What we have been up to this past week...

Our 1st house guest! We were honored to have our friend, Mary Jill, stay with us.

Solomiya enjoyed looking at pictures of herself on Mary Jill's camera.

Mary Jill in our living room with Jim and Laurie Sliz (formerly from Watertown, NY and now fellow missionaries; they live at a transition home for young girls leaving the orphanage).

We really enjoyed having a guest this past week. Mary Jill is the mom, mom-in-law, and grandma of some of our most favorite people in NY- the Ackerbauer's!
We like Mary Jill a lot and did not intend for her to get locked into the living room at 4am or have the sofa bed she was sleeping on slope down at a 45 degree angle where your head goes.

Oksana & Sasha with their daughters, Angelina (4 years old) and Anichka (2 1/2 weeks old).

Ukrainian pigeons. They look just like NYC pigeons. This was for you, Fred...

We went on a walk with our friends Oksana and Sasha on Saturday. Actually, it was the 1st walk outside with their new baby, Anichka- so we felt very special that they asked us to accompany them! Oksana and Sasha were two of the people who cleaned and fixed our apartment before we arrived (and made us dinner, showed us the ropes at the grocery store, helped us get Internet setup, gave us rides to church, and have just been very special friends to us since we have moved here).

Enjoyed having Pastor Vince from Changepoint Church, NY at our apartment Saturday afternoon!

Solomiya posing for the camera.

We have had so much fun this past week with the team from NY and Alaska and Hungary! We have only been here for about 1 1/2 months, but it was so good to see our friends from the US: Pastor Marlow and Tonya, Pastor Vince and Deidre, Jack and Deb (from Alaska), and Mary Jill (a former Changepointer, aka River Churcher). And... they brought us 4 suitcases packed with our things from NY (most of it contained Mike's clothing and he is ever grateful), peanut butter, as well as a couple of things from our families- including sunglasses for Solomiya (see below).
They were a huge encouragement to us. We really appreciated the time Vince took with us to make sure we were doing okay! He had some good wisdom to share with us!
Thursday, March 8th was a holiday called 'Women's Day'. It is a day to honor all women of all ages and to give them flowers and chocolates. The team planned a women's conference at our church for this day and Deidre, Tonya, Deb, and Mary Jill all spoke. There were about 75 women there (if not more)!
http://www.internationalwomensday.com/about.asp
The above website has some interesting history behind this holiday. They should bring it to the US.