the village

What a week we had in the little village. It felt like we were back in the 1930's. It was quiet, slow paced, peaceful and beautiful. We stayed in an orphange but it was a different building than the orphans stayed in. If I understand correctly, there are usually orphans in the building we stayed in. They go to a family members home in the summer.
We walked everywhere we needed to go. The dining room was a 10 minute walk and we ate every meal there. The food was very different but it was good and filling. We thank God for providing. The park that we did our programs at was at least 15 minutes away.

The first night we arrived, we walked through the village with balloons and a tiger costume to invite all the village kids to the park. We arrived at the park Monday morning after breakfast and kids followed us down the road. There were school classes there already and they joined us in our groups until it was time for them to leave with their class.
Each American and translator teamed up and to have their own group of kids. We had 7 groups and lots of kids.
In the mornings we would teach the kids songs in Russian and in English. We played games and did activities. We left at 12:45 each day to walk back to our orphanage for lunch. Slavik would tell the kids what color to wear each day. Monday was red day. The kids were told that we would return at 5:00 and it was so very cool to walk to the park and see a sea of red in the park.
From 5:00 to 6:45 we did more of a VBS type program. We sang songs again and had our large group Bible story and then we broke up into our smaller groups to talk about the story and do a craft.
Each of us LOVED the kids in our group. I'm sure the families of the American team members will hear story after story about the kids they met. It is so neat to watch relationships form and to watch the kids pour themselves into the kids.
By the way. This team is incredible. We never have to ask them to do a thing. When something needs to be done, they jump in and do it. This is a hard working group of Ukrainians and Americans.
We've never been able to spend so much time with our translators in the past...we haven't stayed in the same place with them before and it was awesome spending so much time together. We had so much fellowship time together. Most nights we spent time worshipping together. One of my favorite sounds in the world is hearing English, Russian, and Ukrainian singing as we sang praises to the Lord together. We spent time singing and praying together.
There is so much more I can write but no one likes reading a long blog.
We returned safe and sound back "home" today and ate PIZZA as soon as we could (thanks Igor!!!). Then is was off to McDonalds (where we are right now) so we could e-mail family and update the blog. Oh, and of course, eat icecream and french fries.
Thank you for your continued prayers. Please keep them up. Brian was very sick one day and we need to pray that he wasn't contagious.
Families...your kids are great!!!!!! They are being used in a mighty way and giving every thing they have...physically and spiritually.