Every day here is like everyday life

Sarah and I have both recently come to the conclusion that we need to post more about our experiences here; the raw, tip-of-the-spear kind of ministry experiences that I expected to have and I know many of you expected to hear. The reality is that after a while, every day is just everyday life. Do we see some great and encouraging ministy going on? Of course, and we are honored to be a part of it. What I'm trying to say is that when you live the events as we do, sometimes it's easy to forget that you, our friends and readers, aren't living it with us.



Well, I am definately going to make an effort to convey the status of our projects and the emotions involved in being a part of them. Here are some shots from around camp and Kerch with a little explaination of each. Due to some formating quirks in blogger, these may not be listed in chronological order.


This weekend we had a bit of a cookout for our summer camp volunteers. Usually this means shashlik (the Georgian version of shishkabobs), my favorite Ukrainian dish but I was a bit dissapointed when I discovered it was more of a weinie roast. They did conceed to cook the sala (normally uncooked pork fat) and we had some lovely salads and cakes.

Sunday lived up to its name and was very nice weather. We had a chance to go for a walk to a nearby park where we played (until I had to go home with a full bladder) on the surprisingly nice playground. Minutes after this picture was taken, Campbell purposly went down this slide all by himself! Even at 2, the confidence of facing his fears changed his entire attitude. At first he was very quiet and just watched the other kids play but after the slide, he couldn't tell them all enough about how awesome he was (at least that's what I assume he was saying). That night he even showed off and told us about 20 words in his books that we didn't think he even knew.

We also got to walk around a funny little castle thing but the exploring was cut short when I discovered that "stone playground castle tower" and "homeless and drunk person outdoor toilet" are the same word in Russian.

I spend a few hours with a chainsaw Monday carving this stump into a little throne for the kids this summer. I plan to do a little touch-up later when I have a sharper chain.

This afternoon we finally had a full-on game of football with the IVA guys. During the week we usually have too much going on and the local students go home on the weekends. It was a good test for me as I was required to be humble in a 5-5 draw which saw me at fault for our opponent's final goal.

I have more shots but blogger won't let me add them right now...and the spell check is irritable again. Stay tuned.