A funny day

It was a funny day—funny in a funny way and in a strange way.  It was funny because Maksim was being his funny self, pestering everyone trying to work on his English.  It was funny because in Chari’s lessons on parenting, Nathan, Julieanna, and Kate played their parts well acting like spoiled brats (Julieanna and Nathan) and an out of control mom (Kate).  It was strange because kids that I thought would certainly be at the ministry center weren’t. 

So, for the disappointing part of the day, both Valya and Oleg, whom I’ve known for years, were not able to make it to the ministry center again today, which means it’s like that I will not see them this year.  For Valya that would be two years in a row. 

For the bright spots.  I talked to Pasha, who was the first kid that I connected with at the orphanage in 2005, and he just graduated from Vladimir State University.  He is a great young man.  We also talked about my endeavors.  Some of the older kids are getting to be much better conversationalists.  They actually ask about other people rather than waiting for Americans to ask about them.

Another highlight for me was that Anna Frolova, who stayed with us two years ago for six weeks (not an orphan) drove to the Vladimir ministry center from Ivanova (about an hour and a half) to see me.  She and her sister Masha arrived just as the church services was getting out.   Anna and Masha joined us for lunch.  We had some great conversation, and they even stayed for Chari’s parenting session.  It was a great chance for them to see what we do and to listen to a lot of English. 

We saw a lot of our former interpreters at church this morning.  I was able to sing all of today’s songs out of the church song book.  For dinner we took all of the kids that were with us to Globus.  It’s a lot like Costco, except it has a very large buffet type restaurant.  The kids liked it and we didn’t have to deal with the chance of rain. 

We also gave away most of the clothes that we brought with us from our clothing drive today.  The clothes were very well received.  We set them out and allows kids to shop for two free pieces of clothing each, then the remainder was put away to give to kids who were not able to attend.  One jacket that we almost left behind was snatched up immediately by one girl and another Adidas jacket created a debate between two good friends about who would get it.  When one of the friends realized that the jacket was too small for him, the potential conflict was resolved.

And now it’s almost midnight and I’m falling asleep as I type.  So I’ll insert a few pictures and get to sleep.