Today was a most excellent day

That's what BJ called it.  Today, we drove from Moscow to the ministry center in Vladimir.  Fund Nadezhda runs the ministry center.  We were up early for breakfast in the hotel restaurant for its wonderful buffet.  After that we gathered out things and took off for Vladimir.  Unfortunately, traffic was very bad and in order to save time we had to stop at MacDonald's for lunch along the way and eat on the bus.  It always strikes me as funny to come to Russia and go to MacDonald's, but just as in the US, it was the most convenient option along the highway. 

Zhenya, a girl who graduated in 2010 from Pokrov arrived from Kovrov (about an hour and a half away) with her boyfriend.  He seems like a nice guy and she seems to be well.  He is 23 years old and she is 18.  He has graduated from college and has a job.  They seem happy.  It was great to see her again.

Many of our friends from the immediate Vladimir area arrived to hear and particpate in the lessons on anger by Don Shive and lessons on business that I prepared. 

In between and after the lessons our free time was filled with conversations, sharing photos, and playing Uno.  The Uno game became very loud and laughter filled the room. 

BJ's highlight was seeing both of his boys, Sasha and Dima, together for the first time in a long while.

We had a pizza dinner and finally left the ministry center a little after 8 p.m., so it was a long day and it's time for me to go to bed.  We had a team meeting and we've decided to leave all of the donated clothing at the ministry center.  The director said that they can uses all of the clothing there as some of the women in the young mothers program can have childrens as 7 or 8 years old and some of hte orphan graduates are small enough to wear even a size 14. 

We were glad for such great blessings to today and to see that the kids really do want to related to us and to learn from us.