Journal for July 1-15 2008

Tuesday, July 1, 2008
My days are filled with packing my house, preparing for camp, working on my lessons for when I return to the US, packing for camp, and trying to get all money problems solved. The money thing is taking better shape now, thank the Lord! This is our 2nd week of Bible Studies and devo’s Monday through Friday and our plans are to continue them next week. We had 15 for our devo tonight and I fixed pumpkin muffins! I was going to fix pumpkin pies, but I couldn’t find that recipe – terrible!!! It’s my Mom’s recipe! I sure hope that I can find it! Each night, several are staying later and later – they don’t want to leave and I don’t want them too, even though I am pretty tired by night!
Wednesday, July 2
Our weather continues to be great with temps in the 70’s and at most low 80’s with at night around low 60’s! We have a lot of rain for a couple of days and then it clears up and we have some wonderful sunny days. Instead of Bible Study at my house tonight, we had a parent’s meeting at the church building at 7pm that took about an hour. Most parents have gone through this before, so our numbers were not large.
Thursday, July 3
My days are the same as are my nights. I try to schedule as many people into my day as possible, and still get all the other stuff done that I should do. We had our Bible Study tonight and food and fun afterwards, which really makes the days bearable!
Friday, July 4
No holiday celebration here, for the 4th of course. We tried to play Frisbee in the evening, but not enough people came, so we went to my house and more people came and we had a fun, impromptu dinner and evening. I was pretty blue tonight and I tried to keep it from showing, but people noticed and they did a good job of cheering me up!
Saturday, July 5
We had our Team Leaders Meeting for camp tonight. We had a lot to work with and ALL our Team Leaders were here and it went really well! The last to leave were Yura, Olya and Yulya as has been the case several times – I am thankful to have them! I took Yulya home at about 11:15pm and my car broke down on the bridge – it ended up it was my power train belt breaking! What do we do? Well, within 5 minutes a guy and friends driving an F10-150 – a BIG Ford pickup truck (I have seen maybe 2 of these in Ukraine – ever!) stopped and asked if we would like a tow across the bridge – and of course we accepted! Then he towed me back across the bridge and put the car at my place and will come and take it and fix it on Monday!!! Of course Yulya got home safe, too! Today is another National holiday here – they have a lot!
Sunday, July 6
Of course I had to take the marshutka (public transportation) to church back today – that was really taking me back to older times and I rather enjoyed it! After Sunday evening services 8 of us walked home and most came to my house again and we had a great time! I love these people so much!!!
Monday, July 7
Same oh, same oh. It doesn’t seem possible that what I am doing could be such a demanding these do, but it is! I also spent most of the morning getting my car fixed and it cost about $60 to get it all done. The banks were closed today – holiday weekend again! We had a good Bible Study in the evening.
Tuesday, July 8
Wow, it is just a week until camp!!! I can’t believe it! Frankie’s church and parents wired money to him to live on and for camp - $1000! We are now going to have all we need to cover all our costs! I backed out most of my teaching materials that I am leaving, Bibles, Books, Children’s Books, etc., etc. and at 3pm, with 4 of our guys helping me out we moved them to the church building. Maybe 20 boxes or more! We had 13 for our devo tonight and fixed Chocolate Chip cookies – using my LAST bag of chocolate chips! It’s all going away. I didn’t burn a cookie tonight! Yea! A lot of lasts happening here, but this is the last devo in my house in Kremenchuk! We have probably had at least 280 devos here in the last 6 years!
Wednesday, July 9
What was different today was that we went to the Orphan family to see them and encourage them. They are doing well and growing in their new faith!!! They are at peace and content as being new Christians! God is watching over them, protecting them and taking care of them! We had a good study. Afterwards, Artem, Olya and I went to buy materials to make Flags at camp and bandanas for each team. We will have a different color for each team and a camp flag for each team, too! We had 9 people at our Bible study tonight, and made my “famous” home-made pizza with the help of Olya and Artem! I do have to say it was really good! Everybody else thought so, too!
Thursday, July 10
I worked most of the morning on my power point presentation to make to Churches when I get back to the States. It went pretty well. At about noon, I took Anya O. and her mother to the hospital to pick up her grandmother and take her home. After that I did a bit of shopping, had lunch and then went to Alina’s to allow her parents to test drive the car they already said they would buy and then we had tea afterwards and I got home after 4:30 and spent nearly the rest of my time until Bible Study trying to finish most of the presentation. I also boiled some eggs to make hot tuna sandwiches. About 6:30 we had my very last Bible Study in my home with 9 people and then fixed the sandwiches – with a lot of help – afterwards. Probably my last large group meal, too unless we have something on Sunday afternoon. There should have been enough to feed at least twice that many, but we ate them all! The last of our group left about 9:30pm.
Friday, July 11
The last 3 days it has been raining – a lot! Working on the same stuff I have been working on. Alina came over at noon and helped all afternoon get my kitchen done and did a lot of other work as well. At 3:30 Frankie, Yura, Vika and I went to Anya O.’s graduation from the University and that was interesting and nice. We were going to play Frisbee but didn’t because of the rain – some came to my house and we played some games in the evening.
Saturday, July 12
The closets were my big project today and books and teaching materials – I took a load to the church at 4 for the Church discussion and then at 5 back home for a meeting about camp activities in the evenings. At 6:30 we played Frisbee, then people over here again until about 9:30 and I took some people home.
Sunday, July 13
After worship I took 6 to McDonalds for lunch and then we went back to the Church building to record Russian/Ukrainian songs at 1pm and we did this until 2:30. To my house with a half dozen again and then my first big stuff went out with Vika’s family getting my davenport, 2 arm chairs and foot stools out of my living room. At 6 we had a nice group of mixed older and younger with 18 present. One of our newest young people is Serge and he brought his mother with him this evening to worship with us as well. At 8pm, we had our last Team Leaders meeting before camp and finished up about 9 and I hadn’t had supper, so I went out with a couple of friends – Yulya and Alina and had a bite to eat!
Monday, July 14
I had a ton of last minute errands in the morning and Yulya helped me out with several things that I needed translation help with. At 1 we had about 15 people here and I did a free give away of many of my dishes and many things. It felt like a garage sale in my living room that was free. We did a drawing and people picked one thing at a time until it was all gone – it took over an hour to get it all gone! In the evening we went to our Orphan Family and had a pie and tea with them and a nice Bible study. Please pray for this family as they are going through birth and growing pains as new Christians often do. At 9:30, I went to a movie with some friends.
Tuesday, July 15
Today has been another crazy day of packing for camp and last minute things as I prepare for it. I have helped friends with errands with my car and now in about 20 minutes I will give my precious cat, Zhenya away! Oh, this is so hard! At 9:30pm we meet our bus to take us to the Black Sea Bible Camp and we will leave Kremenchuk about 10pm and return on the evening of the 26th. Please pray for us! I will be out of touch except by my cell phone. There is no internet in the small village that we will go to.