Vova's Birthday

Today is Vova's birthday. Dave has been battling some kind of respiratory bug all week. Some of the time he has been spending in bed because of not feeling well. I've been doing school with Allona and Vova and translating and trying to get the Christmas program ready, it seemed like every minute.

So today we took another "lazy day" and went for a ride out into the country into two villages, Krivy Balka (Crooked Ravine) and Zilony (Green). We took three boys with us both for outreach and because they are Vova's friends. The boys have been drawing stylized flames with a passion recently. So we thought this gate was an especially fitting background for a picture.

Left to right are Dima Anastasiv, purposely hiding behind a tree, Dima Dunduk, Vova Drummond and Vinya Dunduk

The day started with an e-card from Charity with a "knock, knock" joke. For some reason we heard a lot more "knock, knock" jokes along the road. When we went to the post office we had a package from Bethany which held among other things a Christmas card from 2006 that went all over the US before it was forwarded to our children to be sent to us. It had made record time getting here, about 3 weeks, and still had the US postal service tape on it!

The fine snow fell off and on throughout the day. The temperatures were just above freezing. The highlight of the day for the children, was stopping for a snowball fight.

Katrina has declared her hatred of snow ever since landing in Ukraine, praying that she wouldn't see it before she left. The children on the other hand, have been praying FOR snow. Today was their day.

When they got out, Katrina sat in the van. "Now this is TOO much adventure, to get out in that snow, for me," she declared. She had hardly sat two minutes before she slid the door open. "I'm going to make my own ammunition over here, before they get back," she stooped down, hiding behind the van, to start making snowballs. But the others had noticed. She had hardly gotten out of the van, when a snowball came flying over the roof the vehicle.

The children had a lively time for a few minutes before we went on. And Katrina said she had to admit that even "snow had its positive moments!"

But we also saw men staggering and falling down drunk in the snow only to slowly get up and go again. In the middle of the fun, we were reminded of why we are here.

We came home to make Vova's birthday cake and meal. He requested dried fish, fried chicken and wafers slathered with carmelized sweetened condensed milk.

Tomorrow after services, we'll start our travels to take Katrina back to the airport. She's going home for deputation and then planning on returning to Ukraine for a two year term.

While we're around Kyiv, we'll visit Ramon. Allona and Vova want to stop in to see their biological brother, so we're planning to stop there for a few minutes as well and then head back home.