Bits n Pieces

I have been feeling a bit under the weather. Not sure what is going on. Sunday late afternoon I was really sick to my stomach. We went to bed earlier than usual and I slept for almost 11 hours. Last night, although I was feeling 'ok' we went to bed early again and I slept for 10 hours. Mel is also sleeping a lot longer than he ususally does, and feels really tired in the evenings. I asked him last night: since we don't seem to be really 'sick' - no fever, rash, etc. - do you think we're being bombarded with some kind of special experimental ray by "them" and that's why we're so tired all the time?

He didn't think so.
Neither do I. But it was an interesting story plot....

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Last night was the start of the church's kids program. We would call it VBS or DVBS in the States. Jamie is in charge of it. The proto-elders decided at the last minute that they wanted to see this happen. Mel was practically ecstatic! We have wanted and prayed for the leadership (the Ukrainian leadership) to see the need for outreach for a long time. This request came from them! So, even though it was put together in just a month's time or so, with only one official meeting, it started last night. The most exciting part for Mel and for me is that aside from Jamie being the behind the scenes director, it is 100% Ukrainian led.

Jamie at far right. Beginning group of kids - more showed up after this was taken. There were at least 44 kids in attendance at one time. The group leaders are (LtoR) Svyeta, Vitaly, Natasha.

This one is a bit harder to see, but these are the beginning exercises. The short gal at the front is Olya. Next to her is her husband, tall and thin Sergei K. Beside him is Svyeta and beside her is Sergei N. Sergei K. led everything, Olya was in charge of crafts and Sergei N. told the story 3 times. I wish I had a video of Sergei N. telling the stories. He acted them out. Moses and the 12 spies. He had the kids down on the floor, spying out the land, crawling behind sand dunes, and so forth and so on. The kids loved it and I think they will remember it. As you can see several of the parents came and stayed. They wanted to see what their kids are up to. We were thrilled! The goal of this is outreach, both to kids and their parents!

Craft time for the older group. The room was packed, so I took this photo from the doorway.

Yuri leading the sports time - darts! The photos were taken at dusk, some with flash, some without. My camera just doesn't do too well that time of night, but at least these photos give a taste of what it was like.

Tonight - more! It will be interesting to see how many kids show up tonight. We have noticed before when we've done this, that usually it starts out small and ends up bigger. But, as with the English seminar we did a couple weeks ago, it could end up a bit smaller. Time will tell. We were just so thrilled to see so many kids this time, and to see so many parents who were interested! One father came, took all sorts of video of his daughter and stayed for the whole thing. There were at least two fathers there. Yea!

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Yesterday Mel and I took a marshrutka to the center and had pizza for our weekly date. We then walked down to the river. What a surprise! The city is changing the water front area and it is much, much nicer than ever before. A work in progress now, hopefully to be finished by this fall from the looks of it. The whole city will soon have a new look.

Meanwhile, the sand put down before bricks are laid on top of it makes a really good gymnast floor apparently. These two boys were doing all sorts of flips off the wall and onto the sand:

And meanwhile (again!), these boys were having a blast jumping off the dock and into the Dniper River. They were doing flips, here, too - at least the braver ones were. Actually, this may be the same boy as in the other photo....