Leap Year Journal of Feb 16-29

Saturday, February 16, 2008
We had a good day of Bible Clubs with 7 in both clubs.
Sunday, February 17
We had a good worship together and then we made sandwiches. We didn’t have enough workers to go to the orphanage so we didn’t. Everybody was busy! We had 9 for evening worship and fellowshipped afterwards for a couple of hours.
Monday, February 18
Spent much of the late morning and afternoon helping Oksana with some visa needs. Then in the evening went to the Orphan family, had a good Bible Study and was them about 4 hours.
Tuesday, February 19
Just so that it is understood, I spend most of morning in personal and private Bible study in growth and lesson preparations. I usually wake up sometimes between 4 and 5:30 to begin this, with email communications as well. Ksusha and I went to the village and had a Bible Class with the 7th and 8th graders. We only had 5 in class, but it was a beginning to restart these classes again. We had 9 for our devotional at 6 and the last went home at 10.
Wednesday, February 20
I had a bad headache and stomachache most of the day and so kind of just made it through the day. I did take time to prepare for my English Club at 6 and we had 11 in attendance for this. The last went home around 9.
Thursday, February 21
My health struggles continued throughout the day. I did prepare and go to the Svetlovodsk with 4 of our girls to teach 4 classes. While Ksusha, Natasha and I were doing puppets and teaching the 5th and 6th graders, Yulya and Olya were teaching the 4th graders and then as they taught the 9th grade girls, we taught a class of 7th graders. We had about 60 kids in all of our classes. We arrived home about 5:30. I am feeling some better by now. I ate supper and about 6:30 Artem and Ksusha wanted me to take them to McDonalds so we went and Artem ate and Ksusha had some Ice Cream. Then we came back and played cards and talked until about 10.
Friday, February 22
Ksusha and I went to Schools 10 and 11 this morning to try to talk to the Directors there about continuing our classes. Both schools have new directors and it is a big concern that we may not be able to. We were unable to see them today and it was found out that next week with be a Quarantine where they shut the schools down across the city because of illness. It may last just one week or it may be more. So nothing more can be done for now. About 4 I began cooking for tonight. I cooked spaghetti and home made biscuits and we had 13 people that came. Then we had our fun night where we had a card game tournament – Phase 10 that most enjoyed! We finished up around 9:30 and had a nice evening!
Saturday, February 23
Bible Club preparations in the morning and then we had 7 for our Adult Bible Club at noon and then I met Sasha girl and we went shopping for Natalie and Tishik’s birthdays (brother and sister) party after Bible Club tonight. We had 7 for the Teen Bible Club and 9 for the party afterwards. We had a nice evening, even though I am disappointed when more don’t come to these birthday parties – what message does it give to those celebrating the party for? The evening ended around 9:30.
Sunday, February 24
We had a nice worship this morning. Afterwards we met a new young man and invited him to our evening worship. I played taxi for awhile after services and then Sasha girl, Ksusha and I went to McDonalds for lunch! To others it might not mean much, but it is so great having a McDonald’s here in town! I spent part of the afternoon preparing for my evening sermon. We had 15 this evening for our worship – more than usual and it was real nice! Afterwards, I went to Sergie and Oksana’s (husband and wife) home for supper and visit. Then I went home and Alina, her fiancé Kostya and her sister Luda were waiting for me. They were returning some things to me and took the artificial Christmas tree that Kelli gave to me and I took them to Alina’s home, getting home about 10.
Monday, February 25
I had meetings with people all day. All good and encouraging for me and hopefully for them! We got a last minute call and didn’t go to the Orphans family Bible Study tonight – next week probably.
Tuesday, February 26
Worked on my Local Newsletter and Bible lessons in the morning. We went to the village because we called ahead (its 37 miles out there and usually takes 45minutes to an hour to get there from my home in the center). As we were approaching the village, we got a call from one of the girls and she said that they would be 5 minutes late. We waited 30 minutes and no one showed up. We left. We got a SMS (text) an hour later – after we were already back in Kremenchuk saying that they weren’t coming today! Our evening devo went well – we had a split devotional. We sang together and then Yura had a lesson for the guys on how important it was for guys to become Christian leaders and Ksusha had a lesson for the girls. We had 13 here for the evening.
Wednesday, February 27
Finished the Newsletter. Prepared for English club. Went to the bank. I have been walking every day now for exercise and we have had a beautiful week of temperatures in the mid-40s to the low-50s with mostly clear days so it makes for a very nice time to get out! We had our biggest and best English Club tonight with 16 present and 3 new people and some of the older new people from the last few weeks bringing friends. Some of them are now coming to our Bible Club – one of our goals – and a couple more said that they want to come on Saturday to the Bible Club. Great!
Thursday, February 28
I had a bad night and slept 4 hours last night. One of the things that I worked on this morning was preparing for us to teach 4 classes (I teach 2) at the Orphanage in Svetlovodsk. 3 weeks ago, we had 34 in one class, so I prepared for 35 and we had 15! So is life! But the classes went well. For the 2nd week in a row, we had puppet shows for the kids. My 7th grade discussion class with the kids is going really well and a lot of fun. I kept going good today until I got home and ate supper about 6. Afterwards, I was really getting tired, but decided to try and watch a movie. Went to sleep maybe about 6:30 – woke up at 8 and went to bed! Really early!
Friday, February 29
I woke up at 4am, but I was rested and lasted great all day – most sleep I have had in a long time! Maybe I should do that all the time – just kidding! I worked on a lot of studies today, including preparations for my new Friday Night Bible study at 5 on 1 John. Went to the market to buy food for tonight’s Taco night. I actually found taco shells about 3 months ago (Zhenya actually told me where to find them). I went back today to get more and they were no more! So we had tortias night! Oksana came over at about 1pm, stressed because she is trying to get her English visa so she can go to her Mom’s wedding in England on March 8th. We spent most of the afternoon together (it was great, but unplanned – I really try as much as I can to let go of my schedule and be there when people need me. Kind of hard sometimes, but usually well worth it!) The Bible Study had 5 people and the party had 14 people at 6 – Leap Year Party was the name and we had a good time. I hope you have had a great Leap Year Day, too!