Malcolm's Report #4

Malcolm’s Report #4 For April 21^st and 22^nd.

We all had a good night’s sleep and slept in until after 8 am. There was no use being up earlier as we had no milk or juice for breakfast, and we were not sure the stores were open today. Howard went shopping at 9am but could not find a store open so it had to be coffee and bread with no jam or cheese.

Sasha arrived at 10am and we set out to find a store open. We found the “Val Mart” open and could get all we needed to stock our kitchen.

 As we were in the locality, we went to look for the home for men drying out from drugs and alcohol. We found it quite easily and were welcomed by 9 men and treated to tea and Easter Bread plus a box of our cookies we had just bought! 3 other arrived later and we had a good conversation around the table. They have a heavy dose of bible teaching and most of them profess and seem to be sure of salvation. It was really a joy to be with them for about an hour.

We went home from there after going to one more store.

At 7 pm we had another meeting and were glad to see a few more attending. It was good to see our friends Ruslan and Ann out. He is the man whom we helped get his American passport back, after losing it for no apparent reason.

We are hoping to find some places and people “back in business” tomorrow and for the rest of the week.

Another nice day on Tuesday, temp going into the 20’s. We went to the Half-way house as we call it, a home for children taken off the street or from abusive families. The Director Maria and her adult son have been given the authority to change the format and control of this home and now have children for 9 months instead of 3. This allows them to have more time to rehabilitate the children and get them back into school for a school year. We had a good talk but will go back with slippers and some sports items such as balls for different things. They have 17 children with 2 more to come. As usual, there are next to no funds from government.

We went for lunch then with Louisa and Uri, our interpreters Svetlana’s parents. They invited us, as Svetlana is now working in the Arab Emirates for a year. They are very interesting people, Louisa is a Social worker and Uri a truck driver. He has not worked for 3 months as his trips are all into the troubled East of the country. As you can imagine, he has a LOT to say about the situation. He is not a happy man!

We went to do some shopping but still many stores closed for Pasca. We came back and got ready for meeting. Fewer people out, again because of the last day of Paska and people still with families.

Came home and then to bed. Volodia went with Sasha to “work out” with some basket ball, they have more energy than us to old men.

Trusting things do not escalate here and that sanity will prevail.

Malcolm and Howard and Volodia.