The last week of April, while we were waiting for the ice to melt on the lake, we took a drive out to visit Jack and Victor in BC. Day one we drove to Matt and Kari's, our son wasn't home, but Garry had fun playing disc golf with Kari and two of the girls since we arrived around dinner time and we played board games before bed.
In the morning we woke up to snow, and drove through a couple inches of it halfway to our next destination, Daryl and Molly's in Medicine Hat. We had a nice visit with them and met their daughter and family, and their pastor.
The next day we drove to Salmon Arm, where Jack had invited some former work team members for a BBQ that evening. I got to meet several of the people on the teams that have been to Ukraine with Jack since the war started.
We spent two nights with Jack and Trish, and got to see Jeremy's house he's been building, and Neil's farm.
Friday we drove to Chilliwack to visit Victor and his family. Both of Victor's sons live there with their families, we had a big Ukrainian meal made by Victor's wife Lena at their apartment, and said hello to his mother in law. A few hours later a feast at Dan and Stacy's new house (where we spent the night) with Denis and family. We visited again with Victor and Lena in the morning before driving back to Salmon Arm.
Victor's mobility has gotten worse due to his MS, but it was good to hear what he's heard for Oleg and the village. Unfortunately, another of our students, Andrey, is now in the army.
We visited with Richard, whose been to the farm in Ukraine many times, and toured his little farm and had a delicious dinner with his daughter and her family. We felt like we might not eat again for days after this weekend! We slept at Jack's again and visited with him and Tyler before church in the morning, where we showed a couple of slides and talked a bit. Garry asked people to pray for Nikolai, who we hadn't heard from in a couple weeks (he had gone to the front). After church, we had an opportunity to go with Neil and Bonnie to go see our friend Ed Peterson, who is from Steinbach, but lives out there (Ed was on some building teams too).
After lunch at the church, we started out and made it to Brooks Alberta, where we had our only hotel stay of the trip, and as we were driving through some snow north of Calgary, I got a message from Nikolai. He's alive and well and asks for more prayers. We made it back to the farm in time for Garry to vote in the election Monday evening.
Since we got back he's been helping the boys with spring field work. The ice melted on the lake on the Sunday night we were driving back. Fishing season doesn't really start until next weekend anyway.
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