighting a fire under them, we are making progress. I hope we can get it at least partially set up before we leave. Victor wants very much to get a clinic up and running here. They will have plenty of room for a regular X-ray machine as well as the Panarex. I think Maria is very excited about the Panarex, because her specialty is Orthodontics and it will be very good for that. She asked what we can do to help. The doctors there have to pay for their own supplies.

We are now at the Mission waiting for Maria to come with her technician so we can work on getting the unit together. I think we have all the parts. We are still missing a couple of the boxes we shipped, so we will look for those as well.

I asked Victor about the Bibles, and he said he can buy 5 here for the price of one in America. So maybe you want to think about forwarding him money for that specific purpose (from those who want to donate to that cause) and let him buy and distribute them.

I told him you both flew down to North Carolina to be with the Palchey family. I'll let you know about the $500, after we see how many crafts we are going to buy. We have spent $350 so far, but are going to Rokosova Thursday to look and see what the church people have there. We gave Victor the $500 for the Mission, $100 for his family. He has been our constant chauffeur. I told him he is like a mother hen. We will give some more money away after we assess some things. We are going to the Mondich's for lunch tomorrow, we will give him $100 for the church here.

WEll, I'm getting tired of typing---till tomorrow...

Nancy & Sue