Hello friends!

I am recuperating from a day of sickness, so you get to hear from me! I had a temperature of 102 last night, and chills and a headache, all alone in an apartment in Eastern Europe….the life of a World Service Corp volunteer. But fear not, I am fever free today.

We are still in Odessa. It is a nice area of the country, although the weather is very unpredictable. It will look sunny and nice in the morning, but by the time the afternoon hits, it is overcast and windy. For some strange reason, we only go swimming in the afternoon when the weather is like this though…and the beach is still always crowded.

We have spent many afternoons at that Black Sea. Church friends or school friends often drop by and sit with us on the shelly sand and chat for a while before moving on. About every second or third day, we go visit someone or someone comes and visits us. One day we went to Natasha’s best friends’ house in her home village. Her friend had just had a baby so we got to see him and sit around and talk and eat cake. It was a wonderful visit as the friend was a cheerful, bubbly person who could play the guitar well and proved to be great company. Another day, Victor’s friend Ilya came with his mum, Ilena, and we had a small party. More cake of course, and some funny sausages and noodles. They were wonderful company as well. Since then, we have had many visits from Ilena and Ilya at the beach and church. Last Sunday we talked about baptism as Amina (Volodya’s daughter) is getting baptized next Sunday. Volodya told us that Ilena talked to him about perhaps herself and Ilya getting baptized as well next Sunday. He seemed to think that it was perhaps because of our interaction with them. I’m not totally sure that 100% true because Victor and Ilya have been friends for a while and maybe it’s just the right timing now for them, but it is great to see that maybe we had some impact on them during our interactions. Allie will probably baptize one of them. Lucky thing being a priest. I usually don’t really care, but it sort of sucks to be over here and not be able to serve communion or baptize someone…just because I don’t have the card and prayer that officially makes it so. Especially when there are so few ministers over here right now. Oh well.

Hmm…I’m actually not sure what else I can write right now. We have seen many beautiful parts of Odessa and been swimming in the Black Sea many times. We have played with the kids a lot. We have visited with friends and spent time talking and laughing with the adults. Odessa has been great thus far. We have less than a week here now then on to Donetsk.

I intended to put some pictures of the family up so you can see the faces of the names...but alas it did not work at this time. So here's one of Allie and I instead. I'll add the others next time.

Thanks for reading.

Til next time...