Catching up

Well, it's Tuesday and we have been busy as always. Since we got back from the sea, Garry has been going non-stop... except when its night, anyway. Friday evening we had our second SEI follow up meeting, on the way in we stopped at Mc Donalds and ate in to enjoy the Mc Rib or the "Pork burger with sauce". Hoping to have a few more people out next week for our English Bible study.

 I cleaned out the big green bedroom on Saturday morning. Our last girl Alyona went away to visit her "sister" or friend and had not returned after a week. No one had heard from her until later Saturday (we now know she is not coming back). I washed all the sheets because we had visitors coming and staying overnight for the weekend.

We had an appointment to go speak to an English school in Dnepro at 3 pm. We drove in with our new young guy Vitaly and dropped him off at the bus station, he wanted to go visit his family, and promised to be back Sunday evening.

We had a good time talking with some new students at Lena's school, many of the ones that we have watched grow up over the years have grown and moved on. Garry did a good job of telling his Bible story of Ruth and Naomi and we played a "what I did last summer" game with a musical hot potato twist.

Then it was a little more fast food from the drive thru as we headed home (I was tired of cooking after the week at the sea, I guess) as we headed home to get ready for the first Saturday evening meeting of the year (the guys had requested more devotions like we had at the sea).

Garry ended up helping Max turn the wheat seed pink so they could start planting. It will keep it safe from diseases before it sprouts. Some of it may come up quickly but it might wait for the rain to fall. There is some in the forecast in a week or so. By Monday evening all the expensive seed was planted, there will be more planted later, they plan to do a hundred hectares I think.

Our guests arrived before seven pm when Garry hurried in to change before having his student meeting. His pants were very pink, good thing they had some holes, we tossed them instead of washing them.

Our guests were our Manitoba missionary friends kids, they stayed with us until Monday afternoon when we passed them to another missionary until their parents return from celebrating their anniversary. Two small boys can keep you busy. They walked down to the school with me in the dark to the meeting, they took turns holding the flashlight.



After the meeting, where Garry told the story of Ruth and Naomi again, the kids and I drove back while everyone else ate cookies, drank koolaid, played ping pong and enjoyed some worship music. The boys and I tried out watching Nickelodeon in Russian, which was interesting for everyone. We watched Night at the Museum in English, they really liked it.

Sunday morning it was Thanksgiving Sunday at the church in the village, there was no Sunday school this week, so the boys colored a bit and then played outside during the service.

After the service, there was a big dinner the ladies had prepared with an abundance of everything, including dessert. The boys and I walked home after getting Nellya to keep the little blonde girl who wanted to follow the boys to stay there!




Sunday evening I made pizza for us and the boys, but we ended up with no leftovers because Nelly and a couple of students dropped in, some of the guys did not show to help with milking. The Grad girls milk during the week, but the guys work on Sundays. There was a lot of talking, Garry hunting down missing guys and making a new schedule for this week. The new kid had not showed up as scheduled so we only had two second year guys to start the year!

Ready to plant wheat

Monday morning we started classes with only two students (except English with Nelly every week day at 8 am, the grads are going to that and Wednesday's Christian ethics classes) Garry (dairy) and I (food nutrition and cooking) will be teaching Mondays and Tuesdays this year, we have a couple from Zaporozhye teaching ethics on Wednesday mornings, Victor is teaching Beekeeping Thursdays and Vova with math and physical training Friday. 

Garry bought some hot dogs and bread for lunch and we cooked them outside on the firs, because Garry had mentioned it for Sunday but we had the pizza instead and the boys remembered. They also spend a lot of time playing with sticks and catching Needles the cat and trying to a) hold him and b) make him stay inside the house. He spends almost all his time outdoors except in the winter.

Monday afternoon Garry had a couple projects going, started working on the summer kitchen (little house) repairs, Nellya will be moving in there in a couple weeks.Later in the afternoon he started working on the disc with Max, after seven years they are replacing the discs on it so it will work better. We left for Zap with the little boys around 4:30 and went through the drive through to get them food before picking up Jessica to go look at her well for her project (building a house for foster kids). Then we left the boys with her and headed home.

This morning, teaching again, then more working on the disc for Garry while I made stir fry for lunch time after class. Then we put together some sandwiches for the two guys in the field and Garry went back to finish the disc, until we went to the city for a quick shopping trip with Kolya and Nellya.

When we got back to the village, there was Losha with the new kid Vitaly, a couple days late, but we have three students now.

Then we enjoyed a quiet evening at home. No one even knocked on the door.