More students

Tuesday Garry and Masha (Maria) left at seven am with one of the female students who needed to get do some bank business in a town near where they were going to pick up some new students. One girl is the younger sister of one of the girls who came just before Garry returned to Ukraine, she will turn 18 later this month.

When Victor and Masha picked up the students in July, they took some photos and today they got a copy of the local paper with the front page story. In the bottom photo, Masha is in the front row with the four girls, and Andrey is at the back left, with Victor, the school director and teachers.


They got back after 4 pm, first they picked up the girl Olya at the orphanage, then went to the bank, that they had to be there before noon, but they had to wait an hour and a half...
 then back toward Dnepropetroesk to pick up the second new male student. He will live at the boys'  house with House parents Sasha and Ira, first year student Andrey and the second year guys, Kolya, Nikolai, Valera and Sasha.

Olya is the sixth new girl to move into the new group home with Sergey, Larissa and their daughters. Today was the official first day of school in Ukraine, and their girls are going to the village school, it was Christina's very first day of school ever, here's a photo of her with them, all dressed up for the big day's opening ceremony. There are 13 students in the first form or grade, Big sister Karina will have five in her class.

They are getting organized after moving in on Saturday, there are a few finishing things to do at the house yet. One shower had a leak in a pipe when they turned it on, so they had to buy a new fitting. They washing machine on the family side is in, we have to buy a second one for the girls' side bathroom yet. Seems like we are buying two of almost everything for the new house. There is a lot to furnishing a group home and getting all the household items. We did clean out some of the dishes from our house and send them over there.

We sent all our single mattresses over there as there are nine in the container sent from BC. We are now hoping to get the stuff within the next month, as the container left Poland on Friday. We thought that might mean it would be here next week, but apparently not. Eventually we will exchange them and bring the ones there back here.

There is one student left to pick up on Friday, a friend of Kalina/Karina and Julia who was deported from Russia where she had been living with her sister. She will be living with them at Luda's group home.

We need to find a few more chairs

Today the summer kitchen was turned back into the classroom for now, we are still waiting for the electricity to flow to the "new" remodeled barn and the attached classroom. We are really hoping to have power there by the end of the month. Monday will be the official first day of school, but we will have to have another grand opening when we move school in there.