Room with a view...

This is the view of the Orthodox Church from our church...

Ukrainian Cooking class..

My friend Natasha invited me over to learn how to make Ukrainian Food.

We made pelmeni with pork and potato filled vareniki (pictured below)

We'll see if I can master them on my own someday...

Snow Day...

Right before Christmas we got our first and thus-far...only snowfall...

I was so very excited and eager to document this joyous day.

I had been praying for a white Christmas....

Tree in Kotovsk 

So excited about the snow...

I might stand out a bit...

This is the place I live.....

Outside my kitchen window...the snowman tracks :) 

Seminary Student visit....

Some seminary student came to visit us...

They prepared the program for in place of our Thursday night Bible Study..

Dima leading a group to hand out

 invitations to the program. 

Natasha...

Dasha...

Me...

Dasha interpreting for a deaf lady in Balta...

Oleg and Larisa...

Chopsticks and Christmas....

On the 24th of December we served Chinese food after a course at the church. 

It was fun for most to try eating with chopsticks. 

Valya and Luda are practically experts...

Yermac....

Liza is afraid she'll miss the bus....so she switches to a fork...

Ivan, Dima, and Andrei....

I made fortune cookies and typed some Chinese word, here Liza is trying to speak Chinese...

The Mosse' Family came from Odessa to spend Christmas with us....

Here is our Christmas spread....We even had Broccoli! 

Micha, Joseph, Anya, and I took a little hike....

Tis the Season...

Ukraine celebrates Christmas according to the Gregorian Calendar...Jan 7th.
Saturday we are planning a kids program. We are doing a puppet show.
Barb, Dave, and I collaborated on a HUGE painting in the Church for Christmas decorations. (Pictures to come!)
On Sunday we will celebrate Christmas with the whole church.
We are arranging to visit the orphanages soon too.

I just got back from a quick trip to Odessa. My friend Dasha is dog sitting for some missionaries in Odessa. I went to hang out with her and the dog. We had a good time. I watch some Ukrainian TV...I think it's my first time to really do that.

We were watching one show "X Factor"...American Idol type show. It was crazy....3 of the judges spoke Russian and one only spoke in Ukrainian. My Ukrainian isn't very good. I didn't understand much of what he was saying. There were some rather entertaining people! Dasha and I had many a good laughs.

Also watched a few music videos...My favorite was the Ukrainian girl about 14 singing "Last Christmas"
"but the wary next day you gave it avay"


It's awful to watch American shows/ movies... Sometimes one mono-toned man will dub the voice overs for the entire movie. The English track is just loud enough that I struggle to concentrate on either language. It's actually very painful for me. I was surprised to fin that Ukraine would have such low quality dubbing even on Television. Silly of me to think that only was the case for bootlegged copies ---being sold on the street.

That concludes the television report. :)
I know I am really behind in my blogging.
I will get caught up soon!
Hope you all are doing well!