We are settled down as much as possible for a short period. On Monday, Beto and Perry will go to the village of Zelena with Ivan and get situated there for their stay and work. We met Inna for lunch and she was introduced to Beto and Perry. She surveyed them and said she would have them whipped into proper form for working, but it may take some time! Valentina will also go with them into Zelena will be Valentina; she has been living in the church building. Valentina is from eastern Ukraine and was a cook. So I think Beto, Perry and Inna will have daily feasts of good Ukrainian food.
On Monday, Tanya and I will be heading to review a distribution site west of Lviv.
Today (Saturday) we met with Lubov, Mayor of Ugorniky, and her daughter, Marianna, who is the Director of the Kindergarten. Yesterday we were at the church building and Lubov’s daughter. Marianna, stopped to get some relief items to distribute. It was good seeing her again. When Gif arrives, he will be working in the Ugorniky schools where Marianna is the Director of the Kindergarten.
We were shown the bomb shelter at the Kindergarten. This is in the basement where the 170 Kindergarten children are joined with about three times that many from other schools in the village when air raid alerts go off. There are several rooms where the children go for shelter. Tables and chairs are set up for the children to have some activities until the air raid alerts are stopped (usually takes about 2-3 hours). There are also some beds for the younger children, but right now these are lacking mattresses.
There are no toilet facilities in these basements. The only facility was a room with buckets and old potty seats. Can you imagine 400+ children in a basement for 2-3 hours and no toilet facilities? We were asked if we could help the school purchase some chemical toilets for the children. These were already ordered but the funds were frozen in the banking system due to the war. Beto, Perry and I quickly agreed to provide funds for the final purchase as well as provide funds for several other urgent needs in the school.
After the tour of the bomb shelter, we were taken through the Kindergarten building. In one of the rooms, we were shown school desks that we had shipped to Ivano-Frankivsk. Upon receiving the desks, Pasha painted the desks black and manufactured new tops for each desk. Look at the photo and be impressed with the craftsmanship!
We are looking forward to the worship assembly tomorrow with the brethren. The temps are very nice and autumn is in the air and the foliage is changing. A very nice change from the heat & humidity in Montgomery.
Continue praying for our efforts!
John L. Kachelman, Jr.
(Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine)
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