Quick Check-In

Just a quick update to let everyone know how we're settling back in!

Weather: it has been warm (around zero) for the last week or so which means that the piles and piles of snow are melting and the sidewalks are nearly impossible to walk on! The forecast is for about the same temperature for the next week so hopefully more snow will melt and we'll be able to get around much more easily!

Holidays: for Ukrainian Christmas we were invited to Max and Anya's *new apartment* (which was John and Evelyn's apartment) for Christmas dinner. We were there with them and another fellow from B.C. who has been visiting for a couple of weeks, a friend of John and Ev's.

The boys were sick with a stomach bug for a couple of days which was not fun but thankfully Steve and I managed to stay healthy. I was really surprised because stomach bugs usually spread like wildfire! Thankfully they are both back to normal.

I popped in at Dez's preschool today to see if they are still operating or if they are on holidays. They were there and the teacher was happy to see me and excited to have Dez back on Wednesday.

Other than that we've been just trying to reconnect with friends and get back into the swing of regular life! Thanks for reading!

Just Youth: Games Night!

Because there was no Just Youth Event in December we wanted to have one very shortly after arriving back here. Just Youth is usually a prepare-all-week type of event so we decided to try something different and just do a games night. We had about 50 people come and we started with table games - Uno, Dutch Blitz, foosball and ping pong being the most popular. 

After an hour of table games we organized some group games - shuffle your buns (which is an old MCI special), life-sized paper-rock-scissors and a few others that we found on the internet.

The final minutes of a new game we found called Ships and Sailors:

Steve trying to get all his smiles out before the next game starts:

 The game starts with everyone standing in groups of two, following instructions from the leader and attempting to make the other person smile. The first one to smile is eliminated and the winner rematches until there is only one lone survivor.
These guys are facing off - trying to make each other smile.

The intense final round was closely judged by Steve:

We finished the evening with more table games and as always we provided coffee, tea and cookies. It was a lot of fun and something we might like to add in as a more regular event on top of the regular Just Youth night which we will start planning for very soon.

We're Back!

After eight wonderful weeks at home in Canada, we are now back home in Ukraine. 

Our travels went exceptionally well - we had a very easy travel schedule on the way back here - so easy that I wondered how we've never come across this flight pattern before! Usually we have a three hour flight, an eight-ish hour flight and then another three hour flight to get us home but for some reason this time our flights were 50 minutes, seven hours and 30 minutes, and then three hours. The time flew by nicely! 

While we were home in Canada we had tried to book train tickets from Kiev to Zaporozhye but it seemed that there was never any train available. We think maybe because it arrived in Zap on New Years Eve that it was instantly sold out and therefore never showed up on the booking website. For that reason we asked Max (from New Hope Center) if he would be willing to pick us up in Kiev and drive us home. He was more than happy to do so and so he and his family were at the airport to pick us up. He left Zaporozhye Monday morning right before a major snowstorm hit and as he drove towards Kiev, all of the highways closed behind him! The roads were open by the time we headed back south but as we've said before - the main difference between a blizzard in Manitoba and a blizzard in Ukraine is that in MB, the streets actually get cleared and in Ukraine...well....they don't. 

The first half of the trip went quite smoothly other than the terrible Ukrainian roads, but about halfway home we hit snow. It was fine and fairly normal driving, just snow-covered roads until about 100 km from Zap and then things got crazy! It was basically a stay in the tracks or be stuck forever situation - there were major line-ups of abandoned semi-trucks as far as the eye could see in many places - usually on over-passes. It was down to one lane in some places, and we had to drive down the wrong side of the road in places as well. Thankfully at this point it was already about two in the morning so traffic was light and everyone was being exceptionally cautious! We were all so happy to finally see the Zaporozhye sign!! It felt like one of those end-of-the-world movies at times because of the vehicles that had been abandoned in the middle of the road! But we made it safe and sound, and we made the comment to Max that his driving was capable of handling Manitoba weather any day! 

We had a rough time getting back on Ukraine time - mostly due to arriving home at 3:30 in the morning! I think by tonight we'll be okay again. I was outside today for a bit and took some snow pictures for all of you Manitobans who are missing the piles of snow :) I'm sure you'll get more shortly, ha ha.

It has been "SO COLD" (so says our friends) since we arrived back - about -10 degrees Celsius. We think it's just lovely outside! It is supposed to be warming up to be about 0 degrees by the weekend so I'm sure all of this snow will be gone shortly. Our apartment has been nice and warm - mostly due to our space heaters but we're noticing that our electricity is acting up again, probably due to the power shortages all across Ukraine. No big deal though, we'll adjust our power use and keep on going!

We had such a lovely time at home and we want to thank everyone who made the time to meet with us and we want to say thank-you to everyone who supports us with friendship, prayer and finances. We are so excited to see the things God will do here this year and can't wait to share them with you. Happy New Year!