Vypnarka: Day 3

May 17


We worked long and hard today. We accomplished a ton! We started on the kids play area. This is behind the church. It is going to be surrounded by tires. The cool thing about today’s work was that in almost all of it we had Ukrainian partners. The men from the recovery center showed us all up. They are incredible workers. However, so are our students!

As the digging and sod clearing was happening outside on the inside of the church we were sanding down walls in preparation for mud and paint. We lost “our ping pong room” but hey….. One of the Ukrainian men taught some of our guys how to spackle.

Later on in the day we had 15 kids show up to our kids club. The student taught a lesson on David and Goliath. Chip was Goliath and a little boy was David. Our students invited the little boy to through an orange ping pong ball at Chip. He aimed perfectly and Chip-Goliath fell to the ground. : )

We underestimated the kids English ability. The students planned a lesson on colors. But the kids already know the colors. We had fun anyways and even learned some Russian in the process.

The games for the kids went over really well. We had 2 games planned but the kids asked for more and more.

In the evening our guys returned to the soccer field and played against some Ukrainian youth. They lost but had fun. It sounds like there is a standing match from here on out once dinner is finished.

Our students (and our leaders) are showing signs of fatigue but we are having a fun time. There is a lot of snoring going on in the guys room which is keeping some of the guys from getting quality sleep. Oh the joys of communal living.

Tomorrow I’m not sure what we are going to do but I impinge more of the same.