Work on the barn remodelling project

pulling the cement feed bunks out

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 March 9th- the beginning

 Garry is starting his new project, cleaning out the collective barn today, he even took a couple photos this morning. He says it is going faster than he thought it would, they should finish it in two weeks. They removed some cement already today. Unfortunately, all the welding they did on the bucket fell apart when they started the heavy lifting, should have used better steel. It still works anyway. Garry has decided to bring a wagon over there everyday to put the old metal they find in the barn and bring it home, so it doesn't disappear. Things that are unguarded can do that it Ukraine.

Cleaned out and ready to start cement

End of March-

Garry said they had the barn nearly cleaned out of cement over at the collective.  They burned all that old hay they took out of the barn, who knows how long it was there, it was loose and musty.

One Saturday they had a group of grad orphans working cleaning bricks. He said John brought out seven boys - about seventeen years old, they were paid by the number of bricks they cleaned. Bricks are worth recycling, they took down a couple interior walls in the barn to get ready to change it into a freestall barn. Garry fed them lunch- three loaves of bread, 2 kilos of hotdogs, a big jar of pickles and 8 liters of soda pop, and a couple bags of potato chips- they ate the leftover bread with ketchup spread on it, and drank the pickle juice too.

One of the reasons this project has group homes is to demostrate family skills for these kids. At 16 they are turned loose from the orphanges, and those who go to trade schools are put in city apartments with no supervision and little spending money, and no skills to live on their own. Very few are able to cope with the lack of structure, they tend to get into drugs and criminal activity, with all the free time. John's church in Zaporosia has an outreach to these teens.