Bug season
The season of bugs is upon us. Over winter, the ants and bugs disappear. These bugs found their way inside our living room a few nights ago and after the girls had had the “freak-outs” a few times, Shane, Jem, Jesse and Marie caught them and noisily raced them. Weird what young people do when it’s after 11:00, eh?
Cricket! Go Wayne! Wayne and Ura plus some others, have been working on a field dedicated to cricket in Kaharlyk, the town we lived in before Rzhyshchiv. They played the first game there this last week. I hurt the muscles in my shoulder climbing around a water-fall with the young people from Bribie Island last time I was in Oz, so I can’t play, but I jumped at the chance to umpire and loved every minute of being out o
n the field.
Whenever I go down to the bazaar, I say hello to Alyosha. He and his wife are regular attenders at Sunday church and Wednesday night. He has a small stall from which he sells kitchen appliances and utensils. Business is not real good, but it’s better than working in a factory.
The lady two stalls down from his was selling Easter buns and they looked so pretty that I decided to take a picture.
We celebrated the resurrection of our Savior as normal this year. At the afternoon picnic, I noticed four men standing around talking and thought it strange… An American, a Scot, a Canadian and an Englishman all standing around on a picnic field in Ukraine.
The Canadian, (Cheryl’s Dad), finds himself in hospital in Kiev as I type this. On May 9th, (Victory Day), he was run over by a street vendor pushing his cart in Kiev. His leg broke and there are complications with performing the necessary surgery due to leukemia, so it has been decided to air-evac him out to Canada. It wasn’t the most pleasant of surprises, but there have been some bright spots over the last few days as we’ve visited him and Loretta and Cheryl in Kiev. I realized that we haven’t had many chances to honor and serve those who are older brothers and sisters with our church being so young. It was a real joy to do so again. Oh! The hospital experience is such a corker for these guys! I shake my head at how it must seem to them! Blake put on a serious face for the photo, but he’s been a real champ throughout the whole episode! Trust in God’s ways sure makes a difference to attitude when a Christian goes through suffering!
The lady Cheryl is massaging came around with porridge in the morning and plain buck wheat in the afternoon. She asked what she was going to get in exchange for her buck wheat. !!! Classic! Cheryl gave her some chocolate and then she asked for a massage. She must have figured out that if you don’t ask you don’t get. We had to laugh!
Tomorrow, we will be meeting downtown in the afternoon instead of having a regular church service. Hopefully, many of those we’ve invited will come and be with us and get to know us better… and get to know Jesus as personal Savior.
As I finish this off, I can hear the cry of “Gorka, gorka, gorka, gorka,” ringing out on the still air over the town. A couple tied the knot today and the party will continue for a good while yet. My heavy lids will be long-closed by the time they empty the bottles!