Danger Zone

     I think it's about time for another (ir)regularly scheduled update. It's only been almost a week and some interesting things have been happening. Also, the next week is going to be a busy/interesting one. But more on that later. Right now I want to show you my new deodorant. I bought it as much for the name as for the scent. I wasn't thrilled with the other options that would have left me smelling like either fruit or chemicals. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it), this one doesn't smell like jet exhaust and Tom Cruise. This one reminds me of a cross between pine trees and a sea breeze. I like it.

     Now, on to something more serious. The past week has been about as normal as this summer is going to get. I had another Penny Hockey building session on Saturday as well as Tuesday evening. Both were productive. At the Saturday build-party, I built (with a lot of help) a bench for my entryway. It'll be nice to have for people to sit on while they put on or take off their shoes.

     I originally didn't want the help but I saw that it was good for the person helping me. At these build parties, I get frustrated that I don't have access to my normal cache of tools. I'd rather be building something like this in a fully-equipped workshop. It just makes the fitment of parts that much nicer. As it is, I'm working with hand-tools, a drill and a jigsaw. None of those are exactly conducive to precision or accuracy. "It'll be OK," and "It's fine" were my constant refrains throughout the afternoon Saturday. I'm not making a piece of heirloom furniture. It'll probably be trashed or given away when I leave.
     I forgot about Friday. Nathan, the one with the vlog, wanted to do a collaboration on a cooking video before he left for college. So on Friday, he came over and we made a video about blini. Basically, if you've never had it, it's like really thin pancakes or crepes. They get topped off with some kind of filling to finish them off. Here is the result of that collaboration. Nathan filmed some behind-the-scenes stuff and its below my video. I've had a slight fiasco with editing my video. I thought I lost some footage and prepared the video accordingly. Then today when I did another dump of my camera, I found the missing footage. So I had to re-edit and upload. Here it is.

     Before Nathan left, a massive storm came through my part of the city. Hail, wind, heavy rain, the whole nine yards. We watched it come towards us from the west. It looked like a grey wall advancing over the land. Once the wall of rain passed a recognizable landmark, we couldn't see that landmark any more. The rain came down so heavily that it obscured everything it passed. There was so much rain that we canceled Walking English that evening. In lieu of that, I went to the Eide's for dinner.
     We've actually been getting a lot of storms this Spring. Last night around midnight, I stood outside photographing the lightning of a storm coming up from the south. It was a very active and impressive storm.

     Sunday, I didn't get to go to Holy Trinity because I went to a picnic with a friend and their family. The picnic was outside of Kiev and I was really glad to be out of the city for a while. It was in another city nearby (actually just on the other side of the ring road). But the different scenery was a nice change. We walked around that city for a little while before shopping for and then having dinner. There was plenty of good food. And I even got to practice speaking a little Russian with this cat. She responds to "Ksss ksss ksss" better than "pst pst." The former is how you talk to cats here.
     Monday night saw the second meeting of a new event that Jon Eide and I are involved in. Since English club is ended for the summer, David wanted us to keep some sort of regular meeting going with the people who've come to the sushi dinners. It's turning out to not be people from sushi but that's OK. The idea was to have a Bible study as a way of staying in contact over the summer.
     I didn't write about it last week because it wasn't heavily attended. But Monday night we had seven plus Jon and myself. It seems like most of the people who were there are believers. But I think a few of them are just interested in seeing what it's all about.
     That brings me up to today. I'll have another Liberty meeting tonight. We're finally planning details of the English camp in August. It'll run from the 1st to the 5th. I think we'll have a good mix of people from the previous camps along with new people who've recently started attending the English club.
     Tomorrow will be another installment of the Liberty Bible study here in my apartment. It's been going well. Last week, we had a really good discussion about the toxic nature of Samson and Delilah's relationship. The plan for tomorrow is to look at the relationship between God and humanity through the experience of Hosea.
     OK, time to announce what I'll be doing next week. I've told so many people that I don't remember who all has heard. But in short, I'll be going to my first English camp of the summer next week. On Saturday, I will ride down to Oleksandria with Jon's intern Rebecca to meet with a local church team who is running a day-camp for kids. I was asked a few months ago to help out and I (without completely knowing the scope) agreed. I'm now in a rush planning ten English lessons and three Bible lessons. Basically, I will be in charge of teaching the older kids. There is another teacher coming from Kharkiv (she speaks Russian and English) who will lead for the younger kids. As the native English speakers, Rebecca and I will be there as an example of what to say and how to say it. We'll switch for the older group of kids.
     More details will come as I learn them. I'm not sure how much time I'll have for updating next week. We'll see. For now though, I need to get back to my preparations.