Thursday...

Thursday is in the books. We went to a hospital that is a rehab hospital that treats children that need physical or mental rehabilitation. The two buildings were former doctors homes that the Communist government took over during the Revolution and turned them into hospitals. They were probably built in the 1910's and I don't think much has been done to them since then. We painted the outside porches on both buildings and are putting in linoleum in two rooms (one in each building). The painting made a huge difference and I'm sure it will give the doctors there more pride in where they work.

This hospital is supported by the government to the tune of pennies per day so basically that is non-existent. They rely on local donations and apparently there is one city official who is known as kind of "the Godfather" of the hospital. If people in the community need his help and want to repay him, then he asks them to give money or some kind of support to the hospital which is just awesome. I think it would be really neat to meet this guy.

When we got into the first room the floor was like walking on marshmallows. We knew we couldn't just put linoleum over the old and so Eric went on a mission to find some plywood so we could put in a new subfloor. We knew that if we pulled up the old floor that there was no telling what we would find so we decided to put the new floor just on top of the old. We got the new floor down and on Friday (today for us already) we are going to put the linoleum down in both rooms. The other floor in the second building is sturdy enough that all we will have to do is put the linoleum down so things should go fast today. We hope to do a little shopping this afternoon because I know that I have been put under strict orders by Riley and Laura that it would be to my benefit not to come home without a souvenir. :) I think all of us have been given a similar "suggestion" by our kids.

Couple of stories from the day. Let's just say that there are no Lowe's or Home Depots here. Eric and Ludmilla drove all over creation to find the wood for that floor. They had pretty much exhausted all ideas and they went to the last possible place and wouldn't you know it... there it sat. Don't ever say that God doesn't provide. Another story is that while painting, Rob spilled some paint on the asphalt right in front of one of the porches we painted and the blob was really bothering Frank. Well, Rob then turned this circle of paint into a fish. So that will explain the fish picture when you go to today's pictures.

Of course there were other interesting stories that we will all have to tell you when we get back but those are a couple I can think of right now from Thursday.

So it is now Friday morning and Brandon is speaking at chapel and then we are going back to the hospital to finish up. Time is winding down and we are getting anxious to get back and see our families. We leave at 7:20 am local time tomorrow so we will have to leave the school at about 4:30 am to get to the airport....ouch! It will take us about 24 hours to get home but because of the time difference we will leave on Saturday morning and get back to Nashville on Saturday night, which is hard to wrap my head around.

Well must end for now. I will try to post one more time before we leave and by the way, hug Frank Scott's neck when you see him. Not only has he been working with us every day but the he has also been giving a seminar every night. He has been incredible. Ok, gotta go!

Link to pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/bman727/DonetskMissionAlbum3#slideshow