Saturday

snack time

Saturday morning was the first of our fall clean up days for the the houses, all students who were not scheduled to work elsewhere were to be at the boys house at 9 am.

 They worked, they ate watermelon, they pulled and chopped and mowed a lot of weeds. By noon the new girls got a ride with Garry back to the new house, and things were looking a lot neater, especially behind the house in the orchard.

The girls were working in the front garden

Garry hard at work with the girls

Ira pulling weeds

Valentina carrying them away

Sasha loves to run the lawnmower

Behind the house, behind the orchard, whacking weeds

Later Saturday the boys and girls group homes, where mostly second year students are housed, had a picnic at the pond. I borrowed a few facebook photos of the fun.

Ukrainian volleyball

Happy birthday Vika!

Wednesday was Vika's birthday and we sang happy birthday to her in class, and gave her some slippers knitted by a Canadian lady who sent them with the Alberta team this spring and a t shirt that came with the Steinbach team. Last year I gave them mugs with candy and instant coffee packets for birthdays, but we have all these t shirts and slippers this year!

She wore the t shirt to hip hop church in Zaporozhye  last night, you can see it in the photo with one of the singers. The students wrote essays about their dreams for Maria's reading and writing class (in Ukrainian) and Vika read hers for our staff meeting on Thursday. She wrote that she likes to sing and would like to meet some professional singers in real life.

Wednesday evening Vika came and invited us and Maria (she stays with us the week Garry teaches) to the "new house" for her birthday party.

Hope for Each, Group home parents and staff meetings

Every Thursday we have Hope for Each staff meetings, Victor Dantsev is here then, and he is the head of the board with Garry as a director of the Ukrainian humanitarian organization that was set up this spring for the trade school.(For those wondering about the container of goods shipped from BC that spearheaded this change, it's finally in Kiev!)

The name was chosen to reflect our roots with New Hope Center, which was our founding organization set up by Canadian missionary John Wiens, whose dream it was to have a trade school for orphans where they could learn life skills by living with Christian families along with studying a trade. John hoped to add more trades, like baking, which he felt would be more attractive for female students after the dairy track was established. Of course, right now there are nine girls and only five guys in the dairy program!

Karina, Leila, Luda, Julia and Ksenia

Meet our group home parents 

 Luda, has been a group home parent since the beginning of the program in 2012 at the "the girls house". Since now all our group home parents double as instructors, she teaches a class on Christian ethics. Her adult daughter Ksenia lives with her and does the Computer class. Right now she has two returning students and one new student. Garry hopes to build a small addition unto this first house, which is not ideally set up for a group home, with a separate area for the family, by adding two bedrooms at the front, so that six students can live there in future.

Top student Andrey, parent Andrey, Ira and Kolya
bottom Sasha and Nikolai, missing Valera

Andrey and Ira were added to the program during the off year while we revamped the program and are at "the boys house" with their teenage daughter. This year they have four young men returning for the second year of the program and one new student. Andrey teaches mathematics and Ira will teach health this year, she trained as a doctor (anesthesiologist.)

Sergey talking about his class, Larissa is behind him

The newest group home parents, Sergey and Larissa,  live in the "new house" and have two daughters, They had left eastern Ukraine and were living in a church as refugees. All the students really like them, he will teach a class on relationships and she will teach sewing and personal care. We were invited over to celebrate their anniversary last night with tea and poppyseed cake. We even saw a DVD of their wedding. Garry told them that now they have eight children, as there are six of the new girls living there.









Last week the meeting was held in the living room of the new group home, and I took a few pictures. The group parents, Victor and Garry, Maria, Garry's assistant (she takes care of making all phone calls about prospective and current students, and does a lot of the paperwork, along with translating) and Max Rudei, farm manager, who oversees student work, all come to the meetings which start with devotions and have discussions about scheduling and general policies for students, and outings, and finish with prayer.

Maxim, who supervises student work

The Staff Picnic

 Saturday evening Victor and is daughter Dasha joined us for a group home family picnic at the pond, here are some photos. It was 37 C (close to 100 F) so some people enjoyed a dip in the pond before shaslik (BBQ kebobs) and chicken wings and many side dishes brought by everyone. The party broke up around 8 pm, when it was dark and the mosquitoes came out!

Garry and Victor were in charge of cooking

lots to eat!

First day of school

Monday was the first official day of class for the trade school so we had an official opening ceremony, like a real Ukrainian school! This year we have 7 first year students who have classes in the mornings and 6 returning students who study in the afternoons. They work in the mornings, and somehow Valera just stayed over at the new farm where he was on guard duty instead of coming for the ceremony as planned and going back, if you are counting students in the photo below.

 Everyone was dressed up for the occasion, first we played the Ukrainian national anthem, then Garry spoke for a few minutes about the history of the school, and how proud John Wiens would be that this year we had two classes of students studying for the first time.

 We had invited the village school principal to be our guest speaker, and she brought a bell that they have the new students ring at their opening ceremonies, it has been used for at least forty years in Nikolipolia.

 Several of the students rang the bell when she brought it over to where they were standing during her speech. As you can see we have more girls than guys this year. Andrey rang the bell, he is the only new guy!

We introduced the teachers, and they talked about what they will be teaching this year

Then we handed out gift bags for the teachers, guest speaker, and the students, the guys got Canada caps, the girls scarves, (they all got toothbrushes, thanks to one of the teams that came this spring) the teachers Canada key chains, and the principal got a Canada pen and large flag.

The whole group (taken by Valentina's guest)

Valentina's guest who came to see her start school
We gave her a Canada pen, too.

A lady who knew Valentina from the orphanage had taken a bus to come see her at her new school, she stayed overnight at the house with the girls at the group home, and came to our opening ceremony.

You see were the water stain is over the board in the classroom? I had the Ukrainian flag over it, but Garry took it outside for opening ceremonies. Guess I need to find the ladder, I stood on a table to hang it the first time.

School begins for the new students

Hip Hop Church

That's Ira in blue the day before the dentist trip

On Friday Garry and I drove into Zaporosia and Sergey (new group home dad) came along to pick up a package from Nova Posta ( think Ukrainian UPS) an antennae for internet service at the "new house."

 Two of the girls came along to visit the dentist (all of our orphans need to see a dentist after arriving, it seems almost everyone needs to have teeth pulled, they are in such bad shape).  Ira had not eaten in two days with a toothache, and ended up getting the bad tooth pulled. The dentist thought they might be able to save another, and one more would need pulling. Maria (Masha) went along with them to her dentist, she is like a mother hen for the students.

Valentina needs orthodontic work besides, we are helping her with the preliminary visits right now (she has more than enough money in the bank to cover the cost, as presently outlined, they are talking about pulling her front teeth and giving her fake ones, they are very badly placed). She will be a pretty girl when they are done, right now she is shy about her appearance because of her teeth. Last month one of the other girls ended up in hospital with an infected tooth, and thought it was wonderful when the staff thought Maria was her mother while signing in.

There's the guy who didn't stay on Thursday

 We are down a student already as the guy Garry picked up a couple days ago decided not to stay, and took a bus back to the dormitory in Dnepro on Friday morning. We can't make them stay with us, although we try to convince them to stick it out a week or two and then they usually decide to stay.

We ended up driving all over the city (we were there to pick up our small visitors for the weekend, we are watching a couple little guys for a missionary couple from Manitoba) before picking the girls back up and driving back to the village.

Here's the girl Olya (who came on Tuesday also) swinging
The students cleaned out the back room at the new house

that says HIP Hop Church, of course

Kolya, Valera, some guy I don't know, Sergey (group home dad) and Andrey

Soon after arriving home, Garry left to pick up our final student, Karina and Julia's friend. Garry met Victor on the highway, he had picked her up in a village near Kirvoy Rog that morning. Then Garry returned to the village and left his car at the new group home and walked home, so someone could drive it to Zaporosia for an outing to Hip Hop Church. They also went in Maxim Rudei's big van, because almost everyone (who wasn't working) wanted to check it out. We really need to get a really big van to transport students. 

I have a couple photos from Larissa, the group home mom who went along. They are ready to go again, I am not sure if it is held weekely or bi-weekly.I think one of the boys went up from and altar call, and one of the girls who received a New Testament wanted to read it before going to bed that night. if I understood correctly.

Success story- our Maxim Boradin

We like to say that the trade school makes a difference in the lives of our students, that they have a safe haven from the world, learn some life and work skills, are introduced to Jesus and see what a family is like to live with, but sometimes we can do all those things and even more for the students who come. It is always interesting to compare our new students to Maxim, but he is one of a kind.

Here is Max at Providence University College in Manitoba where he is enrolled as a English Language student for this year. He plans to eventually study Church Ministry there. This was Thursday when our daughter-in-law dropped him off for International student orientation, and to move into the dorm.

We first met Max as the youngest student the first year of the trade school, in September 2012. He had just graduated from the orphanage in Molochansk (the old Mennonite colony of Moloshkina) and had a dim future since he had been in the disabled orphanage, apparently because his mother was a drug addict who gave him up at birth. Garry was worried he wouldn't fit in because the other students were older.

Max with Garry and one of the other students

He quickly became Garry's favorite student because he was so eager to learn everything. He became a saved Christian during the year. Once Garry asked him if he was like the little kids trying to sell papers by Mc Donald's growing up and he said before he came here, he did't know that stealing was wrong, so he used to take stuff instead. Apparently the market stalls at the bazaar closed quickly when the orphans came running.

However, he always had a heart for helping people. When Garry took him back to the orphanage last year to visit, he was eager to check on some old babushkas that he used to help with their gardens. Garry's favorite story about Max from the first year, is about the time he took him somewhere, and on the way home, Max wanted to stop at the store and buy bread. Garry was anxious to get home, but Max ran up the street with the bread, and gave it to an alcoholic walking up the street, and then ran back to get in the car.

At the end of the first school year, Garry invited him to come to work for us on the farm and live in the house. He went from only knowing a few words of English to being able to talk to almost anyone and attending an English Bible study with us.

He had a job working in a greenhouse while at the orphanage. Max will even keep working when it's time to eat, because there is so much to get finished. Max's social skills have improved also, although he'd much rather eat fast food than sit and wait for an order at a fancy restaurant!

 last summer at the village church after Max's baptism

Max may be a little hyperactive, if anything, because he always needs something to do. Two years ago, when we took him on vacation in Egypt, he was walking and talking to the locals about God in English or Russian when it wasn't time to swim or eat.

We knew it was almost impossible for Max to attend university here in Ukraine, because of the labels he acquired as a child, so Garry worked on getting him accepted in Canada. Everyone was amazed when it all worked out with his visa last month so he could go. I am sure he will be both a challenge and a blessing to everyone he meets at school, like he has been to us.

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.