For the last two Saturdays we have had our friend Bogdon over to use our Internet. He is currently involved in a long distant relationship and asked me awhile back if he could Skype on our computer. So he has been having good conversations and now he can't get enough Skype. We are going to have to limit his use a little though because Saturday night is prime time for us as well to Skype.
This past week was unexpectedly busy and left Laurie and I very tired. Monday through Saturday have been filled with classes and visiting. Monday evening was a dinner and program held to honour the new students at UBI. Homemade pizza, cake and a live skit...good times. On Tuesday we had dinner with the Rogers who had Ron Fox over as well. Ron is here for three weeks teaching a preaching class and 1 Corinthians. This was also a good time. I'm always excited to have dinner with the Rogers...Mary Lee makes the best desserts, honestly she could easily open her own restaurant here if she wanted.
On Wednesday we joined our friend Katia in visiting her mother who is in the hospital right now. I sort of invited myself but we have visited Mama Katia before at her home and thought maybe a surprise visit by the weird Canadians would cheer her up. She didn't remember us at first but it was fun to see her face light up when she did. We were over at their place before interviewing Katia about life in the Ukraine and her mom offered to show us some of their pictures. It was so very interesting. She had pictures from the 1940's and older that were still in good condition. We didn't stay too long at the hospital though. Mama Katia needed to rest and we were happy to have a quick visit with her.
On Thursday we helped Bogdon and some of the other students from UBI move a couple huge cabinets from the Boodyornovski church building (the congregation we currently attend) so that new cabinets could be installed. And wow, what new cabinets. I have never seen such big cabinets in my life. I forgot my camera but I will take a picture next time.
Friday morning we had our last Russian lesson for the time being. I completed my required hours early in the summer and right now we feel we need to have more free time to work on other opportunities with the time we have left here. I must admit our relationship with our tutor has been a pleasant surprise for me. She has always shared openly with us and we have learned many cultural lessons from her as well. The first half of our lesson was purely visiting and catching up with talking in Russian. We have become friends and plan to see her again before we leave. We then had Nazar over for dinner and visiting. He has been super happy lately because he was given a laptop this summer so he wanted to show it off to us and all the pictures he took while he was in Kiev this summer.
Saturday was a long day. We had a good English class with our regulars and then we hurried off to Ludmilla's house. She was hosting the UBI staff bbq. Upstairs the kids played while the rest of us all visited downstairs. Again, I had forgotten my camera at home so I have no pictures to post. Afterwards, Laurie and I came home to find Bogdon Skyping. Earlier, we lent him a key to our place because we didn't know how long we would be at the bbq.
And then...Laurie cried and I was brain dead. I know I was tired because Sunday morning I went to wash my hands and I just stared at the facet for about 30 seconds... all of a sudden I couldn't remember which tap was the hot and which one was the cold. When I'm drained my brain works about ¼ of capacity and when Laurie is tired she becomes emotional. This is not a good combination so we decided to not allow ourselves to get overly drained on a regular basis. Sometimes its unavoidable but this week I'm making an effort not to get too busy.
Yesterday was a good day. It was a holiday here, Ukrainian Independence Day. So we slept and rested. In the evening we strolled to the city center because we were told that there might be some sort of celebrations going on. We were lucky, as soon as we got to Lenin Square a concert began. It started off really cute but then got weird. The opening act was young girls dressed in traditional Ukrainian clothes and dancing traditionally. But my favorite part was the young boys (5/6 years old I would guess) who were dressed like little soldiers who marched around singing with little girls dressed like nurses (I assume). It got weird though when older kids came on dressed like carrots, corn, and beats and danced and sung about carrots, corn and beats. Eh, it was still pretty entertaining. But again, no pictures...you see the problem is Laurie and I are getting lazy. We just like to walk around without carrying anything. But this weekend we will take pictures. We are going to our first Ukrainian wedding.
A prayer request. Laurie and I are not healthy. We have been sick ever since we have come back from the Black Sea and are beginning to be tired of being sick. We would appreciate your prayers.
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