the barn project so far...

 The freestalls for the cows to lay down in will be in this are, two rows facing each othere where the cement strip has been poured, and a third row in front of the windows behind the alley way that was poured before.

This is where the cows will eat, the "feed wagon" will drive on the cement near the windows, a cement wall will be made where the rebar "fence" is now

Garry and Victor talking in the barn

Garry and his helpers brought everything that was not cemented in (with the exception of some rebar that is tied and laid in the unfinished alleyway at top left in the photo) back here to the yard. They even unbolted some posts that were not cemented in yet at the end of the barn for safekeeping. The barn over there is open and unguarded; last week on Sunday night, Max's brother Andrei drove over to check on the site and surprised a couple guys removing some of the boards for the cement forms. They dropped the boards and ran and hid, Andrei brought those boards home on top of the car- nails and all they had pulled about the forms on the part that would have been poured next (but the funds are needing to be raised.)Unfortunately, the thieves broke one long board taking it apart...

We will be gone for almost three weeks to a Mission conference in Hungary and back to Canada for our son's wedding, so if anything gets done on the barn in the next month, Maxim may work on building some doors to close up the building more securely. If there is a door or a lock, it means that the public is less likely to wander in and see what they might want to carry home. There is a old brick building on the outskirts of the village as you drive in, just off the road, and it has been shrinking in the three years we have been here as bricks are found useful to people.


While all this is on hold while donations come in, the work continues on getting the permits and paperwork for an official school in place. There are some officials in the local government and education divisions helping with this, right now they are even working on getting Garry certified as a teacher here in Ukraine. We had to get his transcript and diploma copies from his bachelor of science degree in agriculture from 1980 so they can send it to Kiev to be approved.