Just another "normal " day at our house

This week has been crazy since we taught two weeks in a row, so Thursday was the last teaching day, Victor had slept over, since we needed the Mercedes to go the SEI followup meeting in Dneprazerjisk the night before, which we had cancelled the last two weeks so the group home parents and students could go to their Bible Study in Zaporosia with the Mercedes. Victor had driven them in his van  the Wednesday we picked up everyone in Kiev with the Mercedes van, and he drove them again this week and brought out a key in the effort to fix our car in the shop in Zaporosia.

I was up before 7:30, when I usually leave to walk to class, then found something Garry was looking for, looked for something on the internet, answered an email about the team... Victor gave me a ride so I wouldn't be late for class over the the new barn. The first year students had a test in English. Anton who had been gone for months returned the day before, so he didn't do so well, but everyone else did. Andrey had a big smile when I showed him his perfect mark. Then we practiced our singing for Saturday night church. If you click on the bird's eye blog, you can check out the video of Jesus Loves Me. The chorus of This Is Amazing Grace is coming along well too.

I walked home, our dog Polo found me at the shop when I stopped to say hello to Victor who was working on his van, Polo followed me home and inside. I met Garry and Maria going over, for their morning classes. I hurried home because Victor told me the power was going off from 9-4  for maintenance and I needed to vacuum the rug. I planned to make a cake since it was Nikolai's birthday (one of the second year students) and he had told me he could afford to throw a party for everyone (in Ukraine you treat everyone else on your birthday). I got a few things done before the power went out around ten am, but had given up on laundry and cake baking since they wouldn't get finished before it went off for the day and asked Victor to buy a cake since he had to go to Zap at one.

The normal one o'clock staff meeting had been pushed to two, the student meeting (something new) had been pushed from 2:30 to 3:00... it looked like my final second year English test wasn't going to happen (final since two of the boys are leaving to work in a green house for the summer on Monday).

 Garry finished classes early that morning and went shopping at the market for the building supplies with Max (that's when I found out that meeting times had changed and we'd leave for Zap around 5:30 pm.) Maria felt so bad with her Canadian sickness"- the cold she caught that she took a cold pill from me, she had been refusing them, and toughing it out with tea, but had an appointment at the public school she needed to walk to.  The power came back on at 11:30 am  - surprise!
I was busy getting bedroom plans for the team finalized, washing sheets, since the power was back on (Victor and Maria's since they we leaving and I need them all for the team) Moving and making beds... (which I need to finish today) since before I knew it Maria was back. She cooked eggs for lunch, I finally stopped with the bed making to finish getting ready for the meeting... quick empty the dishwasher, find cups and plastic plates for the cake. The two female second year students arrived at 1:45, they had not heard were weren't having classes at the house like we'd had all week...

All the group home parents arrived while Maria was outside digging dirt from the garden for grandmother to grow flowers on their balcony in the city. Julia gave her a hand. Garry and Max got back about 2:15, we started the Bible study portion of meeting with Maria translating. Victor got back while we were on discussion of problems with student behavior and took over translating, since she was still feeling unwell. My washer stopped, but I couldn't hang out the sheets yet, or start load two (they are in the washer now, Friday morning).

The meeting ran long, we had to table further discussion, the students were invited in around 3:15, Garry talked about problem solving between group home parents and students and the importance of doing all chores at the homes and all classes and homework, not just his. Then we sang happy birthday and cut the two cakes Victor had brought in when he returned. Everyone was everywhere (like 22 people)  we made tea, ate cake, I handed out tests to may six victims or second year students, three finished before we had to literally push everyone out the door at four, because Max had gotten a call that our car was done, but it had to be picked up by five.

We raced off with a couple of group home parents to drive the Mercedes back, Maria and all the stuff she was taking home: the four buckets of dirt and everything she'd packed up from her room so I can turn it into space for the team, and five liters of milk. We got to the shop three minutes before five. Garry and I had both left our cell phones at home... oh no, why did the power just go out?

Yeah, I guess that planned power outage was moved to today at nine am. It's ten pm and I am finally finishing this story. Power was back on for a half hour at 10:30, then off until after noon. Then we had company for the afternoon, followed by a trip to Dnepro for our final Friday night English meeting of the year (nine in attendance).

So we got the car, moved Maria's stuff in without anything touching the blanket in the back (the one the man bled on when they covered him after the accident was still in the back of the car, she wanted Garry to burn it, but I think it's going in the washer tomorrow, it's a very warm blanket. )

Then Garry wanted to price shop for construction materials at Epi-Center before taking Maria home. It took so long we had to go right to the Bible Study at Jo and Steve's which was a pizza birthday party for one of the regulars, Olya (I bought her a pen with her name on - a big deal since it was in cursive and I have a terrible time with Russian cursive letters, they rarely look like the printed ones!- upstairs while they were talking about discounts. and a couple more new pillows for the teams to sleep on).

Since we were running late Maria came with us to the Bible Study, but we had to leave before they got to the prayer time, right after eating, since we needed to drop her off and then drive to the airport in Dnepropetrovsk to pick up Ray, the first member of the Steinbach team at 8:30 pm. That means it was dark, which adds to the challenge of missing the potholes.

We made it there safely, and Ray was already out, but we had to wait for the luggage to come out. He had hired a taxi and toured Kiev during his 7 hour layover, but had not eaten since mid-afternoon, so we stopped at Mc Donalds just after 9 pm before going home to the village.

Garry in bed shortly after arriving home, Ray was in bed by eleven and they were off at 7:30 am  this morning to check one more place before ordering materials. They will be delivered Saturday morning, including seven tons of drywall I think he said.