Easter Party!

This past weekend we had an Easter party at ChildRescue!

We had a puppet show AND a spectacular!  (play)

We had a good turnout and invited children from our community.  Some were familiar faces, some were new!

 

Afterwards, we had Easter bread and candy!

 

And then before the children left, they each received a Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child shoebox.  Okay, it's Easter, but it's like a two for one holiday gift!

 

I was able to read and translate the letter this boy found in his shoebox from the people who sent it.  Thank you to everyone who packs a shoebox.  These children were blessed and thrilled with them!

Palm Sunday

Today is Palm Sunday so there are lots of people attending Orthodox church services today.  Instead of taking palm leaves, they bring pussy willows to church for the service.

Here people are gathering at the church as the priest comes out and sprinkles holy water on them to bless them.  You can't see the priest, but he's there.

Easter Again

In Ukraine, we celebrate Easter according to the Orthodox calendar, so Easter will be on May 5th.  I am more than fine with that since the trees are finally turning green and it should be lovely weather wise in a couple of weeks.  I love celebrating Easter in Ukraine as it is approached in a much more serious manner that in the West.

Yesterday we had nine moms show up at our Mom's Club at ChildRescue for our Easter party!   We had a great time together.  We even gave out Operation Christmas Child boxes to a couple of moms who hadn't received them yet for their children! 

Here is a post on Orthodox Easter with a lot of great photos which show how it is celebrated if you want to learn more.  Just click .HERE

Life Update

Life keeps moving on as we head valiantly towards spring.......Well, it IS actually spring, but we're still off to a slow start.  It is starting to get green outside although these trees in the photo above have not started to bud yet.  I am hoping that it will be gloriously green by Orthodox Easter!

I am moving valiantly forward as well with all kinds of stuff going on, most of which is total chaos which then somehow rights itself back up into something awesome.  Which mostly just makes me more amazed at how God works everything together.  I am really grateful for the things I'm learning in this season of my life. 

Our Mother's Shelter/Center/Rehabilitation home (I'm not sure yet what we will call this in English for technical, legal reasons)  is making progress and we are pretty much finished with the remodeling and are working on getting the furniture installed.  It is absolutely beautiful and when a young woman comes to live there, she is going to feel awesome just being inside such a cozy and warm atmosphere!  I will post photos when it's totally finished.

Coffee As A Lifestyle

I woke up in the middle of the night last night and suddenly a blog post was running through my head.  Every sentence was written perfectly.  It was awesome.  And today I've totally forgotten what the post was even about.

So.....this post may involve a rant.

A true Ukrainian style rant usually involves copious amounts of coffee and at least one friend if not more.

So here is my friend Lori visiting me in Kyiv at Coffee Life.  Because, coffee "as a life style" is a wonderful thing.  Here you can see she is checking out the menu where we figured out that a caffe Macchiato is a step up in the world from a plain, regular, cappuccino. 

She has a big smile on her face for a reason.  More caffeine.  We are truly moving up on the scale of European coffee drinkers.

So what was I going to rant about?

I forgot.

Before And After Shots

Before...........

And after.............

Just Believe

The 40 million tons of snow from the Snowpocalypse snow storm has either been hauled or shoveled out of the city.  What's left behind is a bleak, brown, and dirty city.  The time has moved forward so it now stays lighter for longer during the day, but the skies are still mostly grey, and cloudy with just an occasional peep of light blue sky.

It's April 8th and for Ukraine, it's been one very long winter season.

Have you ever felt that longing like something is never going to come to pass?  That feeling that you know what you want but everything keeps getting messed up and you yourself can't figure out how to get from A to B?  It should be simple but nothing is?  It's like when you pray for something but get no immediately answer.  You pray for something you obviously need but......no answer, it doesn't happen.

Technically spring should be here by now.  But it has to come doesn't it?  I mean if global warming is real, then shouldn't it be warm by now?

It's by faith that we believe that winter will end and then turn into spring and spring will turn into summer and so on and so on.

"For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.".......Matthew 11:30  (NKJV)

You have to believe that.

You have to make the choice to walk by faith or walk by sight.

And believe that your spring is coming soon.

It's Melting!

All the snow is melting in Kyiv.  They did such a good job working to haul it out as it came down last week that getting around is not as bad as I thought it would be.  It's still cold and we might have some cold rain or snow this week.  I am SO ready for spring weather!  I can't believe it's April 1rst!