Christmas time

 Opps, I guess I never posted that Garry made it all the way home! We have been busy with family, church and gatherings since he arrived. Luckily he was not jetlagged for long. 

He sang in the choir for the service on the 18th, after going through a good snow storm for the practice on the 14th. That's him in the back row.  We  had the farm Christmas party on the 16th, in spite of continued bad weather and celebrated Garry's 66th birthday on the 22nd with some of the family.

We had the whole family here for my birthday on the 26th and again for Christmas presents on the 27th. It's the first time we haven't had our celebration on the 25th, but Matthew was preaching in Fort Quepple  on Christmas morning and its a 7 hour drive in good weather. 

We have had Max Boradin out for several days for Christmas too, it's the seventh year I've filled a stocking for him with the rest of the family. He really seems to enjoy his new job and living in Steinbach, yesterday he went ice fishing with Garry and liked it so much he went back to the lake with him today. 

On the plane

 In spite of things not going as planned Garry Adam and Daryl made their flight out of Budapest!

The train arrived in Uzgorod about four hours late, because of snow, they were on a siding near L'viv for three hours. When Jessica drove them to Budapest from Uzgorod, they hit a very slow border crossing, they were in line (in the car) for six hours. Apparently, the computers were down. The guys had reserved hotel rooms they didn't get to use in Budapest but got to the airport with about 40 minutes to spare. They even got something to eat after checking in. Garry's suitcase was about 6 pounds over, but they let it go, so that went okay (he couldn't find the luggage scale in our room to check while packing.)

The driving wasn't great, they hit some wet snow, so it may have taken longer than three hours to get there after the border crossing. Jessica dropped them off, and then headed to her hotel for some sleep before driving back to Ukraine. They were all a little exhausted and stressed, but Garry will land in Winnipeg in about 20 hours after taking off from Budapest.

Thanks to everyone who was praying that they would make it to the airport in time!

On the train

 Garry packed his bag Friday and Saturday morning, washed the sheets and Max drove him to the city about 5 pm. Right now it's midnight Saturday... or Sunday?) and Sunday morning there, and they (Daryl and Adam are with him) have been on the train 13 hours, with eight or none to go to Uzgorod.  

Ready to come home

 That's a quote, ready to come home, although Garry doesn't get on the train until Saturday. He feels like everything is running so smoothly, he doesn't have much to do! It great to know that our staff has things well in hand, both farm and student wise.

He's also a bit tired of being cold, it's colder than normal for December in Ukraine right now, and right now they are in the middle of a power outage that's supposed to be about 16 hours. He called me from Oleg's home (8 pm his time, noon for us) because the generator was running there, so he could use Wi-Fi. Both houses have gas heat, but the pump to move the hot water around the radiators doesn't work without electricity. They will probably use the generator at our house in the morning, because the power is expected to be off until noon tomorrow, so that house can warm up. After last week when they had uninterrupted power for a few days, it has been off more often and often for longer periods of time. 

Yesterday evening they were cooking dinner in anticipation of a planned power outage around four o'clock and it went off in the middle of cooking potatoes, boiling water for macaroni and the biscuits had just gone in the oven. The power was back on around nine pm, however, they ate two jars of my homemade pickles when they got hungry while they were waiting for it to come on! The biscuits were a little hard. He made more brown sugar biscuits for breakfast this morning when the power was back on, and they came out better!

When Garry told me the story this morning, I asked why he didn't go cook in the summer kitchen. He had forgotten that there is a gas stove there. That's how he cooked dinner today. He was telling me he was cleaning the cupboards to store all the humanitarian aid food the girls are getting, even canned turkey from Mennonite Central Committee in yesterday's bags. 

This week has been pretty quiet, although there was an explosion about eleven o'clock last night. Garry slept right through it, but they think it was anti-missile fire taking out a Russian missile headed to one of the cities. Garry bred a cow in a village, one not that close to Nikolaipolia. Somehow, they had heard he was back, he's going back on Thursday to breed a couple more of their cows. 

Garry is not spending much money, because he had an adventure last weekend. He took the train to Kyiv to visit a former student Karina (in spite of my objections, because he had promised to visit). Unfortunately, there was a power blip as he tried to use a bank machine at the train station and it didn't return his bank card, so he only had the cash in his wallet. He took a taxi and visited Karina. Karina has really turned her life around in the last couple years, away from alcohol and being a "bad girl" to clean and sober and now married with a baby boy. She lives in a village near Kyiv (apparently the Russians were quite close early in the war before the baby was born) with her husband and mother-in-law.

So the taxi driver waited and drove him back to the train station, he had a ticket already for the evening train. He actually got a haircut in the underground by the train station and hung out at KFC until his train time. So it's good that life is cheap in the village (a bottle of coke is still 25 grivna) because he still has half his cash left. Unfortunately, now he can't buy the stroller for the new baby. He does have some Canadian cash for the trip home on Monday.

They are getting the heifer sheds cleaned out- the new loader just fits, I'm told. They combined some more corn today and hope to get the dripline up and the field plowed now. However, there is snow in the forecast, so we'll see how that goes. 

Here's Garry with the mother and kids from the refugee family living in the old boys' house with Vova and his mother. They are heating with wood there. They had six kids when they came from Russian occupied territory and had a new baby this summer. They attend the church in the village. Garry went there twice, this last Sunday he visited Morningstar Church in Dnepro, although many were away for the installation of the new pastor in Kivoy Rog, where Daryl and Adam are, he was able to talk to Misha and a few other people we know. 

Garry says he is wearing a lot of clothes and putting all the blankets on the bed, to stay warm. He says the girls don't seem to be as cold as him, but are wearing lots of layers, and the two Yulias are running out to give the chickens water as soon as the power comes on. 

 

Some highlights

 Here's a few photos of Garry's week so far.

Here's some from the Saturday supper at our house. I hear lots about the girls and little Angelina in our house, and wave to them while talking to Garry. Angelina seems to like Needles. 

Oksana and Kolya's baby girl was born Wednesday night and they were home from the hospital on Friday. It seems safer in the village than the cities. Her name is- according to Garry, hard to say, but something like Osiya. 

He went on a trip to Poltava with Max and a couple guys from the village on Thursday and bought a loader with them. Garry said job one will be to clean out the heifer sheds. It's Chinese made 2020 that was being used to build a highway that isn't being built now, and who knows when it will be now, so the company was selling two loaders, this was the small one. 

The last couple days the sun has been shining, it rained every day for the first ten or more days he was there! This week the power is out for a couple hours in the evening usually. Max has been filling up the fuel tank while Garry's there.

Sometime this week he needs to get his inexpensive Ukrainian haircut before he starts his homeward journey.