T.E.A.M. Ukraine is a ministry of the Evangelical Free Church of Canada Mission

Well, it is one week ago that we landed in Kiev. We have had a busy week cleaning our new home. We are very thankful for the work Garry and Teresa and their work teams have done to give us such a wonderful home to live in. We are blessed! Most of our time has been spent cleaning within our home. There is gyproc dust and construction dust pretty much everywhere and that is to be expected with all the construction that has taken place. Each day we accomplish a bit more and we are seeing a lot more change with each passing day. We attended our first birthday party last Thursday for Sasha. We had a baked potato and a meat sandwich for supper and cake and ice cream later. When we get some ice cream, we will attach a photo one day as it is a unique container. Shannon went with Garry and Teresa to Dnipro last Friday and did purchase a wardrobe, which is now put together and in use. That emptied four suitcases! The closet will be something we tackle next as they are empty rooms ...

Our flights went well; the landings were terrific! We had very great pilots!! My (Shannon) ears and the air pressure changes didn't get along so well, unfortunately. We cleared customs and retrieved our luggage, all of it, without any issues. We waited in Kiev airport for about 45 minutes for Garry and Teresa to arrive from Spain. We met Stephen and Jo from Zaporozia and their two sons, and we all piled into Garry's van and drove home. We stopped part way at McDonald's for supper. The young man who took our order was a university graduate with a degree in engineering. Really! Sadly, the pay is better at McDonald's than in his field of study. We drove to Zaporozia to drop off Stephen, Jo and the boys and then went back to Nikolipolia. We crawled into bed around midnight (I think) and had a great sleep. The next morning after toast and tea, we got to see our house and haul our bags in. By then I (Shannon) was feeling the ill effects of the honey in my tea :(. We th...

We arrived back in the Cut Knife area on Friday and began to get ready for the final preparations before we leave from Edmonton Monday morning. We got the car washed up before we came out to the farm and then did some final cleaning once we got here. We hauled in our six 50 pound bags from the Seacan to do the final touches and to make sure we had what we really needed. The challenge is keeping each suitcase within the 50 pounds, but we did it.  Bags packed and ready to go! On Saturday, the car was ready to go (oil changed) in the Seacan and that gave us a few challenges. We went up metal ramps at first and then with snow on the tires, the car almost slipped off. We were able to back down and then we used some recycled rubber ramps and it still presented a few challenges with the snow, but it is in! Shannon DID NOT want to be behind the wheel of the car at all!  Going up the ramp We did it!! We got the car in, removed the battery and put blocks und...

So the doctor's appointment finally arrived, and as usual, it was quite short! The little calcified lumps were benign!! Yeah!!!! Now we can get on with moving to Ukraine. From the doctor's office we went to the car and made some phone calls and sent out an email. We notified our family and called our travel agent to pay for the tickets we had asked her to hold for us. We leave from Edmonton on Monday, November 19th at 10:15 am and arrive in Kiev on Tuesday at 1:10 pm. So begins the next phase of the journey. Now we get to do all the last-minute things - laundry, prepping the car  for storage, weighing the suitcases, calling family, ... Scott preaches one last time in Cut Knife this Sunday and then friends will take us to Lloydminster to our daughter's place. She will drive us to a hotel near the airport later that day. Stay tuned for pictures and details of the flights and connections and our arrival in Ukraine next week.

  In my mind, I thought it would be longer until we experienced winter this year, but life is full of surprises!! So here we are, looking out the window to a different kind of beauty, the kind many people around the world miss out on. Watching the sparrows fluff up their feathers to keep warm, seeing the snowflakes fall gently to the ground making everything look clean and cozy are some of the things we won't be seeing as much of in Ukraine. But we have pictures! Today Scott braved the cold (-20 something) to shovel off the deck and driveway. I watched from inside! We have been enjoying a time of quiet together as we relax in Imperial. We've been watching (too many) Christmas movies, reading and playing cribbage while we wait for my follow-up appointment with the doctor on Tuesday.   Cleaning the driveway   Last week we took in a Celebrate Recovery Networking workshop in Red Deer. Celebrate Recovery is a Christian  process to wholeness from all k...

Hello again, after much time away! With working in the fields these past two weeks, posting a blog has not been high on the priority list. Besides, Scott had the phone and computer and he was just as busy!   So from Rachelle's house (Monday, October 16th) we drove back to Cut Knife and repacked our duffle bags to go farming, Scott in Cut Knife with Jim and Karen, and me (Shannon) to Imperial with Ross and Brenda. Scott helped with combining and baling and finished up on Saturday, October 20th. He caught a ride to Saskatoon Sunday afternoon and I drove in to pick him up. The baler The view out Scott's tractor window Brenda and I with our combines   We spent the next week together working for Ross and Brenda, Scott doing a lot of harrowing and me driving combine, one of the things I really enjoy doing! It's not always fun - one evening I picked up a large rock in the header. It was so big and stuck in such a way that Ross and Ad...