Humbled...

Thats how I felt yesterday morning after I was rejected twice by a taxi company. Before that I was feeling really good about myself because last week I had successfully called the taxi company and gotten them to pick us up at our new place. Yesterday morning however the receptionist didn't have any patience for my sloppy Russian and just hung up on me...twice. I had to call one of the school translators to help us out.

Later that day we had the opportunity to go to a nice drama theater for a special worship service. It was a unique service because they had a choir made up from different congregations around Donetsk. This choir sang worship songs in Russian and then an American choir from Texas sang English songs. The Texas choir is in the Ukraine for a week performing at various Churches around the country. I brought my camera along since the drama theater is quite elegant. However, when I turned the camera on it told me 'no card' meaning no memory card. Doh...I forgot the card in my computer...there is another performance tonight so I will try and get pictures then.

This past week has been by far our busiest. Laurie had her hands full with entertaining Regena and Masha. Here is them enjoying lunch together.


They are two of the children of UBI staff members. Laurie was running the staff daycare as the regular caregiver had to return to Russia to be with her father who is very ill.

And here is me teaching with Alona. Alona was my translator and did a great job.



I have a new respect for teachers now...it takes a lot of work to adequately prepare. And answering questions is tricky as well, you never know what someone will ask. I found it to be a stressful experience but rewarding. Stressful mostly because we covered material a lot quicker than I anticipated. So I had to prepare quickly to fill the last class.

This week will be quite different from last week. So far the responsibilities we have taken on are to teach English on Saturday and have Russian lessons throughout the week. Here is the group we taught last Saturday...initially anyways, we had three other stragglers come in about an hour later.



I hope to have some time this week to catch up on 'homework.' I need to read a Ukrainian history text book and visit a museum and then do a write up on each. The potential to get busier thought is very present. I met a University teacher last week who asked me if I could teach his class all about Canada. Apparently they are very interested in Canada since Canada takes in lots of Ukrainian immigrants every year. So if you know any interesting facts about Canada please pass them my way.

Question: Does God care about little prayers, specifically ones that might be silly to another but important to you. I think so, let me share with you what happen today. Laurie and I have been planning for the past three days to go shopping at the Amctop for groceries. It takes planing cause you need 30 minutes to walk there and then at least an hour to find everything you need. We had no food in our place so we planned to get a lot of stuff. However we had a problem...to get a cart you need a fifty kopeky coin. We didn't have one. So this morning I asked God to allow us to find one so that we could use a cart to shop with.

On the walk there I was looking intensely at the edges of the sidewalks but to no avail. Then when we get to the Amctop I figure we'll just have to deal with carrying as much as we can but then Laurie says “we might as well go to where the carts are and see” I'm giving up already but as a good husband I listen and we go and check out the carts. And behold, hiding near the edge of the carts is a fifty kopeky...I was soooo happy. It's silly I know, but it's a big deal when you can only make that trip once a week and thats the only place you can find almost everything you need. Slava Bogoo! (Praise God!)