And Then I Didn't Blog For A While

I have no excuses or reasons for not blogging, it was quite possibly sheer laziness that kept me from blogging but here is a recap of most of February. 

This month has been busy, and we spent a bit of it being under the weather as well. Dezmond and August had birthdays this month - on the 8th and 12th respectively. On Dezmond's birthday Steve preached at the Baptist church (it's called Voz Rozhdeniya) where a lot of our friends attend.

Also on the 8th I found this little guy, promising spring!

 I thought he was pretty crazy for popping out so soon - we had a few nights mid-month that were cold (for here), being -10 degrees Celsius.

On the 17th (and the 3rd) we had Mom's Club at New Hope Center. We decided to throw a little Love-themed party as it was close to Valentine's Day. We had some extra-special food, a message on the different kinds of love and how much God loves us and then we did a fun photo shoot with the girls. My kitchen helper:

Some of the girls enjoying the food:

Steve went to a village orphanage with Max and some other guys one day to deliver some donated sports equipment. The kids had a big program planned and the guys that went played the school team in basketball and volleyball. Steve was really impressed with their basketball skills - he hasn't found much talent in the basketball department here and he was surprised to find it among these young guys.

 There is always some dancing:

 A band performing:

Steve attended a discipleship conference in Kremenchuk (between here and Kiev) last week with some guys from New Hope Church. He had a good time getting to know these guys better as well as hearing the speaker (who is Canadian).

Supper club has been going through some changes recently. New Hope Center had an afternoon program for the oldest class from orphanage #3 but they recently started a new program with older graduated orphans and asked if we'd be willing to take this class on Mondays for supper club. We were a little apprehensive because of a number of factors but we decided to try it out and were pleasantly surprised with how well it went. This last Monday we had our regulars plus eight guys from the orphanage (and their teacher) that put us up to 31 people! We had a hard time fitting around the table but we will continue to make it work!

After supper and the message we have been having discussion groups with the regulars - we split into groups based on....life situation...we'll call it. So we put the kids from the neighbourhood together and the graduated orphans together because mentally and spiritually they are on very different levels. So now we've added a third group of these new guys and we hope it goes well. We have another guy coming to help out with these guys - Yura, who works with them at the orphanage already, is one of the group home parents for New Hope Center and is tightly connected and familiar with the orphanage/graduated orphan programs. We helped him run a summer camp for the kids from orphanage #3 for two summers already and know him a little through all of these avenues. He will now be coming to help out with supper club to coordinate these kids and to lead their discussion group and we're always thankful for more male help. We could have 500 women helpers but it's much more difficult to find men who are willing to show these boys what a Christ-like man looks like. We have SO MANY boys, and only two girls out of all of these kids!!

Steve went to teach at English club on Tuesday and came home with this bag of ?????

It looked awfully suspicious to me but he said that one of his friends there gave it to him and it is tea from another part of Ukraine. I was 99% sure that I saw a dried grasshopper in there but I decided to be brave and try it out. WELL. I opened the bag and took a sniff and it's banya tea!! Whenever we have gone to the banya they provide this delicious loose-leaf tea and we always wonder where we can buy it because with honey it is just perfect! I have been enjoying it ever since despite the grasshoppers, ha ha. I don't know if someone just raked their lawn and tossed it in a bag, and I don't really care because it is delicious!!

Country situation-wise we are safe. The currency is a major concern for many these days. When we first arrived here the Hryvnia (or greeven as we call it) was eight to one Canadian dollar. Last year after everything started happening it rose to 12 greeven to one Canadian dollar and hovered around there. Now since returning this December and in the last few months it has sky-rocketed. Today it is sitting at 27 greeven to one Canadian dollar which for us is great because our money goes further but for Ukrainians it is very very hard to get by. Prices are going up on everything but wages aren't so it is obviously a large concern for everyone. Please pray for some stability for the country. 

We have Just Youth this Saturday so please pray for even more kids this week! Last time was our largest group yet so pray for even more AND that we'd have some attendees for our follow-up Bible study on Sunday!