Getting ready

In case you are wondering, the small scale opening of the trade school is still happening this fall. A few plans have changed, and they are still a little short on funds to get things done, but enough came in last week to keep going. The carpenters are back at work on the "girls house" which should be ready soon. It still needs a furnace put in for heating the place, but money is coming to get everything done there.

They have rented a house in the city of Zaporosia for the guys and their foster family - the couple who quit their jobs in Odessa to come here, because that village house needs a lot of work done before it will be ready for them, although some changes have been made to the inside- like pulling off old wallpaper, it is supposed to have an addition of several rooms built on.

They are still trying to finalize how many students are coming, but it looks like there will be 8-10 orphans plus a few students from the village. Garry has done some work on what he will teach, they think they have found a translator for him. He's been checking out Seth and Jonah's homeschooling Biology textbooks, and hunting the internet for parts of a cow illustrations.

So when something exciting happens I'll let you know and I'll get some photos!

The "school room"

For this year they plan to hold classes in the church in the village, they finished off the unfinished room where they had the singing from the Bible camp or VBS Garry did last year, to use as the classroom. We were there last week for this year's closing program, where the kids from last year where happy to see Garry as you can see in the photo.

what it looked like last year

what it looks like now

 The renovation is under way at the first house which is supposed to be the one for the girls I believe, not sure of when it will be finished, they need more money to get it done- no heat or water systems yet, I think I heard. The new roof went on this week. The renovation of the boys' house, where the house parents will be a young couple with a small daughter, (the father was in the army) has not been started yet.

One month to go...

John Wiens and his translator of the day Lena

The men were on the other side of the room when I took this photo

The first day of August the staff of the trade school began a ten day training session in Zaporosia about working with orphans. Garry and I went on Wednesday, and found the information about orphans in Ukraine very interesting during the afternoon session.

Garry also got an outline of what they are supposed to teach for a dairy program according to the government guidelines for this kind of program - translated into English from Russian.