The Dentist

I probably dedicate a little too much of my time to the abnormalities of Ukrainian medicine, but allow me to induldge once again. On a recent trip to the Black Sea with the fam, I discovered a hole in my tooth, (turns out it's tooth #5 on the right for the dental savy) Anyway, because I'm a little leery of medicine here anyway, I decided to have it filled after I got to Irpin.
Although we actually have a pretty wide range of dentist and orthodintist here in Irpin, I went to a guy from our church, who has actually just finished dental school. He is still doing his internship, but I chose him because Andrey strikes a certain amount of awe and fear among the young men in our church, and I knew he would do his best as risk of having to answer to Andrey later.
The fact that he practices in a private home wasn't that unusual to me, the fact that I had to take my shoes off when I entered the house was, (glad I had just had a pedicure). I waited on the couch beside napping cat, who after waking up tried several time to intrude on my appointment. The bare feet, (yes the dentist also wore no shoes) the cat, and the rather dilapidated house all made a rather large impression upon me. I have to say the kid did a pretty good job, and I'm very pleased with my new filling. However, half way through the proproceedure with he lit a cigarette lighter and held in up to my mouth, I got a little nervous.

Sport week 2011

Our first summer camp was a huge success. This year we started the summer off with our own home church here in Irpin, Ukraine. The camp was  an amazing success. We averaged 120 kids in the morning VBS program and over 250 in the evening youth program. We had the help of an amazing team from Charlotte NC , there were actually 32 of them serving with all their hearts. I was blessed by their organization and servants spirit.
But the coolest thing about the camp was the weather. The weather forecast for all of last week was heavy rain and flash flooding. Not a good sign for a basically all outdoor camp. But we had given all these plans to the Lord weeks beforehand. And after almost a month of no rain how could we possibly ask the Lord to hold the rain off any longer? I had a feeling that the Lord would be working things out with His perfect timing and He did. Each day after the morning program, almost on cue, we would have a light shower, which would stop right before the evening program. So grateful for the Lord working around our camp schedule! :) We made lots of new contacts through the week, and on Saturday we had a special picnic for all the families of kids that attended throughout the week. It was so fun, and so great to get to meet the parents of so many new kids and get them aquainted with our church! You can check out pictures of our sports week below.

Father and Son camping trip

Our men's ministry is heading to the great outdoors. Our local church is holding a Father and Son fishing trip this weekend. The last count I heard, was that 80 had signed up. William is more than excited about this camping trip. After all it is is his first, with his dad, and they are going to sleeping  tents! He has been counting off the days on his calendar since May 1, but it wasn't until today that we finally let him start packing. These are the things he packed: his calendar, underwear, a book about squirrels, a small globe, a notepad and pen, a very large stick, plastic sword and wooden mace. I went ahead and tucked some clothing in the backpack while he wasn't looking. They will be gone Friday and Saturday. Hopefully this will be a time of father/son bonding and also a time bonding with the new guys who have started attending our church, but have yet to make a decision.