Babushka is one of my favorite words. My mom used to affectionately call my sister and me her little babushkas. The word itself sounds precious and loving, and it turns out the true meaning is well defined.
In this my seventh month, I am in the land of babushkas. Every where you look there are old women hunched over underneath warm woolen sweaters, with calf length skirts and opaque stockings that fold at their ankles. Their trademark is a patterned scarf in any variation of colors that covers the head and ties tightly under the chin.
We got off the plane in Kiev all cheery and wearing our colorful Indian garbs. We are loud and colorful and joyful and pretty much the opposite of this place. People here have a strong appreciation for all variations of black and gray, and they are not the friendliest bunch.
So today we were walking through town and I spotted a welcoming sign, some fresh bright flowers for sale on the sidewalk. They stood out like shiny coins resting on the bottom of a brown murky fountain floor, and I was drawn to them. After all, it is Easter and we have the greatest reason to hope. I felt some fresh flowers would make a great addition to our apartment. As I approached the flowers I saw that a sweet hearted old babushka sat behind them. How is it I could tell that she is sweet hearted you ask? For one, when I smiled at her she gave me a big toothless grin instead of a scowl. Some babushkas have not been so friendly and have actually appeared rather grumpy – not that they don’t have anything to be grumpy about. Their caloused hands have deep cracks and grooves in them and look not at all like ladies’ hands. I imagine that each groove has felt the weight of years of toil, all the while longing for just a moment of rest.
So I walked up to this babushka and held out 20 grievnas to her which is about 2 USD. She paused and seemed a bit confused at first, so in a humorous display of hand motions I explained I wanted whatever 20 grv. would buy. As this dawned on her, the edges of her mouth gradually began to turn up and she threw her head back to give a soft chuckle. As I took her hand, she looked into my face and her eyes sparkled at me. I wanted to say, “I know life has been hard, but I want you to know I can see the inside of you and you shine more than any of these beautiful flowers.” I wanted to say, “The Lord sees you and He knows every crack in your hands, he knows every sore in your body and every wound in your heart. You cannot even imagine how greatly you are loved.”
Sometime this week I’ll probably go back to my babushka and try to buy all her flowers just to make her smile, so I can say as much as I can in the absence of language….babushka is my favorite word.
We are in Ukraine praying for the Lord’s leading ~ trying to love and touch everyone we meet ~ trying to plant seeds and bring some light to this place. HE is doing marvelous things…wonderful marvelous things.
