To celebrate mother's day and to make his wife happy Joel took me to the botanical gardens today to see the breath taking display of lilacs, one of my favorite flowers.

I remember my mother having a huge purple lilac in the back yard and our next door neighbor having an equally striking white lilac... the only difference was that my mother's lilac smelled wonderful and our neighbor's had no smell. When we walked back to the lilacs, the smell brought back that wonderful aroma of my mother's backyard.

We walked for a long time, never tiring of the beautiful trees, lovely sky and the joy of being outside in God's creation. 

Orthodox Easter is very late this year and so it connects with another very big Ukrainian holiday, International Labor Day. So the two holidays have gone together forming a whole week of holiday for most Ukrainians. That means there are only a fraction of the people in the city this week, making it much easier to get around.

We went to church this morning at New Life Church in Podol. It was a great time of worship, featuring many traditional Easter songs as well as drama and multi-media.

In the United States Easter was always a fun time with our children, even if we were always totally engrossed in pageants for Easter at church. We usually had an Easter basket hunt on either Saturday afternoon before Easter or on Easter Sunday afternoon and there was always a "golden" egg enticing everyone to comb the yard or house (depending on the weather) Our children still carry on those traditions with the grandchildren and of course we miss those special family times. But we did it on a small scale this year... I got Joel a chocolate bunny and he got me a white chocolate hen!

This has been a week of milestones. Yesterday we received the news that we had been approved for Career with the IMB and that was exciting, but it has also been a week of news from home too.  Two days ago we received a call that our youngest granddaughter had her first tooth pushing through... now that is a milestone. But this same week our oldest grandson got his drivers license.

Now that is something that had him jumping up and down.

Then we also heard about Abby, our oldest granddaughter, being honored at a luncheon this past Sunday. Abby was recognized along with some other students from three counties for her contributions in philanthropy/community work. 

She has done quite a bit with her school community service group to raise money for the Down Syndrome Association of Southern Indiana and the Special Olympics of Kentucky. She has raised around $2200 since the fall through all the activities that she has initiated, organized and carried out with the help of other classmates that she has rallied together.

Life has been anything BUT dull around here lately.  We have had one group after another in our home even as Joel was teaching everyday and I was co-teaching with him a couple of days.  But we have wanted to get as much fellowship and celebrating in as possible because we were going to Indiana for Christmas!  So while we are anxiously awaiting the time we can be at home with our children and grandchildren, as well as extended family, we've enjoyed the Christmas Festivities here in Kiev. One of the most enjoyable events was our Faculty and Entire Staff Christmas Party at KTS.  We had a dinner for the entire seminary family, minus the students.  This was a first for us and we all agreed that it is something we want to do each year. Being as Joel and I are always the party animals, he worked on the program and I did the decorations. After the meal we had a program that featured faculty, cooks, cleaning ladies, guards, secretaries and bookkeepers. It was a great time and we had a few surprises... like when our IT guy got up and accompanied the bookkeeper, the registrar, and a secretary on the guitar. 

Well today is a very special American holiday, but for the rest of our neighbors and friends here it was just another working day.  We had thanksgiving dinner at our apartment with several of our IMB colleagues and everyone brought wonderful food.  We had 11 of us crowded around the table and since the dining room is so small, Joel could only get a few of us at a time in the pictures. The turkey buying was a long story and we did not get the turkey that we thought we were getting, but instead we got a 24 pound, 3 1/2 ounce turkey.  It was 3 1/2 ounces over the limit for the cooking bag and so I cut the tail off to make it fit ! The good thing was that there was enough turkey for everyone to have leftovers tomorrow.

Joel led us in a time of remembering our blessings along with some of the traditions of the early years of our nation. After that we cleaned up, watched a movie, played a new game (at least it was new to us) and ate dessert. 

We were privileged to host Valya's 50th birthday party here in our apartment.  In Ukraine the custom is for the person having the birthday to have a party for their friends and family and in America usually a family member or friend hosts a birthday party for the person... so we compromised... the party was here and we both did the food, etc. Valya is shown here beside one of the places where we had food. We had every square inch of our apartment moved around and we had activities in every room of the apartment.

Valya was greeted by everyone coming in with flowers and presents and most definitely hugs.  Her son Bogdon picked people up at the metro and helped them find our apartment. Shown here he greets his mom with a big hug. 

Before eating we gathered in the living room where we had a slide show of her life with pictures included of every person invited to the party. Joel got to do the honors talking about Valya, followed by her son who led us all in prayer. 

Volik, Valya's husband had planned on this day for a long time but his boss at the last minute made him work out of town on Saturday, so he arrived very late, but almost everyone had waited to get to see him too. Valya was sure happy when we arrived.

Quite a long time ago I promised new photos of little Ellen Elizatbeth, but please know that I am at the mercy of family members back home who play with her all the time, but don't always send photos.  However, our daughter Melody and daughter-in-law Carlee both sent photos this last week, so I don't have any more excuses. Shown here is Ellie in her very feminine camouflage outfit laughing with her mother. 

This other picture not only shows how much she is loved but it also shows the very silly side of her brother, Jackson as he entertains her with his funny faces. Abby, aka, the older sister is also ready to listen anytime Ellie wants to "talk."

The other day Joel burst into the apartment and called Valya quickly and then proceeded to ask her to contact the fire department and report a fire in our building. She did so and before long the firetrucks came... one on our side of the building and two on the other side. Joel had seen two women leaning on of the window of the top floor of the building hollaring with smoke pouring out the building.

The work of the fire fighters was interesting and totally foreign to our way of thinking. Because the fire was on the top floor it took them some time to get enough hoses put together to fight the fire. The men gathered quite a bit of onlookers while they were working, but since they got the fire out pretty quickly, the crowds dispersed just as quickly.  Pictured above is Joel walking in front of the firetruck.

Thank you to so many of you for remembering Joel's birthday... it was really a special treat for him.  On the actual day of his birthday the students had asked to come for pizza because we were out of town with the Graceland team on Friday night (the usual night reserved for pizza and conversation with each group of students in Kiev for a modular session.) The students arrived early actually and were really excited... so were we because this is our 4th year students and since this was their first modular session this year, we had not seen them since last spring.  They came bearing a huge framed print for Joel's birthday and went into great detail explaining the significance of the print... of course making it all the more special. We had pizza and torte (birthday cake) for 18 people.

Then one of the students had written a birthday song for Joel and they all proceeded to sing it form him and true to this class' nature, it was funny. You can imagine how much Joel enjoyed the fellowship and the love shown by this group for him. (This class will always be special because they were our first class of church planting students.)

The following day we had birthday dinner for Joel with some of our colleagues here in Kiev.  Shown in the picture starting beside Joel is Dalese and Mick, then Katie and Shannon and then Marilyn and Rick.  All in all I know it was a great celebration to mark Joel's birthday.  Thank you especially to each of you who sent him a birthday card, an email or called him.