Journal for May 16-31 2008

Friday, May 16, 2008
I didn’t mention that I spent considerable time yesterday filling up 5, 6 and 10 liter water bottles – all that I had in the house with water – and that’s quite a few as I used to get all my drinking water this way. Because they are going to turn off all water in all the city until Monday! Isn’t that wonderful? I am not sure why. Some say maybe it is because they are going to clean the sewer systems out. Well, true to form, we had no water when I got up this morning. Interesting, huh? I worked on our add for the upcoming Day Camp the first of June. I prepared for a class that didn’t show up at school 10 at 2. We had Frisbee at 5 that just 5 people came to and that’s not enough to play ultimate Frisbee with!
Saturday, May 17
Again no water. We had 2 and 2 for our Bible Clubs today – our last ones. Sad. An end of an era. Everything slows down this time of year as the Universities and Schools come to and end and prepare for exams in June.
Sunday, May 18
A good day of worship and fellowship. We made sandwiches for the boy’s prison. Then 6 of us ate together. Then we went to Potoki orphanage for the last time – I probably won’t be in Kremenchuk next Sunday and after that schools are done and the orphanages basically shut down for the summer or take the kids to summer camps for the summer months. We had 5 at our Adult beginner Bible Club at 5 at the church building and we had 14 for our evening worship. By the way, we got water back about noon today! Early but good. I am not complaining!
Monday, May 19
For us our weather is really turning hot – low to mid 80’s. At 2, Olya, Yulya and Vika and I went to Bugkivka for their annual spring celebration. It’s always on May 19. This is the 5th time (I think!) that I have been to this event. We watched them play games, get awards, and have a concert. They also fed us with buck wheat which is a tradition – they do a very good job of fixing it! We got home after 10pm. They went till midnight, but we didn’t want to stay that long!
Tuesday, May 20
I’m working on the day camp and camp. I went, with translation help, of course, to the director at School 11 and she said we could pass out invitations to our day camp in the hall way between classes, so we will do that later in the week. Devo with 9 people tonight.
Wednesday, May 21
I visited School 9 today to ask about inviting kids and the new director said yes, but come later – tomorrow we will come! I prepared for English club plus worked on a number of other things. We had only 3 at our last English Club. We were able to make contacts that we would have never made any other way, and yet we saw no Bible studies or conversions out of this class. 2 of the students have come to some of our other Bible Studies.
Thursday, May 22
Went to School 9 and handed out, with the help of Yulya translating and a school assistant, invitations to the Bible Day Camp! That went well. Prepared for the afternoon at the Orphanage and those classes went well with Olya, Yulya and Natasha. At 8pm we went to the Orphan Family study – late because they were working in the fields. When we got there they were still working. They were haying the old fashioned way. There was an extra pitch fork – and I had done a lot of this as a kid – so I pitched in and helped for about an hour. I probably shouldn’t have as I hurt my lower back and am in a lot of pain. We left without having a Bible Study and they were still working.
Friday, May 23
I struggled with a lot of pain in my back this morning, but I decided that I had some things that I had to do. So, Sasha R. – older buy and preacher in Komsomolsk – went with me to School 11 and 10 and handed out invitations for the Day Camp. I have probably handed out over 350 so far! We will hand out at one more school - #1. Olya and Yulya have agreed to do that one! I had lunch with Buddy Baker and Jerry Morgan today as they are in town. They are missionaries that bring clothes, food, special needs, etc. to 10 orphanages in our area. They do a great work! I came home and rested my sore back – it is a bit better. At 6 we were supposed to play Frisbee but it rained! It finally has cooled things down!!! So 3 came here and we played cards. I also packed 2 suitcases of clothes and books that Buddy Baker will take back with him and to Fayetteville for me! This will be a great help! We (fellow card players) met Nastya at the train station and took her home and then took the 2 suitcases to the Church building for Buddy to get on Sunday. Then Olya and Yura and I came back and played another game of Phase 10, finishing up about 10pm.
Saturday, May 24 and Sunday May 25
Natasha (a year old Christian and a 27 year old student) has been asking me for some time to go and visit her family, so today I went with her to village, 100 Kilometers away – 60 miles, to visit her family. Her main family in the village consists of her Mom, her sister and a niece and nephew. They were all really nice and I enjoyed spending the time with them and walking with them in their village. They were really nice to me! We came back on Sunday afternoon and were back in time for evening services where I preached. Then I had to get ready for my trip tomorrow!
Monday, May 26 and Tuesday, May 27
I left the house at 6:30 in the morning to pick up Ksusha, Vika and Zhenya for our trip down to the Azov Sea to check out a site for Bible Camp. We have had so many unpleasant surprises over the years of campsites we have not seen, so I decided that we would look at this one! This trip was 500 Kilometers or about 300 miles and took us 6 hours to get there, with getting lost a couple of times in big cities! But it was a nice place for Ukrainian camp sites and the Sea is only about a 5 minute walk away and the water was warm! The Azov Sea is not near as deep a sea as the Black Sea. It is located on the South eastern part of the country. Overall, we liked the place a lot. On the way back we stopped in another city and saw a Kosak museum that was really nice and we also stopped for dinner – so it took us about 8 hours to get back. We were back in time for devo and we had 10 for devo tonight. The travel on both days was hard on my back, but I believe it is getting better.
Wednesday, May 28
An extremely busy day of catching up after being gone for 4 days. At 5pm I had a meeting with my new teachers and workers from the Church. I have 6 ladies that have volunteered to help teach this year at the Children’s Day Camp that have NEVER taught before. So we have a lot of work that we are doing with them. By late afternoon, I was wanting a break, so I called Artem and Ksusha to see if they would like to go and see the new Indiana Jones movie with me – and translate for me! They agreed, so we got tickets and went at 6:30. It was pretty good and Ksusha did a good job translating most of it for me!
Thursday, May 29
Worked a lot on the day camp today coming up – it starts Monday! I am working on getting it all ready. At 6, Olya and I went out and had a good time and Bible Study with the Orphan family and got home around 9. What I don’t often write about, in all these trips that I take to the villages, to schools, to this family (about a 20 minute ride) I often have great opportunities to talk and share with my young people that go with me. For example, Olya and I have been working with this family for a long time now and we have some great conversations going and coming! I am really proud of her work with this family!!!
Friday, May 30
Again, I am still working on camp for Monday. I had to go to the bank today. I almost hate this time, because it seems like I have to always wait 30 to 60 minutes just to get in to take money out. But – I try – to wait patiently knowing that this is going to happen! I had to pay for utilities today, phone and run a hundred errands besides get to the market and store. It all sounds so mundane but it all takes a large amount of time! We had 9 for Frisbee tonight at 6 – which is really a good number for our first game (1 persons didn’t want to play). Then a couple left and there 7 us left. 3 girls and 3 guys besides me. So they decided to play girls against guys. Now the girls are really good, but the guys are just a lot more athletic than the girls. I played with the girls – I’m not athletic at all! (By the way, my back is much better – hope it will still be that way after tonight!) The guys beat us, but we had a lot of fun! Afterwards, all 7 of us went to my house to look at the Azov Sea pictures, eat and talk about camp! We were together until 10:30 when all went home.
Saturday, May 31
(By the way, my back is not hurting this morning!!!) I picked up Artem and Sasha girl and we left for the airport in Borispil by Kiev to pick up Frankie Villegas who is coming in to work with us for the summer! We are so thankful and excited to have him with us! We got back about 4:15pm (this is about 550 kilometers trip and about 7 hours or so of driving) to a welcome party at my house, ate, got him to his apartment that he will be staying at this summer, and I got home exhausted about 8pm.