Sunday, August 17, 2014

Nikolaev Ukraine Day Five

James is back at the keyboard for today's post.

Today was a good day. It rained this morning which cooled everything down significantly. A huge difference from the last couple of days. It was especially nice since I burned the back of my neck to a crisp playing in the Black Sea yesterday.

This morning we slept in a little. After the stress of yesterday, it was a much needed opportunity to recharge our batteries. We went to church in the late morning and enjoyed hearing testimonies from two young ladies that are leaving on missions tomorrow. It was nice to feel at home among the saints here in Nikolaev. We look forward to spending more time with the branch here over the next couple of weeks.

After church, we changed clothes and then headed out to visit K and B. This was our first visit without our facilitator Natasha present. Natasha returned to Kiev last night to be with her family during her birthday today. So, when we arrived and met up with K and B, we called Natasha on the phone and sang "Happy Birthday" to her in Russian. We then enjoyed the rest of the afternoon together. We decided to tell K and B the story of how Mary and I met. They seemed to enjoy it and B even acted out parts of the story as I told it. K started to teach Mary the Russian alphabet and also took a turn with the camera. She really enjoyed taking pictures of the nature that was right around us.

 
 
 
K also enjoyed taking a picture of Mary.

 
 
B also took a turn at the camera and took this shot of us sitting on a bench in front of their cafeteria.
 
B and James also played soccer with some of the other boys. They are all really good (or, more likely, I am just really bad) and I think some of the older teen boys were having a lot of fun showing off their skills at my expense. Actually, these kids are really good. The team from their boarding school won a European youth championship last year. B kept me on his team even though we lost far more than the last time we played. Oh well, maybe I can get them on a basketball court during one of these visits...
 
We finished the visit by describing to K and B what Sundays are usually like at home for us. Hopefully, it will help them get an idea of what to expect with this big change in their lives. Today's visit was really nice and we enjoyed getting to know K and B a little more without awkward situations. Looking forward to another visit with them again tomorrow.
 


 
A couple of days ago, K made this purse ("soomka" in Russian) for Mary.
 K has some mad skills!

1 comment:

  1. Glad your day was less strained, and that purse is the cutest!!

    ReplyDelete