Last Day in Zaporizhya

We loaded up our big duffel bag and headed back to Orphanage #3.  The youngest class was busy moving library books around, the older kids were doing their own thing in the computer lab, and the rest of the kids had just left for the movies.  Strike three.  We waited for Jessica, then went back to her apartment so we could leave our games/toys/candy with her to distribute to the orphans. 

Lamenting the fact that I’d been in Ukraine for several days and hadn’t yet seen varenike on a menu, Victor found a great restaurant that served varenike made in-house.  What an amazing meal we had there!  We had three different types of varenike: potato and mushroom, sweet cheese with sour cream, and sour cherry.  We shared several other dishes, too: potato pancake with ham, sweet cheese pancake with raisins, chicken pelmeni with sour cream and dill, and homemade sausage.  We all stuffed ourselves silly.  We’ve been eating really well this week, actually, and I can’t believe how inexpensive it is.  This lavish meal, in a beautifully decorated restaurant, was about $50 for six people, including tip.  

What do you do after such an eating extravaganza?  Head to a barbecue, of course!  Some missionaries from Canada were heading home in a few days, so some of the local churches and orphanages threw a going away party at the park.  Our new friends that we’d met at the coffeehouse yesterday were there, and I got to play the Mennonite Game a few times over.  I also had some great discussions with parents who were finishing up adoptions from another local orphanage.  It was time well spent.  After the long walk back to the apartment, we are now looking forward to Germany tomorrow.  We’ll drive to Donetsk and fly to Munich, where we’ll spend the night.  Home to Tulsa on Saturday.  We are ready to go home.

Missing the kids at Uglegorsk, though, especially Illya and Svyatik. ;)