Another members home. Cort baptized David the 12 year old last year. Great family. Although the spouse of each of these members are not baptized yet, they still have lots of faith that they will be.
At the Ballet.
Another family we ran into at the store after the Ballet. Still strong after unbelieveable persecution!
Laina and friends - she took the photo.4-6-07 Blog by Steve:
This morning we went to the Orphanage at 9:00am to meet with the director, Victor. I am more and more impressed with him. His desire is to make the Orphanage the best he can for all the kids. Each adopting family is required to purchase 500 dollars worth of supplies or whatever to help the cause. So we met him and then took off in a van to go buy a new couch and other supplies. We arrived at the furniture store that was well stocked and looked for a big sectional for a good price. We bought one and had to pay for it to be delivered. That didn’t include getting it upstairs in the building, that was our responsibility. The delivery vehicle took off for the Orphanage and we went to a hardware store. We bought 10 push brooms that I didn’t know existed here and several rakes, pots for flowers, sprayers for gardens and fruit trees, a winch and several attachments for a tiller. They plant, meaning the kids a garden in the spring. I was impressed with that too. From there we ( the Garretts and us ) went to a large War Memorial that overlooks the city. Victor’s father was a prisoner of war in a POW camp in Sumy and there were many concentration camps also. 8,600 people lost there lives in these camps and 5,000 thousand people of Sumy were killed. I was amazed at Victors honor and reverence for the people and this Memorial. He was upset with the garbage and the upkeep of the Memorial. We took some pictures and then headed back to the Orphanage. We arrived and found out that the older boys had taken the sofa up to the third floor thank( save my back) goodness. The kids were ecstatic. An attractive older women dressed very nicely came up to us and spoke to us in broken English, like she knew us real well. I finally realized that she was Victor’s wife. She teaches Russian and some other things out there. She was very grateful for all and told us that they have two sons who are also Teachers or Professors. She said,” we are a family of teachers.” After all that we took Laina and the Garrett’s daughter Emily to McDonalds( man am I getting tired of Mc Food). From there we shopped alittle and bought some junk food. We went on to the apartment and watched a DVD that Emily had brought from home and ate some PEANUT M&M’s (wow). At 8:00pm Vern took the kids and went to the Internet Café and Jenny, Cort and I went to meet missionaries, 4 from here and the zone leaders from Kharkov. We bought them Ice Cream and visited for an hour. Cort enjoyed it. Finally home to slumber.
All I’ve experienced here has strengthened me. Each day is a learning experience. I guess it’s because I feel almost childlike, not knowing the language and being at the mercy of those who are leading us in this process. And what a process.
I feel much more comfortable around Laina and tonight we told her that on Tuesday of next week she will be with us 24/7. She wants that badly, but at the same time it scares her to think she’ll be totally taken from her comfort zone.
There are never any boring moments, Steve
Tomorrow we are going to her birth place about an hour drive, and meet with her uncle and see her grandmas house where she lived and visit her grandmas grave. It should be a wonderful day.
;) send emails to Cort and Steve, if you have their addresses, so they are bored and complain while I try to post to the blogs. Cort would love to hear from his friends. I can forward to him.
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