The big finish

There he is hacking at our maple trees!

Well it's Friday afternoon, the team left very early Wednesday morning and I am just sitting down to write about the rest of their time here.
This morning Garry and the students took advantage of the sunshine to clean up at the work site, and I got the rest of the sheets washed, hung to dry and back inside before they were infused with the smoke blowing this way from across the street. Spring cleanup in the village involves burning up everything you rake up in your yard, and yesterday the power was off for several hours while the crew were trimming trees with a chain saw, as you can see in the photo I took.

Sunday Garry was still sick with a bad cough, so he stayed home in bed; while most of the team went to church with me in Dnepropetrovsk. David, who had been on one of the trek teams with the Wiens in Zaporosia had gone there the night before (an adventure for "young Nick", who went with him and the students to the "Young Life" meeting there with Garry flat on his back with a fever, and got to drive the van back in the dark and the rain and the potholes in the highway and had a flat tire, but he made it back safely.) I drove the milk jugs and one couple, while everyone else went in Victor's van.

at Puzata Hata

They enjoyed singing along on a few of the praise songs in English, while everyone else sang in Russian or Ukrainian (we have some songs in one, some the other language) Thanks to a couple of  volunteer translators they got the message in the sermon. They enjoyed talking afterwards with some of the many English speakers at Morningstar Church.
After church we ate at Puzata Hata, with Ukrainian home style cooking and did a little afternoon tour of the city on a brisk, rather chilly, damp day. The guys even got to stop at the big home building supply store on the way home with Victor. Some photos of the afternoon...

Victor talking about the history of the city

WWII diorama 

the Dnepro full size model rockets 

the heroes of Ukraine wall for soldiers who have been killed

Monday the cement was coming and Garry got out of bed to help. He was improved after resting all day Sunday, although he did get up and play games with them for a while that evening.  Every night they drank coffee and played  games, except Monday after pouring cement in the mud and cold.

On Saturday the team had installed the water lines for the floor heat. They bent the curves around a bucket, I was told. Maxim Rudei had installed it in his house, so he showed them what to do (he was in bed for three days with the same thing as Garry by Monday!)

They built some sturdy ramps to roll the wheelbarrows of cement on and did some finishing touches before the truck arrived around 11 am. I got a couple photos when the ladies and I brought coffee, but didn't get any of the cement work that day.

Garry standing in the middle

ready for concrete

They did not have enough to finish the floor on the load so after a later lunch at almost 2 pm, they went back and made some with the cement mixer, again, no photos of them doing it, just of the wet finished floor because they were just finished when we brought the afternoon coffee! Garry came home and went to bed, since he was still sick, and they had a slightly early day, with not much to finish on the last day of their visit.

Bundling up for the walk to the house

down the muddy street

Monday was not as wet but maybe colder in the morning, and then it got wetter as we carried down the coffee (the two ladies were helping me again with less to do , you would be amazed by how clean the bathroom was when they got done with it, sadly then the guys took showers)  Some of the younger guys were trying to install the rain gutters on the girls house and got very wet putting on side on. Everything was there in the shed for the gutters, but has never been installed and one of the guys does it for a living.(NO photos of that, sorry)

The guys finished screwing the insulation on the outside of the house on Monday, and cleaned up inside. They were happy to get the hot coffee, even the Nick who prefers juice to coffee, as it was quite cold. They were all saying it was good that the weather was better when they arrived and they were doing the roof.

Troweling the cement on Monday morning

insulation

last coffee time at the worksite

By the time coffee time rolled around in the afternoon, they were finished and back at our house warming up with coffee and cookies. I finished getting lunch ready that last day and the room started spinning so I laid down until late afternoon, when I helped the ladies finish the dinner preparations. I think I needed the couple days of rest, I did not get as sick as Garry.

Here is a team photo, taken in our kitchen at dinnertime the last night, with Max Boradin and Sasha, the student who lives with us, taken by Josh, a Canadian high school student staying with us for a couple days. He is finding his Mennonite roots while on March break.

one lat night of games

Victor picked them up in the fog the next morning at 4:30 and they were off to Kiev and Holland, where everyone is visiting family this week.except Albert, who was going all the way to Alberta that day.