A busy week

We have now been in Ukraine for three weeks and this past week has been busy doing a number of different things, some of them rather messy (for Scott).

On Monday, Scott spent 2 1/2 hours in the attic putting spray foam insulation in the peak to keep out the snow. He got the sticky stuff all over his gloves, on his clothes and in his hair!! I was able to get some of it out using olive oil, but most of it I had to cut out.



The beginning of the spray foam job

Now the snow will not get in, at least not here!

      


















We drove out to the barn to pick up some wood to begin our closet projects. The boards were way to long to go in the van, so Scott had to use a hand saw and cut them down. It was almost dark, so it was interesting!

Later in the week we went to Dnipro all by ourselves to do some shopping! Victor met us as Nova Lenia (a big hardware & houseware store) to help us get a discount card. We discovered that they were having a big sale starting the next day, so we left some of the bigger purchases until Sunday afternoon. We did not see the shopping carts off to the side of the entrance on our way in and the gentleman who is the greeter helped us. On the way out Victor must have said that we were from Canada because he wondered if we had any Canadian coins to give him for his grandchildren. I put some in my pocket for our next trip to that store!

Friday evening Dima, Julia and Valentina came to the house, trying to explain something in Russian. We understood only a few words, but we managed to figure out that Dima thought he had left his phone in the van after we had been bowling earlier in the week. Unfortunately, no phone was found when they all went out to look.

We moved some donated clothing from storage in the cheese house to the school building, where there is a very tidy storage room. While we were there, Nikolia stopped in and we both had a turn playing ping pong against him. I think if it were a serious game, we would both loose very quickly!!

A few minutes of fun playing ping pong with Nikolia

Sunday we drove to Dnipro for church at Morning Star Evangelical Free Church. We dropped Nellie, Leila, Vika and Valentina off at Central Baptist Church on the way. We were very proud of ourselves on this trip! We found both churches and a grocery store without getting lost!!

Yesterday and today have been filled with more construction and cleaning. We finished the coat hooks and the shelves in the pantry and we started on our closet.


Sanding the wood




White washing the boards



Pantry before any work was done

Securing the wood in preparation for coat hooks




Coat hooks installed

Pantry shelves, awaiting next year's produce!
 

One of the things we are getting used to in our new normal life is fluctuating power. The supply of power to our house is not enough to handle everything we might use on any given day, so we are learning to unplug the heaters when we use the microwave or when the hot water heaters are both on, ... So to help, Max ran a line in from the garage and Victor created a "panel box" so we could run two of the heaters on the power from the garage so we won't trip the main breaker so much! Can you imagine doing this in Canada?!! So far, it is working great. Thanks guys.

Victor adding temporary power
 

Our washing machine control panel

Something else we are adjusting to is guessing what the words on the washing machine say! The first time we did a load of laundry it took several hours, mostly because I played with the dial before it was finished and therefore started over! A call to Molly Porter helped to answer some questions. She reminded me that in Europe, most washing machines are plumbed with cold water only. The machine heats the water, therefore taking much longer than we are used to. I have since discovered a short cycle and the extra spin cycle, so I can have a load drying (on the folding rack) within the hour!

Scott is preparing a devotional for the staff meeting on Thursday. Victor asked him if he would do that each week.

There has been a lot of rain this week. We bought lined rubber boots to keep our feet warm and dry!
But it hasn't been too cold, and not cold enough to kill off these pesty critters!! I've never seen a mosquito in December before!

This guy died shortly after this picture was taken!

We continue to work on Duolingo in several short sessions each day. We finished the first category - alphabet. We felt that we were starting to remember words, but now that we are on the second category, we are learning new words and we feel a bit lost again! Only 77 more categories to go!! Think we will be done by next Christmas?!! Nellie came over for an hour one evening and we worked on the sounds of each letter in the alphabet and watched a few short videos to help get them in our head. This is going to take a while!!

Well, that's enough news for today. How did you like all the pictures!!

Stay warm and dry as you prepare your heart for celebrating God's gift of Jesus this Christmas.