Vinnitsa Christian Orphanage.

Preparing the meal.

Chance eating with kids.

Words on the wall “His Kids” Matthew 19:14

Stephen and the friends.

Last night we went to the orphanage for the workers appreciation dinner. We were planning the whole thing and were pretty much in charge. Ashley Qualls planned the meal and the gifts for the workers. Taci, Linds, Heather, and Michael helped in the kitchen. I was assigned kid duty outside with the rest of the team. To start the evening out Ryan and I put all the kids hands on the wall that was not already there. That was a lot of fun!!!! It was so hard to get the kids to get in a line and to be patient! They really wanted to have their hand on the wall! We do the hand prints so that the kids feel like they belong. It was fun later on in the evening to watch some of the younger kids go back and put their hand on top of their hand print! After that we taught them a song. The song was "There Is A Melody In My Heart". The kids at first didn't want to learn the song but I finally convinced them and we had a blast! The song involves A LOT of dancing and movement! The kids enjoyed themselves immensely! Hopefully we will figure out soon how to videos on the blog and you will get to see what we did. It is a long video but definitely worth it! After we went through the song twice we decided to play duck duck goose. It was a huge circle, so not everyone got picked but the kids had fun. Ryan got picked right away by one of the boys and when he was running around the circle and he slid in the dirt by the slide and hit the slide going full speed ahead! It was rather funny! Then about 2 minutes later Chance and Stephen did the same thing! lol I was kinda disappointed that I didn't get picked. :'( We tried to do relay races with them but some of the kids didn't want to so it was a small group. Chance was one leader and I was another. All the boys wanted to be on Chance's team and all the girls wanted to be on mine. My group grew during the race and to say the least we lost. We had them race like crabs. They were so cute trying to go fast and crawling like crabs! After the relay races we played freeze tag. The only thing I can say about that is CHAOS!!!!! About 30 kids and 20 Ukrainians and Americans running around in a small part of the yard! It was so fun!!!!!! We were all exhausted by the end but it was the most fun that I have had in a long time! After we played freeze tag it was time for dinner. The ladies upstairs made chicken, and cut up tomatoes, cucumbers, and oranges. We had sodas to drink. For dessert there was ice cream bars. That were fun! I was helping one of the younger kids on the blanket so he could sit down to eat his ice cream. When I started to unwrap it he started yelling at me to stop!!! He didn't want the ice cream bar out of the wrapper! After all the kids had their ice cream the Americans and Ukrainian helpers split up the rest. I had some troubles with mine. (Yes, Mom and Dad I know that I normally have troubles but I thought I would share these! I love you!) The ice cream bar was two wafers with ice cream in the middle. Well, the wafer was kinda hard to eat and the ice cream was coming out of the edges! It was really funny and difficult to eat. But it was sssssoooooo good and definitely worth it! After we all ate the workers came out and we sang the song for them. Then the kids sang two songs for us. It was really cool! Overall, the night was GREAT!!!! I really enjoyed holding and loving on the kids! I was able to act wild and crazy and it be ok!!!! I think the general concensus was that we want to go back to be with the kids again! It was really hard for us to leave the kids last night! So that was our wonderful night last night! Thanks for letting me share!

Stephanie

P.S. Mom and Dad I would love to hear from you! Please leave a comment on the blog!