When kids graduate from highschool it is Ukranian tradition to commemorate their childhood by dressing up like kids and walking up and down mainstream making as much noise as they can with whistles or just yelling or singing. These kids were standing less then a block away from our old apartment. When we saw this our first year, we were kind of wondering as you can well imagine what in the world was going on. Our new apartment is on a fairly main street but it isn't THE main street.  So we are enjoying the quiet.

This kid, before I asked to take his picture was smoking a cigarette with a bonnet on his head and a bib around his neck. I thought that would have almost made a funnier picture.  

much better

Benjamin

Benjamin got a nasty little burn on Tuesday it goes up in to his hairline a ways I am glad he didn't turn and get it on his chest or anything. When this picture was taken it was already 2 days old. It wasn't quite bad enough to go to the hospital. (Mostly because I hate Ukranian hospitals) But it is healing well. He turned off the burner on the stove and then thought he might try to poor the coffee. If we had taken him to the hospital they would have tied him up and treated it with iodine (which is not recommended anymore, but here they don't know that) and probably kept him for three or four days, and hospitals quite frankly are not the cleanest places to be. They keep them clean here, but the hospital is where everybody takes all their sicknesses. To me it just seems like it would be smarter to treat it and send the patient home. In the States they try to keep hospital stays to a minimum, here they like to keep you as long as they possibly can. Benjamin was sick with something last year, we weren't sure if it was sour milk or a pesticide that didn't get washed off of an apple. They treated it by running an IV, then they gave him some medication, and he was doing much better, whatever they did it worked. What I was complaining about was after that they wanted to keep in the hospital for another two weeks while they administered his medication. We convinced them we would give it to him at home, and they let us go. Actually he only needed his medication for two days after that. I met a young lady  at the hospital who was walking with her little son in the garden who had been there for ,I can't remember how long, and had to stay for another however long, (I think it might have been a total of a month) because the kid didn't want to drink his water with the nasty medication in it. Anyway, I was thankful Benjamin didn't get burned badly enough to need to go. We had been cleaning it with Hydro Peroxide, but found out that, that is no longer recommended either. So just soap and water and putting Vitamin E and Bacitracin on it. He is already back to his old self. I just hope he doesn't get a scar from it.  

New Kitty

Benjamin and I found a little stray kitty today. We just didn't have the heart to leave him. Andrew took the camera that I know how to load photos with so I can't post a picture sorry, I tried. Andrew is in Moldova right now so he doesn't know about it. We will have to see what he says. = ) I don't know how to tell if it is a boy or a girl. He won't let me look at his belly long enough. If it is a girl, we shouldn't have trouble with it spraying, and if we don't let it outside we don't have to worry about babies. (as you can see I know all about cats.) He perches himself on my shoulder like a parrot. He hasn't stopped purring since we brought him home. It is really going to be tough if Andrew says we can't keep him. Haha. He keeps sneezing does anyone know what that might mean? Andrew told me that cats carry lots of diseases so that does make me a bit nervous. We picked up all kinds of stray cats in Taiwan and never had any trouble with them, but now I am an adult, so I worry about these things.
Andrew is in Moldova again. His last trip was a mess. They took $250 dollars at the border and purposely didn't stamp his passport so they could charge him for it when he crossed the border again. This time, they took a taxi and the driver had some connections so he took them through a check point that was much better. Stuart forgot some papers, and they didn't even charge him for that. $60 for the taxi is a little better then $250 for extortion. Plus the ride in the taxi was half the time. So they were pretty happy. They went to the Ukrainian embassy this morning, and they should be able to get their visas today and be back Friday. I wonder if I should tell him, or surprise him when he gets home. (heehee)
By the way we finally have one bird that visits our bird feeder. We named him Bingo. (curtesy of Benjamin) He is a pretty bird but I don't know what he is. He is yellow on the back and black on the head and Except for white patches around his eyes. The cat and him should have fun together. The cat and the dog just love each other.

Thankyou!

Thank you for all your comments. I got lots of great ideas. The program should be fun. I tried to focus it on God having a plan for his people throughout the Old Test. (At least to Joseph since that is as far as we are going) Then at the end of our lessons we are planning on the kids doing a little program for their parents. They will each have a little line, summarizing each lesson, using a paint brush as a prop. Showing how God throughout the old testament was "painting" the church. Sort of, Andrew is going to explain it a little hopefully the idea gets across. We are hoping this will drum up some contacts, hopefully with the kids families and in time even the kids. I just have to try to figure out where I am going to get plain t-shirts that the kids can paint. No wal-mart here. I thought about just buying second-hand t-shirts from the market that are plain whatever colors we can get. They are only about 60 cents a piece if we do it that way. Anyway, I appreciated all your help.

Ukrainian birds don't understand bird feeders

We put this up a few weeks ago and haven't had any visitors yet. If I put bread or sunflower seeds on the window sill birds come and eat it, but they won't touch the bird feeder. I had some bread sitting on top of it, and some sticking out of it so they would see it but it sat their for a week before I gave up. I bought a stick of bird food, (seeds and stuff stuck on a stick, here they call it a cracker) And hung it in the bird feeder so they could see it, but they wouldn't touch it. Then I moved it down and tied it to the bars that cover our window, down lower so they could eat off of it, while standing on the window sill, but they won't touch the cracker either. Adele' thought it looked interesting. She licked the bars trying to get a bite of it. I thought about hanging it in a tree. But it would be difficult to get it high enough so the kids could see it from our second floor window. Then keeping it full of food would be a chore too. Once one is brave enough to try it, maybe the rest will follow.