Week 4

Tomorrow it's going to be 4 weeks since we have left the states. A little over 3 weeks since we've came to this city. Time has flown by. Let's go over what has happened thus far.
Throughout this time even though we did not have a house there yet, we have been faithfully visiting the village almost every day. We have spent alot of time walking around, getting to know the people in the village as well as doing activities with the kids, as you will see later on. Our group on the way to the village!



Our happy mission bus!
(the church was so kind as to loan it to us)



It was Nina's Birthday on June 17th! Happy Birthday Nina!



We met the kids that live in the village and have came several days just to play and do activities with them. Some of them have become very attached to us and follow us the second they see our bus enter the village. Alesha and Oksana are the kids that are around us all the time, followed by Angelina and Andrey (who are siblings). We also met a neat girl named Masha (Alesha's sister) who's 17 and is very kind to help us out alot. She also spends alot of time with us when we go to the village.









The church we attend here has an Indian fellow that attends their service. He goes to school here so he understands some russian, but not well enough to fully speak it. He speaks english better so when we attend any of their services, they are very excited to use us as translators. So far Olga and Chris have translated to him (from russin to english) during service and then Alina and Dima have translated him to the whole church (from english to russian).



The PE teacher of the school was very intrigued by us and very eager to put us to work. We glued "обои" for the senior classroom in the school. It was a two full day job. None of us have ever done it before so we were a little worried about how it would turn out, but with a little training, some hard work, and God's help- they look surprisingly good!

Before-






After-


The long awaited packages have arrived! We were very excited when they came. Even though we were the ones to buy everything for them and also to pack them, it was very exciting to open them and see what we got. Alot of supplies for the kids, for our village, and everyday things for us. One of the packages hasnt arrived, but we're still hoping for it. When they came, we crammed the boxes into our very tiny apartment hallway since the rooms have all our suitcases and beds.



Nina is our very own personal hair cutter!



Tanya Kanifolski has joined our group!





We had a movie night for the people in the village. We showed them the movie- "The day after tomorrow". It was very successful for our first time. We meet some more of the youth in the village, some of whom came to help us later. Prior to the showing we had to clean the auditorium that the school so graciously has allowed us to use and tape up the windows because even though it was eight, it was still light out.





And last but not least, the most exciting news of it all- we have a house! Our prayers have been answered, thank you God! Praise Him along with us! Masha helped us find a house thru some people she knows. For the past two days we have been cleaning there full time. As you can see, it definitely needs some work but we're doing as much as we can just so we can move in and will make it presentable for people to come over. Two guys from the village- Sasha and Vanya have been helping us tremendously along with Masha and some of the kids.