Barbecue In The Park

Jessica called in the morning to say that she had to play for P&W at the church near the orphanage and would be a few minutes late to Calvary Chapel. I said, no worries and we'll meet you there. The bus was crowded which is a bummer because when you're standing, you can't see out the windows to tell where you are. And since we haven't gone that way but once before, I wasn't familiar with the landmarks. But soon someone near me disembarked and I got a seat. I saw the Coffee Life (Coffee As Life Style) that we had gone to after Easter service and I knew where we were. We got off the bus and found we were 15 minutes early so we went across the street to have a cup of coffee.

We saw Lenya as soon as we entered the sanctuary. Service had already started and she sat with us. Before praise and worship was over, Jessica walked in with an entire contingent from New Hope, the Canadian church. We moved to be near them. A guy translated for them and Lenya did her best for us. Today is a special day in Ukrainian tradition where the people go to the cemetaries and leave flowers, baked goods and candy on the graves of loved ones. Then the orphans, homeless, and drug addicts go to the cemetaries and steal all the candy and food. The pastor talked about this a little bit in his message. His word was about walking with God as a daily choice and then standing before Him when your life is over. I don't know how he connected his message to the candy on the graves thing, though because Lenya wasn't that quick with her translation skills.

The young people from New Hope said they were having a barbecue in Victory Park this afternoon at 2:00 and we were invited. We thought that sounded like a good idea and told them we'd be there, albeit a little late. After church we went back to the Coffee Liife (Coffee As Life Style) with Jessica and had coffee and Napoleons. Totally yummy. Kevin got off the bus at our apartment and Jessica and I went all the way to her apartment so she could put on jeans. Then we took the bus a couple of stops to the orphanage and got Kai. He had been to the cemetary with all the kids and was full of candy. The little kids all ran to Jessica and gave her some of their candy. We asked the teacher when I had to have Kai back and she said like 6:00 or 6:30. I wasn't happy about that and negotiated to 8:00. She said she was there until 8:30. Great.

We went back to the apartment and got Kevin. He had made a batch of chicken salad and Kai and Jessica had sandwiches. I put on another sweater under my parka and we left for the Park. Jessica wasn't sure where it was, and we ended up walking around a bit before finding it. We found the church group and they welcomed us. They made hot dogs for us and there were various salads. Kai jumped right in with some young men and began to kick the soccer ball around. The whole afternoon he never sat and ate. Instead he kicked the ball with Kevin, played games with the young people, and soccer with a group of boys. One girl who was visiting from Canada had a birthday. We sang "Happy Birthday" and had a cake. She tricked another girl to smell the cake and then pushed her face right into it. There was a bit of fun with frosting flying. We stayed until after 5:00. John and Evelyn invited us back to their apartment with the gang, but I really wanted some quiet time with just us. Besides, I think we all were a little tired.

We hopped the #54 bus back to our apartment and discovered we were like only 2 stops away. We went into the corner store and got juice, chips, and chocolate (Ukrainian staples). We decided to play cards and we ate and played listened to music. Kai ate 2 bags of nasty salt fish and between that and his BO, he stunk pretty bad. After he won the card game he was happy to take a shower. I was bummed that he'd have to put on dirty clothes afterwards but there was nothing to do about that. He looked and smelled a whole lot better, and even used Kevin's cologne. We had to boogie out of there because it was already after 7:30. We all went on the bus and Kevin and I walked him back to the orphanage while Jessica continued on to her apartment. He was admittedly tired and the teacher was outside waiting for us to return. We had hugs and kisses and Kevin and I headed home.

We were both pretty wiped out but we watched an episode of Crossing Jordan and I went to bed. Kevin stayed up until at least 2:00 to watch the Master's on his computer. Kai had made it a point to say that he had a lot of fun today. I did, too. It's neat to be a family.