One week

 

Garry has been in the village for a week now. Here's some photos, from church Sunday morning to many of the farm and students. He says the house is rarely quiet with everyone stopping in. He has given most of the presents I sent with him away.

He has gotten a 1500 piece puzzle out for everyone to work on, although he says the pieces are falling off the table often with the kids around. Two-year-old Angelina likes to work on it and will stick ten or so pieces together in a line on the floor.

Garry has been busy preg checking cows (Tuesday all but one was pregnant of 20 or 25 he did) and has been breeding a group of heifers. He's working on trying to fix cow things while he's there, like finetuning the feed rations for the winter.

Friday evening his time he called me and it was noisy with kids and their kids, including baby Sofia. He made pancakes for the students there (a lot he said, and the two new Yulias didn't know how to cut them with a knife and fork, so the other students were showing them how. 

Apparently when they came this summer they didn't even know how to boil an egg. Oleg's wife Elena has been doing weekly cooking class at our house with the students like I used too. 

I've heard from Garry every day, even when "all of Ukraine" was supposed to be out of power for 24 hours, although the Wi-Fi wasn't working in the village during that time period. It's back up now, even video chat was working last night. He said the power wasn't out that long in the village, it was like a normal day.

Every day they do have rolling blackouts, with the power out for three hours at a time, some days (often) three times a day. There's a schedule, which is mostly followed, so they know when they will be out. Unfortunately, one to three milkings a day can be during the outages, so the generator at the barn gets used often. It's tractor powered, and Max is trying to find a backup generator to buy, they tried to order one from the company, but can't get one like that until the spring, so they are trying to find a large commercial type one, but only little home sizes are available to buy. 

So they try to get cooking (for those with electric stoves) and other chores done while it's on and go to bed early when it's going off at nine pm!

Update, just talked to Garry at Saturday suppertime for him. There was a pizza and ploff party going on with many of the students and staff, everyone said hello. He also said that the power had not been out for almost two whole days.

At the farm in Ukraine

 Garry called me around 4:30 Manitoba time this morning, as the train was getting close to Dnepro, I was awake because I have caught a cold (Garry tells me he has no symptoms though). Anyway, I talked to him around 11 am here (he was cooking supper there) and he is pretty pleased with everything at the farm. His only thing he wanted to change was the bred heifer group's ration, as they looked a little thin, he's going to get the guys to feed them some corn silage. 

Oleg posted some photos to facebook so I'll share some here. Garry was pretty impressed with the new chicken venture in the old tent barn, they are selling eggs and meat chickens. 

He said Ukraine looked pretty normal from the train, although the electricity was off for a couple hours after he arrived in the village. There's a schedule and it mostly follows the schedule, although some days instead of one three-hour outage, there's three of them he was told. 

Everyone was excited to see him, and he handed out the presents I sent with him, and the parts for Max to fix things. He got to hold baby Sofia, who was born July first. I sent some sleepers and a dress for her. I didn't ask if Angelina (above photo) remembers him. He did say it looked like there were many jars of jam and pickles that I made in the cupboard. 

Looks pretty wet and muddy in the photos at the farm.

 I'm sure you were wondering if he'd arrived safely, so I'll go back to crocheting and blowing my nose. He'll be busy preg checking cows for week or two and hanging out with the students and staff. He'll be going to the village church tomorrow.

Almost there

 

As you can see, Garry was pretty excited to be going to Ukraine Wednesday morning when I left him at the airport in Winnipeg. His flights were fine, and after a rather long layover in Vienna, they got to Budapest about on time. Our missionary friend Jessica picked them up around four in the afternoon Thursday and drove them across the border from Hungary to Ukraine.

They spent the night at the Hotel Uzgorod, and Garry slept until 10 am and missed out on the hotel breakfast. They got on the train after lunch, which is where he is now, they don't arrive in Dnepro until just after noon Saturday... as long as it is on time. It's a 22 hour trip, they bought a four-person compartment for the three of them.

Max will drive him home from the city to the village, and he says that the students told him there would be pizza for supper.

He's going!

Wednesday morning, I will be taking Garry to the airport for his trip to Ukraine! He's really happy about getting to go (the mission came up with a way and is looking at changing the policy that has kept us in Canada) and is off finding stuff for Max's wish list of farm machinery parts this morning! I'm filling his bag with clothes for the new babies and kids in Ukraine, and warm socks for all the students (my traditional Christmas presents for them).

He will be traveling with Adam Nikkel and Daryl Porter, they will go to the church and mission in Kirvoy while Garry heads to the village for a couple weeks. I'm sure it will be warmer and less snowy there, as we got a pile on Friday evening. 

This week we took a day at the cottage, putting stuff away, since we won't be out there until December, and checking for Garry's missing wallet. It wasn't there (he booked his flight anyway) but it turned up when I was searching for something I wanted to pack for one of the students. I packed and unpacked those suitcases too many times to remember where everything is now. I did eventually find the item I was looking for, it's in the suitcase.

Wishing, hoping and praying

 Over the last eight months we've done a lot of wishing, hoping and praying about our mission in Ukraine. While Garry has kept busy here in Manitoba, and felt useful during his two months in Poland, he has felt God calling him back to Ukraine, and wants to go before winter sets in, just to encourage our team and students there for a few weeks. Right now, he's hoping to get permission to go from the mission. I would stay here in Canada, but have been shopping for small gifts for everyone there to put in his suitcase. 

Last week we were video chatting with some of the students, and saw little Sofia, who was born on July first, she's looks like she's growing well and is very alert. Her four-year-old brother Danil was very excited to see me and waved furiously, then showed me his Rubble Paw Patrol figure. It seems hard to believe that we left there on November sixth for three months in Canada and have not been able to return. We have heard that they are milking three times a day, and power outages have not been a problem in the village.

We have been going between the farm and the cottage, depending on the weather and what else is going on. Garry made it to a couple of the boys' basketball games in Winnipeg, where he plays a little, and has sung in the choir at church the last two Sundays. We left the cottage at 6:30 am both times to be at the church for 8 am sound check! 

However, it was worth it as Saturday was a beautiful warm day, and the lake was as smooth as glass, even if we only got three fish in the boat. We've enjoyed some family time and worked a bit on finishing the house renovation.