Halloween

 The team members should be enroute to Vienna about now. Seems like there was some drama about a misplaced suitcase at the airport, but all's well, that ends well because it was found. Hopefully the rest of their trip home goes smoothly.

Max took a nap in the van last night on the way back to the village. He started driving again around 6 am when he woke up because he was cold. Garry said Max was almost back home this afternoon when he drove into Dnipro. Garry went to a mall to find a Kyivstar store, because he's been unable to use his phone unless he was on Wi-Fi, even after getting a Ukrainian sim card in the village. 

Garry was enjoying looking at Halloween costumes, mostly young people dressed as anime characters at the mall he went to. Halloween is an imported holiday, not a traditional one in Ukraine, but it's interesting to see kids and teens dressed up with air raid sirens in the background. He did get a working sim card, and for an extra 400 grivna had the broken screen saver replaced on his phone. 

Here's another video of Oleg's that shows the house team work. 

House opening

And a few more photos of (and from) the team 

Thanks everyone!

Goodbye Ukraine for the team

 

Making this post late Friday night to tell you that Max successfully drive the team to the border crossing today- actually around 1:30 am October 31st- they walked across the border to the yellow van on the Moldovan side and four hours later they were trying to find seats at the airport to wait for their flights home. 

They left the village after breakfast. They did some visiting with Adam and family in Kirvoy Rog on the way. Meanwhile Garry got started on his cow breeding project and drove to Dnipro to the Canadian- Ukrainian Farm Project office to buy frozen semen from Canada. He said everyone working in the office was the same and excited to see him again. He bred five cows today and started working on getting a pen of 25 heifers ready to breed while he's there.

They got to the airport around 5 am, Craig's flight is around 10 am, I think everyone else flies later in the afternoon and they overnight in Vienna and get back to BC on November first. 

The team's big finish day

Thursday was the last work day for the team from Salmon Arm, Friday morning after 7:30 breakfast Max will drive them to the border for their ride to the airport. 

They worked on finishing up the projects. The barn (or cattle shed) build team got most of the steel on the roof and poured more concrete, a divider wall and more floor. Garry said it got too windy in the afternoon, so they couldn't work on putting steel on the roof anymore. Garry and the Ukrainian part of the team will finish it, and rest of the inside. 

Jack's team worked on cleaning up, apparently when the family moved in four years ago the cupboards were full of junk that just stayed there, but they cleaned it all out now so they can use them. Garry says the main part of the house now looks like it did when it was originally remodeled about 13 years ago.

The family had them there for a celebration tonight. Craig took this group photo. 

From left - Phil, Adam, Clay & Harm (sorry I don't know who's who) Garry, Elena's father, Margarita holding one of the kids, Hannah, Jack with more of the kids, Rachel- holding another, Jeremy, Dima, Elena & Oleg with their daughter Sofia, and Pasha and his wife and 2 daughters- there are 7 children

Jeremy's (maybe Rachel's? Garry isn't sure) mom had crocheted some fun hats, enough for the whole family! Garry tells me that she also made and sold hats to help pay for their flights to come to Ukraine.  The kids really liked the hats. The team really liked (loved) the kids. 

almost done...

Tomorrow I'll put up a few more photos of the team and I will keep updating you as I hear from Garry over the next couple weeks as he works on important things like getting the cows bred and pregnancy checked.

Finishing up-part 2

 Wednesday continued, that post was getting long! 

Wednesday evening Dima and Julia invited Jeremy and Rachel for supper at their place.

The shed construction team was hoping to be able to start putting the steel on the roof today, but unfortunately it was not delivered until almost dark. However they have some up there ready for screwing down tomorrow. 

Here's a little video Oleg put up on Facebook about the build. I'll check if that works. It seems to, it will open in a new tab and ask if you want to go there, if you click yes, you'll see it, sound was muted when I did it, so turn it up if you want music! 

video Ferma Garry

Finishing up

 In a few hours the team will be starting their last day of work on the projects, since they are about eight hours ahead of us in Manitoba, even further ahead of BC. They will be leaving Friday morning for the return trip to Moldova, with some time in Kirvoy Rog, visiting the people Jack knows there, including Adam's orphan project, the church and probably the adult men's facility where they did a project in 2010 when we first met Jack. 

Jack's house repair team project will be done, they have been working on clean up mainly today. Rooms have fresh paint and repaired walls.  The team have really bonded with the kids that live there. 

Jeremy and Dima did some work on the power line from the house to the cheese making building, because it seemed to be hotter than it should be. This summer solar panels were added to the roof of the house in anticipation of power outages this winter, so they will be able to heat the houses and make cheese.

Tuesday here and there

 Today I didn't talk to Garry, although he sent some photos and I saw some from the team. I was in Winnipeg for Max Boradin's swearing in as a Canadian citizen! If you are a long time reader of our blog, you know Max as the orphan from our program who came to Canada to study at Providence College just over eleven years ago. He became a permanent resident a few years ago, and today a Canadian.

You may recognize a few more people in this "family photo" you could take with the judge that swore the new Canadians in, as Roy and Carol Enns came to the village on a couple work teams. Carol was Max's English teacher at Prov and they have been some of his Canada family, helping him with life and paperwork. One of their sons also came to the ceremony.

Just noticed I look very short in this photo. 

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the suitcases finally found them!

They also got the rest of the trusses up, and as Garry wrote "are almost ready for steel". 

Good night, folks. Seems like it's a cold bug that's hitting the team, just a few more days before they head home.  Apologies for Monday's post I didn't check if it published after I clicked the button. 

Monday

The computer font and I are disagreeing today, but I talked to Garry, all are well, except Jeremy's wife Rachel was sick but was feeling somewhat better, she even went to work for a while today. Jack's a little worn out, but he tends to not sleep well, so I'm sure that's not helping. They are on the house refurbishing crew. Here's a photo of everyone, including the people who live there. Looks like they are in front of the summer kitchen in that yard. From what I heard, the dad and the kids are helping with the work of repairing the house.

Looks like Jack was getting a massage there.

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Garry's crew (they are like two teams that eat together) did get about 2/3rds of the floor poured this morning with the 8 yards of concrete they can get in the morning. More ordered for Tuesday morning. Unfortunately the crane they hired broke down so they hope to finish getting the rafters up tomorrow, and then nail on the boards. The steel for the roof has not been delivered yet, but hopefully soon.