Really looking from far away

 We get constant updates on the farm while we are in Canada. Max and Garry often talk about crops and other things. We get updates about students from Victor, who is in Canada but is our link to most of the staff, and some from Oleg as photos on Facebook or sent by his wife Elena. She knows some English. Life is going pretty much normally in the village right now, it's relatively safe in our village.

The corn and sunflowers are about a foot tall now, the irrigation water lines are in place for the corn. The wheat looks okay, there's a good amount of hay in the shed from first cut and second cut will be soon.

The cheese house is being used to make a bit of extra milk into soft cheeses. I think for eating, because they have been able to keep selling milk. Here's a few photos from Elena, you can see Leila in her new glasses helping. 

Christmas and New things

 

This summer a new couple joined the Hope for Each team. Oleg is Ukrainian, Lena's from Siberia and in August they moved into what was the Crawford house in the village with their two preschool aged sons and her father. They had already spent some time in the village and in September took over student affairs like scheduling, discipline and salaries.

There's a few changes like a noon time dinner for the students on weekdays, with two of the students as the main cooks, Kolya and Julia.

Soup's on

It was a great crop year this year, with enough money made for running the school, planting next year's crops, and building a second storage shed for grain and purchasing a new tractor. The chance of that much timely rain next year is about nil, and it was so dry in the fall the winter wheat barely started growing by November, but we didn't have to buy irrigation water all summer for the corn and hay crops.

Update

 It's been almost two years since I updated this, we are not so much a bird's eye as an everyday view of the project, so I just post on moo-oosings! However, there have been changes since that last post. The Crawfords returned to Canada last April due to Scott's health issues that cleared up when they got home. It was at the begining of the pandemic, they were able to return for a few weeks in July to pack up. 

We moved into the house leaving the three girls in the other house, plus Angelina, the baby Valentina had last May. Last spring we built a house that Kolya and Oksana and baby Matthew moved into, but over the winter she was able to get a house of their own in the village from a government program (there was always supposed to be free houses for orphans but we had never met one that got one). Nikolai, Alona and little Danil have moved into that house on our other side. 

We still do work study at the farm and Larissa, at left in photo above, comes from Zaporosia to teach an ethics class twice a week, and there's a weekly cooking (and eating) class too.

Many of our other long time students are living in what was the new house, married couple Julia and Dima are in the group home parent side of the house, three older guys, Sasha B, twins Misha and Vasa and one guy who arrived in the fall are there. There are three more guys in the two apartments, and one guy that came recently at the boys house, with maybe more guys on the way, although none have come yet. It seems we often hear about possible students coming to the farm, but then they find work in the city.

The farm is able to support improvements and the program now, for the last two years even milk is a good profit business, along with selling grain with don't need for feeding the cows. We grow winter wheat, corn, alfalfa and sunflowers. Corn and some alfalfa is irrigated. 

Students

Right now we have more grads than new students.  Some students come, some go, some come back and leave for various reasons.  Some just come back for a visit. Some may never leave, either because they turn into really good workers or because they really can't cope on their own.

New students,  since the beginning of 2019, we have had two, no four,  previous students return, three have left again, two we asked to leave, one took off, and one guy is still here. We have also had a new young lady, Inna since January.  She's living in our house (Garry and Teresa) with Leila and Valentina.  We still have not been able to replace Luda as girls group home supervisor.  Inna was able to quit smoking about a month ago, and attends church with us and the other girls. They went to a youth conference in Zaporosia with Nelly and Sasha Borchuk this past Saturday. 

Kolya and Oksana,  who were married in December 2017 are expecting a baby boy this summer.  Kolya has become an official worker on the farm and supervisor for milking when Yana is gone. Oksana's still milking cows like the other girls. 

Oksana's sister Vika is working with another former student, Karina,  as a cleaner at a mall in Dnepro.  They have been working for about a month now. Before that Vika was milking cows and living at our house.  

Julia and Dima, who were married last year in March during their year away,  returned in the fall. Julia milked and Dima was night guard. However,  about two weeks ago, they moved to the city. Julia also got a job cleaning at the mall, hopefully Dima can get a job also. His disability payments don't cover the pain meds he's on  for Muscular Dystrophy.  

New old student- Vasili or Vasa, one of Kolya Mazhara's younger brothers is back and doing pretty well. He and Sasha live in what we still call the new house with Kolya and Oksana living in the group home supervisor side. 

We have a couple other guys who came at the beginning of the school year who are at Vova's group home,  Tolik and Stas, who will hopefully finish the year. They are up and down on school and work.  

Nikolai and Alona and baby Danil are in the front apartment by the classroom.  Nikolai has turned into a steady guy, working hard and doing a lot of the baby care,  too. Alona has gone back to milking cows, morning milking when Nikolai can watch the baby. 

Catching up

Wow, I did not realize that I hadn't written a blog post here for almost a year. I hope you have been keeping up with us on the other blog or Hope for Each's Facebook page!

With the Salmon Arm building team March 2019

Let's do a quick review,  students came, students left, students got married,  had a baby, the crops were great, the Crawfords our new missionary couple came in November. Here's some pictures to show you.

Danil is 6 months old 

Going bowling 

Scott and Shannon celebrated Christmas with the students 

March 8th picnic

Current students

Here is a recent photo of most of the students with Max and Garry at the farm show in Zaporosia.

You may remember that at the end of last summer, almost all of the previous year's students left. Some of the guys got into trade schools. A couple tried working. One Sasha returned to us in the fall and just a few days before this outing, Vasa, one of Kolya's Mazhara's brothers came back. He is in the black coat far right side of the photo. He seems very happy to be back and has moved into the "new house" with Nikolai, Sasha B, and the two new guys with Anton as the supervisor.

That's Anton in the tan coat and our translator Nelly in blue

Sergey is on the left, Valara, right

You saw our grad guys, Nikolai and Sasha B in my last post. The two newest guys are a bit older than some of the students. Valara, 23 and Sergey, 26? (yeah, we really need to talk to the people sending us guys, this is the second over 23 we have gotten this year, but both seem to be really good fits for our program) came about a month ago, and seem to really like working, they have been helping with the house demo for this year's building project next door to our place. 

Sergey has one of those Cossack haircuts
and Vasa Mazhara at right

Alona and Nikolai

We only have one girl besides our four grad girls in the program this year and that is Alona. Since she is the only one, she has been living with Garry and I this year, while we look for new group home parents or more girls. The discussion is like a circle that never ends, which do we get first, someone for them to live with or more students to make it worthwhile? 

Alona has been Nikolai's girlfriend since the end of the summer, when her former boyfriend left for trade school. She enjoys beading needlework and has been working on a large picture of the Jesus painting by DaVinci since November. 

This month the three grad girls have been living with us, and Alona. They have all been doing some cooking together, making borscht and verininki for us.

The girls will move to the apartment when the team is here at the end of the month. However we hope to have some group home parents for the old girls house this summer.

The boys house is where Vova is in charge, his mother also lives there and the boys call her babushka (grandmother) and love when she makes buns and soup for them. There are 5 guys there now.

The youngest is Vitaly, he has been in and out of the program since summer. He has a big smile, a teasing manner with the girls and is turning 17 soon. He actually has parents, but had lived in an orphanage growing up and was one of the kids returned home as the foster system has been put in place. He is supposed to be attending a trade school, so he leaves to go there for weeks at a time and then comes back for a while. He's one of the guys everyone enjoys hanging out with, but he likes to avoid work, so he can be a problem when other guys follow along. 

Sasha that goes to church

Sasha with the bright coat

Then we have three Sashas living there! Two of the Sasha's came at the same time early in the fall. Both love to break dance and watch movies. One is a good football (soccer) player and one can beat Garry at tennis (ping-pong). One likes to play guitar, one likes to download music... or maybe both of them. 

Sasha #3

The third Sasha is the one from last year who returned to us after living on the street for a while (he had left in August, when the other guys went to trade school. He loves to eat.

None of the Sashas are really good students. One of them comes to the village church on Sundays and loves to sing.

Vasa at left and then three Sashas in a row

The other guy who is serious about his faith in God is Vasa (the new Vasa). He comes to church and wants to attend seminars and does a Bible study in the evenings with some of the girls at our house. He came to us after being in jail and coming to Christ.  He works hard,  writes poetry, and knows more English than most of our students. He grew up with Kolya Mazhara in the same orphanage, and I think he turned 25 in January. He also got invited on a skiing retreat by some Christians then and broke his arm on the last run down the mountain. His right arm, so he hasn't been able to write or do much for six weeks.

So that is an introduction to the students in the program currently, we also have the 3 guys and 4 grad girls I talked about last time. They have been attending classes on Tuesdays for the life choices program and going to English classes and sometimes my cooking classes. The girls do a lot of the milking of the herd, morning and afternoon. The guys milk in the evenings, and do a lot  of work during the summer with planting and harvesting. The students above do more classroom work with Garry, but some hands on experience in the barns also.

Student update

What are our current and former students up to? Karina and Andrei are both living and working in Dnepro.

Andrei is doing well in his job as a go-fer at the railroad shop and has a room with wifi in a boarding house. He came out to the village last weekend to visit. Karina is on her fourth job and is living at a dorm for tram workers, we think her latest job is as a cleaner.




Our married couple, Kolya and Oxana seem happy and their apartment is a hangout in the evenings for some of the other students.

Vika is Oxana's older sister

Leila loves cows, real and toy ones. too

Valentina always has a smile or laugh

Leila and Vika and now Valentina who just returned to us last week, are moving into the front apartment as soon as it is fixed up a bit, with fresh paint and cleaning. They and Oxana do the daytime milkings with Yana, with the guys milking on weekends and at night.







The three boys were in the apartment for two years. Nikolai and Sasha have moved into the "new house" with two guys who just arrived Friday, with Anton, the Christian guy who came to learn about farming from a different organization last spring as group home supervisor. He is the night/weekend milking supervisor, too.

Nikolai had a fall  at the beginning of the new year and spent a couple weeks in the hospital but he is feeling good now, they say he had a cracked skull and he had a bad concussion. He has a girlfriend, the new student Alona.

Sasha B is much the same as always, he was excited to learn to drive the bobcat skidsteer, but we don't know who taught him. 

Julia and Dima have been living in separate apartments in Kirvoy Rog with a church organization that sends us some students for the last month or two.  Dima has been working for about three weeks at a heating plant, cleaning. He got it with his invalid status (disability) which he applied for in the fall, Dima has a back or hip that is twisted. The wedding is on for mid-March there. Julia hopes to find work as soon as her paperwork is straightened out. They should achieve their dream of independence.

Ira is living with her family since she left in the summer. We had hoped to see her or Kristina at the wedding in December but they did not make it.


Wait for the next post to meet the new class.