Surprise Maxim- we're going to Egypt!

Garry decided to take Maria and Max with us on vacation after the big build, so my (hoped for) trip to Rome was out, and we got last minute tickets for an excursion to Sharm El Shiekh on the Sinai peninsula, Egypt. It is our third trip to the Red Sea resort area, but Maria (or Masha), who was Garry's translator at the trade school and Max Boradin, who was one of the students, finally got to use the international travel passports they got when we hoped to send the students to Canada last summer.

Garry came up with a plan to trick Max so he would not know where we were going, which sort of worked until we got the airport in Dnepro at 5 am, last Thursday morning and there were no flights to Simferopol. His cover story was we had to go there for Max's high school diploma (this fall he started working on this mostly on the internet but he had to go there for the exams, we are still not sure how this will work now that Crimea is part of Russia) Max had suspected something was going on, but decided to trust God that it would be good.

Sand, sun, swimming and camels at the beach!

Garry told people at the resort that they were our adopted Ukrainian kids (the first day I was not feeling well and resting while they went around in the afternoon, and he was tired of  people assuming he had a young Ukrainian girlfriend) and they enjoyed the week long stay. Max really enjoyed swimming in the Red Sea and playing volleyball on the beach.

 Everyone got lots of sun and we went out on a boat trip for snorkeling  to see the tropical fish and coral reefs and saw dolphins up close one afternoon. We arrived back here Thursday evening and our friends who stayed here while we were gone told us they attended the village church where Max goes on Sunday and during prayer time they asked for prayer for safety for us while we were in Crimea, so they put up their hands and let them in on the secret. The congregation were happy for him and  then prayed that Maxim would enjoy his rest by the sea.

We celebrated Max's 19th birthday on Wednesday and he was rather unhappy that we got the waiters to sing to him and present him with a cake with a candle for dinner. He had never had a party or a cake for his birthday growing up in the orphanage.

While we were gone we checked on the news from Ukraine on the BBC, and now that we are back it seems that Eastern Ukraine is still having problems, so we are checking out the news morning and night for developments, but Garry plans to start planting corn on Monday.