Street Hockey

Justin has been here visiting for the last almost two weeks so Steve thought it would be the perfect time to try playing street hockey again. We were surprised when nine guys showed up to play on Thursday and some of them picked it up really quickly. 

It was the warmest day so far this spring at +19 degree Celsius day and it was lovely for spending the afternoon outside.

We also brought chicken for shashlik for everyone who came (but you never tell people ahead of time because 400 people would show up).

The street we play on is an abandoned street right beside the train tracks (a three minute walk from our apartment) and the boys loved watching the trains go by.

Enjoying shashlik and chips:

Supper Club

Today we had 28 people at supper club and that was without the 8+ that come from the orphanage! They didn't attend today because yesterday was Women's Day and that means that today is a holiday. Women's Day is like Valentine's Day on steroids....it's a HUGE deal here. HUGE. 

I would love to say that these are photos from supper club today but alas, I am a week late. We were sick of having to buy cups every week so we bought a bunch of glass mugs that we all decorated. I thought our coffee table looked so pretty last week that it deserved a picture. 

Sometimes Steve does football (soccer) tournaments for the guys and this is the usual set up:

Here are the mugs as they were being decorated:

And here is Dezmond sitting in the room where they do Sunday school during church - sitting next to his blue train:

We went to the symphony yesterday! Actually....Steve and I went twice! Our whole family went with some friends for an afternoon show that was so good that we invited different friends to go back with just Steve and I for the evening show! It was an orchestra playing movie soundtrack songs and in the afternoon they played all children's movies. Dez and August came with us and really enjoyed it, probably because they would show clips from the movies while playing the songs. It was interesting because Steve and I have wanted to go to the symphony for a while and we had just been talking about it when our friend invited us to go. It was a great experience - it's always fun to find new things to do here.

Just Youth February

On Saturday we held our February Just Youth Service. We started our program as usual with the band from Molochansk: 

We had some group games with the kids and then we asked Yura (New Hope group home parent/new supper club helper) to share a message. Yura has an interesting story from what I have heard - he was a street kid for a while and I'm not sure when he came to the Lord. He is a great speaker and has a good way of connecting with the kids.

We had about 100 people this time! Each time is just a little bit bigger than the last and we praise God for the new people coming!

Afterwards we had the usual tea, coffee, cookies and games for everyone who wanted to stay and hang out.

Last time Garry taught everyone how to play the version of ping pong where you run around the table and try to hit the ball in time. It was a huge hit, probably because way more people can play this way, and it was played constantly the entire night.

We announced a talent show for the next Just Youth which will be March 28. Justin is coming to visit and will be here at that time so we'll enlist his help to put together our act, ha ha and Steve will as always, be sharing a message.

Steve offered a follow-up Bible study on Sunday again. Last time no one came which was really disappointing but we felt God telling us to try again. This time one fellow came - one of our neighbourhood guys from supper club who gave his life to Christ at Young Life camp and then promptly fell away when he came home and Christianity got difficult. Steve had a great one-on-one conversation with him about this and it came out that he does really want to follow Christ, he's just scared to go 'all in.' Steve took this time to encourage him and help him. So even if ONE person comes to every Bible study, it's totally and completely worth it!!