Volunteer program

 

 

Last weekend Asya and I attended the final set of lectures in TCI's volunteer program and graduated from that. All together we took four intensive weekend courses on different topics related to volunteering in wartime Ukraine. The picture above shows most of our group at the tactical medical weekend. We also learned about psychology, PTSD, missionary skills, and ethics at other sessions. Asya’s favorite subject was tactical medicine, and I especially loved ethics with a visiting professor from Estonia. It was all great, though. We’re very thankful that we had this opportunity to learn and be with so many wonderful people who are working to help others, especially those who are in Kherson region. 

Graduation night was also a time for local churches to say goodbye to TCI, the Christian institute from Kherson that we followed to Ivano-Frankivsk. They have had two years here, and now that's coming to an end. The campus in Kherson is completely destroyed, so they're moving in a different direction now, instead of planning to go back. We’re really going to miss all our TCI friends as they move on to Kyiv.

Summer of camps

We're getting ready to jump into a summer of camps. 

Next week Will, Bogdan, and I are going to help at a camp for kids with special needs and their parents. Each kid is teamed with a leader for the week. I was invited to be one of those leaders a while ago, and we were just planning that I would go by myself. However, yesterday they decided that they need Will, too. Very few of the men who have helped in the past are available now because of the war. So, Will and I will be paired with campers, and Bogdan is going to be in the "working team" who run the camp program.

Raia has a job for June working in LCC's English camps. She'll be putting all these years of experience volunteering in camps to use to earn some money now.

Then at the beginning of July Bogdan will probably go to the summer version of the Young Life camps he's enjoyed so much.

And we also hope to be able to help with camp at our church in Kherson.

Blackouts

After many warnings and lots of partial blackouts that didn't reach us personally, we're now back to electricity scheduling. So far, it's only a few hours off in the mornings and evenings. I think it will be much easier to handle this time around than in the winter of 2022-2023, since it's not dark and cold now. 

Yesterday was "exciting" and frustrating as they got started. Exciting, because there were several explosions in our courtyard when they tried to turn the power on around 6:00. (Explosions are not good for people who actually know the sounds of war.) Apparently some transformers went out. Bogdan and I got to watch firetrucks and police and electric brigades and were amazed that we did get electricity after several tries, even though they continued work throughout the rest of the day. And I was frustrated because none of the announced schedules matched up and nothing went according to any of the schedules anyway. Like I kept saying last time, I would rather have less hours on, but know when they're coming, than the chaos that we sometimes end up with! But today has been exactly on the dot with the schedule so far, so I'm fine.

Overall we're thankful to the electric workers and all the people working so hard to give us comfort, relative safely... and freedom! I remember how amazing it was when we first got here to Ivano-Frankivsk and the electricity actually did come on. Even if it was off sometimes, after those last few weeks at home in Kherson, it was a treat to have it at all.

Please keep praying for and supporting victory in Ukraine!

Spring Break and Bogdan's birthday

I want to have a summary of our wonderful Lithuania trip here. Will wrote about most of it and posted photos on Facebook, so I'll mostly just collect that here; click through on the links.

Saturday, March 9: Travel on two trains from Ivano-Frankivsk to Warsaw, overnight there

Sunday, March 10: Travel from Warsaw to Kaunas on two more trains, bus to Klaipeda

Monday, March 11: Curonian Spit

Tuesday, March 12: Bogdan's 13th birthday! Tour postponed for weather. Amber store, coffee shop, LCC, presents, pizza instead.

Wednesday, March 13: The amber tour

Thursday, March 14: Apparently Will didn't post any more about the trip? On Thursday everyone was tired, and the weather wasn't great for being outside. Bogdan and I couldn't stay in, though, so we headed down to the ferry and went across to the spit relatively early. It was so foggy that we could barely see the ferry, much less where it was taking us. We hunted for amber, and since we were pretty much the first and only people on the beach, we got some bigger pieces right away. Then we were frozen. We went back to the ferry landing, to see if we could figure out the coffee/hot chocolate machine there. I consulted with Jaan, who was at work in the city, and he made it "magically" dispense hot drinks for us. Well, he did it with an app on his phone, but it certainly felt like magic, in the midst of a cold, foggy forest scene with no people anywhere around us, when the machine just started talking and making treats for us. Will and Raia joined us a little later, and we went back to a good spot we had found on the beach for more amber. Bogdan and Raia camped out in cold water and collected quite a bit. Then we ate lunch that Will had brought, they saw deer, and went back for a little more amber. After that we went back to the city, joined the rest of the family, visited bookstores (wow). That evening we went out for dinner, one last time all together. I'll put a bunch of photos from this day below:

"Magic" hot chocolate

 

 

Pieces with holes are special.

See the deer?

 

 

Friday, March 15: Bus from Klaipeda to Kaunas, one train to Polish border, another further on to Warsaw, overnight in Warsaw

Goodbye, Jaan!

New book from used book store

Saturday, March 16: Bus all day from Warsaw to Ivano-Frankivsk, reunion with Leo, end of amazing trip

Quick and easy border crossing

The whole trip was so wonderful that I can't even express it in words. I had a great time looking back through the photos and what Will wrote to pull this together today, too. Thank you for reading!