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

Learning Russian continues to progress even though it seems it is a snail's pace! Ulzana has us each doing different things as I could no longer keep up with Shannon's pace and I felt like I was drowning trying to keep up. I am doing more basic stuff with a lot of repetition. When I work on it for an extended period, I can definitely see the difference that all the repetition makes. Now I just have to keep working at it, although July will be a different pace as Summer English Institute (SEI) is less than two weeks away from beginning. So there is lots going on and there is a short time to get it done, especially with SEI looming close. We both have a good handle on the topic we will teach on, but right now there is a lot of bones, so to speak, and we need to get some flesh on them bones so that SEI can be an enjoyable time of meeting new people and seeing how the teaching can impact their lives. As we continue to work on the yard, we are getting there. There was big pile o...

Time continues to move along and the work on our yard continues in earnest. The weather is much warmer these days with each day passing 30 C. Unfortunately the nights don't cool off as in Saskatchewan where most nights are 11-15 C. Here we are 18-22 C at night, but so far we have been able to move air through the house at night and find the house very comfortable during the day. Our Russian teacher, Ulzana finds our home a reprieve on a hot day as their house doesn't have the insulation that ours does nor does she have screens for the windows. Not a good combination. Ulzana continues to slowly move us forward in learning Russian. She is very patient and we are very thankful for her. One of the things we have done outside recently was to make a weather cover for our chicken feeder. We have been blessed to have some rains recently that are so needed considering our temps and the days that are full of sun. We like to keep the feeder outside, but knew that one day we were goin...

Since the last blog, we have had guests that arrived and stayed for eight days and are now back home in South Africa. Our son, Roy, his wife, Maria and their amazing daughter, Eve, blessed us with a great visit. We were so happy to see some family again, although we are so thankful for video calls on WhatsApp and Skype. We were able to pick them up at the Zaparosia Airport which is an hour from our place. It was so neat to see Eve as we last saw her at the end of June last year and she was almost 6 months old. She has changed so much and can say many words in German and English (Maria is from Germany). While Roy, Maria and Eve were here, we didn't do a lot of travelling around, but just enjoyed being together, making meals together and taking Eve daily to see the calves in Garry and Teresa's yard.   Roy & Eve delivering gifts...popcorn, peanut butter and chocolate chips and more Going to the barn to get milk Roy and Maria blessed us one day by cleaning out...