I just got a call from Janice LeSueur (our parent coordinator) and the Pahinets team in Rivne from Jason’s admin. phone.  It’s early afternoon and the educators are setting up for the camp that will start tomorrow and the parent conference.  Janice was overwhelmed at the progress that has been made at the school.  Two years ago, Tamara, the director of the school, asked the public school for a larger facility in order to serve more children after only three years her present kindergarten early intervention program for kids with disabilities, which was a part of the public school system.  She has been so proud to have the first kindergarten in Ukraine that services kids with special needs through public school until the age of eight.  She had minimal staffing and too many requests for services and could not meet all the needs.  She was granted a larger building that had many renovations needing to be done and even no electricity.  USNOF has supported her efforts for renovations.  In addition, Tamara has gone to local businesses, door-to-door, and even had a story for us last year of approaching a rock star after a concert to tell him of her causes and ask for money.  She did get a healthy donation and has opened up therapy rooms and classrooms.  She now can service 72 children in her program.  She wants to open up five more classrooms and increase her service caseload to 150.  We are now praying about trying to support Pahinets monthly for new teaching positions and therapy staff in addition to the summer money we bring from our fund raising efforts.

 

Please be praying for the Pahinets Camp for kids with special needs this week and the educator’s conference for the parents.  Mia Fitzpatrick (one of the Longwood graduate students in special ed. doing her internship) said, “I want to teach here!”  Janice, Dianne Lowman (our JMU professor and education leader), and Jason have been asked to meet sometime this week with the local officials to ask them for the next step in the program….to provide staff and services for kids with special needs in public school above the age of eight (where kindergarten stops).  Several of the parents are concerned as their kids are doing well in early intervention and now getting older.  They will be released from the program and will have nothing further.  This will be very important to be able to speak on behalf of Tamara’s efforts.  Keep that meeting in your prayers.

 

As far as the rest of the teams are going, today is the day to sightsee in Rivne.  One group went with Pavel, our beloved friend and local travel agent, to a castle for the afternoon.  Another group of teenagers went with Rob (my husband) and Chris (my brother) and the local youth our group has known since they were much younger and hanging out around the Intake facility watching our team work with kids.  They were going to a lake house.  Rob befriended them about four years ago and emails with them.  Each year they connect and take parts of our group to see different areas of the city and countryside.

 

Janice also said lots of folks were excited to try Ukrainian food.  I had to ask about my youth group kids.  Katie is doing fine and is staying right with Rob and Chris.  Janice said Lucas was charming!  They younger folks have a great time and help the Ukrainian teens practice their English.  They exchange ideas about school, music, etc. 

 

The VBS team will meet together tonight to organize supplies and plan for VBS to start tomorrow.  It’s a wonderful time in the hotel lobby blowing up balls and playing with PE equipment, but it always settles down to serious time, too, for reviewing Bible lessons and related crafts for the week.

 

It is difficult not to hear news from individuals the first few days.  There are no phones in Kiev for us to use.  Jason, as the admin, rents a phone to coordinate things with all the translators and calls Jennifer for updates.  The first night in the Hotel in Rivne, they usually don’t have phone cards. Most people probably went to a restaurant called The Pink Flamingo.  It has wonderful Ukrainian food and an outside patio.  I am thinking tonight after dinner there will be a group that will go to the center of town where there are a few restaurants and an Internet cafe.  In that place the team will be able to buy phone time and be able to use computers.  They have several computers and two phone booths.  It’s not very expensive, either.  From this point on, the groups that go to the restaurants downtown will have access to this cafe until Friday night in the evenings and will be calling us between one and three in the afternoons. There will also be phone cards available in the hotel, where there is one phone for International calls.  It’s a bit more expensive to get those cards and calls will be shorter, but it gives more availability in times people can call in the evenings.  You might hear get a call closer to dinnertime from there. 

 

That’s all I remember from my brief conversation with Janice.  I’m excited for everyone in Ukraine this week and know good things are going to happen!!  I’ll write some updates about the details of the team’s work as I hear from Rob and others, too!

 

Blessings,

Karen