What's New?

I've totally forgotten about blogging for the last few months! I have plans to be better at it but I'm making no promises!

Here's an incredibly quick recap of what we've been up to!

We're still doing Wednesday evening hang out time/Bible discussion at church. This picture is from April - hence the jacket on Jessica. Crokinole has been a huge hit everywhere we've taken it and we're thrilled to be able to share such a cool game that we grew up playing with people.

We usually have good sized groups for discussion. Steve leads the guys (and sometimes a girl or two) through chapters of the Bible and then they discuss what it means and how they can apply what they read in their own lives. 

Steve and the floorball team were at a tournament in Kyiv in April. It coincided with the presidential debate and so the city was overrun with police. Steve always has great opportunities on these trips to connect with guys and share more about God and the Good News. They also play floorball and have fun together. 

While Steve was in Kyiv in April the boys and I were invited to participate in a fun Ukrainian tradition that we had never done before. Our friends Andre and Olya welcomed their third child - first daughter - and in Ukraine there is always a gathering at the hospital when Mom and Baby finally get to go home. We met at the hospital and took photos and then they went home. I was quite honoured to be invited because when we got there it was only Andre and Olya's parents and us! Andre's brothers and their families were coming later but I thought it was so cool and special to be invited too! 

Me, Olya, Kristina (the new baby) Dez, August and her boys Mark and Eric: 

Steve and Bogdan - a teenage friend from church - started going to the musical college dormitory once a week to hang out and play games with the teenagers who live there. They only had a few meetings before the end of the school year but hopefully some of these new relationships can continue in the future. 

 Jessica had some guests in May and we had a good-bye party for one member of her team who moved to Poland. We hadn't been at her land since last fall and since then they have a beautiful front gate, trees and flowers (also electricity and WIFI!). It was great to hang out with some American ladies for the day as well as Jessica's team who we know and love.

Some new Canadians (Scott and Shannon) moved to Nicolaipolia in November to help Garry and Teresa. We've been getting to know them as they are now part of our small group and it's been fun having more Canadians around. They invited us out to their place a couple of weeks ago for a wiener roast and it felt so weird having a FOR REAL wiener roast in SUMMER. We always do that in the dead of winter when we're in Canada! ha ha 

Steve was at another floorball tournament this past weekend in Lviv. Only half the team went because this was an extra tournament - the Ukraine Open - which was teams from other countries including a Canadian team made up of Canadian military who are currently training the Ukrainian army near Kyiv. They had a great weekend and Steve was able to have deeper conversations with only a smaller team of guys there. 

Dez finished grade 3 at his school and when we went to register August Steve had an awful situation with the school director. Unfortunately we now feel uncomfortable with Dez going there and we were guaranteed that August would NOT be going there. I shared our cool potential new school story on Facebook but I'll copy and paste it here: 

"We have a fun God story to share about our school hunt. We play Pokémon Go together as a family and have met many people out on the street. We shared our school situation with one Pokémon friend/teenager and said that we were looking for a different school. He said that he goes to one of the schools we mentioned and offered to have his Mom go with us and help us. We had actually met her previously and it just so happened that we ran into them again in the park Monday evening. I had a long conversation with her (she speaks English!) and she again offered to help. We met at the school this morning and went to meet some teachers and get the paperwork to apply. This has totally been a God situation - something we’ve been praying about and God just threw an English-speaking, incredibly kind mother and son at us to help...who we met playing Pokémon Go....don’t forget, ha ha. We still aren’t sure if Dez will be able to switch schools but we’ll pursue this school and continue following God where he leads us - in every area of our lives. We’ll let you know what happens!"

Unfortunately I have no updates on that! I haven't heard anything from the school at all but we're still waiting and praying. 

We are headed to Spain next week for the G42 10 Year Anniversary/Reunion. We'll be gone only 10 days but are excited to go. The rest of summer is up in the air at the moment but we're always busy with one thing or another and looking for places the Lord can use us.