And.....we're off!

Lots of pictures today:

Marta is one of our former interns from Poland. She's from the last graduating class before I left Odessa, and I Skyped with her and her internship partner often while they were in India and also did their debriefings upon their return to Poland. She was in Odessa for Sergei's wedding and it was great to get to catch up a bit with her.

It was also really great to be back at my Odessa church, Living Hope. Worshipping in Russian is something that I've sorely missed, so today was a real blessing. It was great to see so many new faces and their larger space that they recently moved into.

It was also great to see an anti-abortion billboard in the Center, with a help number to call. The abortion statistics here are extremely high.

With Andrei and Laura. Andrei is one of the few orphan grads that Laura works with that I know well. He's the one that I was so upset about when I left here at the end of 2011, b/c the family adopting him and some other children changed their minds. It's wonderful to see him doing well in the Naval Academy, as well as growing in his relationship with the Lord.

I got to have birthday lunch with some of the other orphan grads today with Laura and one of her co-workers. Vlad turned 20 today and always says he wants a car, so Laura made him a Lada Cake. She thinks I'm joking, but I really love it.

Then it was off for coffee with my friend, Valya, whom I met almost 9 yrs. ago at a camp in Russia. I don't get to see her often, so it was great to spend the afternoon catching up with her. It was also great to know that I can still communicate decently in Russian.

I've never done this classic tourist picture in the center of Odessa, and Valya gamely jumped in with me. He's some sort of famous poet or actor, or something like that. =-D

**Tomorrow I head east 17 hours to Krasnoarmeysk and will be there through Thursday evening with two of our staff, Vika and Marina.