Thanksgiving dinner

For the last few years we have a Hope for Each Thanksgiving dinner with students and staff in October, close to Canadian Thanksgiving. This year, we had one delay after another, so we were much closer to American Thanksgiving on November 18th.

Our group is smaller this year, less students and staff and two of the Sashas had gone away for the weekend, the newest one to get his belongings and the other to visit his sister. May or may not be his actual sister, could be cousin or friend from the orphanage we have discovered over the years. However we leave in two and half weeks and the first Saturday in September we are hosting a wedding in the same room, so really could not delay longer.

our bride and groom are playing "tennis" pingpong

I made my mother's special chicken, with a few substitutions- no canned mushroom soup for sale here! stuffing, mashed potatoes and pies. Nelly (our translator) made a salad and curd filled blini -pancakes for dessert) and Vova (group home parent) made two kind of cabbage rolls and his popular baked onion and potato dish, and Victor brought some salad and mandarin oranges and candy. The grads - I think Kolya and the girls- made a giant salad.

 It took an hour to get everything and everyone ready to eat, I should have gotten better plates, as they were bending under the weight as they went down the line. I dished out the meat so everyone got one piece.

We even had two visiting grads here, Valentina and Andrey were both visiting from Dnepro. Karina had to work.

We had a guest speaker, Andrey Spak, who spoke to the students between dinner and dessert (and enjoyed dinner too). He often spoke at student church and does a church youth program in the village.