Birthday Celebration

This morning we all went our separate ways. Altynai and the kids went off to church here in town , Emma and Bekah went to The city to go to a special Thanks giving  celebration with their Kyrgyz friends, and Julie and I went out to the "community centre " in Orlofka for their  7^th anniversary.. Of course we were a few minutes late, but it was ok, they had seats saved for us right at the front... no napping for John .  Many of the kids and some of the adults put on skits and sang for us.  Then several of the people there took turns coming up to the front and sharing how their lives have been changed since this centre was opened.  It has been 2 ½ years that they have been in this new building, and in two weeks, it will be one year exactly since we purchased the other half of the centre.   Today I had another mortgage payment for them.  In two weeks, the final payment on the centre is due .. $300 to go and they will be able to have another celebration as the building will be paid off.  

   During the service, there were a couple younger girls that were singing with the adults.. something seamed to strike me about one of the girls.. I could not put my finger on it, but I kept looking to see what it was.. she was dressed nice and had a nice smile, everything looked together , but I could just not place it, then I remembered something I was told once.."Look at the shoes"  ( actually saying that, I hope people don't look at my shoes, Jengish is always telling me ...dude get yourself a new pair of shoes, you have been wearing those since i met you ..hahah) any way , I looked at her shoes, and they were old and broken sandals.  I did not no why I was caught up by this until after the service.. Vera came to us and introduced her to us.  She and her mother have no place to stay . Her father was sick for some time and recently died. She is three years behind in school, and she has hardly any cloths or school supplies.  We had talked to Vera earlier about a house that we are looking after in town.  It was coming vacant, and we were not sure the best use for the house.  Vera and her friends want to help with this young girls and her mother, so it looks like we will have a new tenant for the house.   As we were leaving I caught myself just before telling them that we would do her back to school shopping , but I know that at this point we do not have the budget for that. We are up to 86 kids that we have shopped for, but it is just so hard to acknowledge a need and do nothing. So I asked them to please tell Sergey what it is that she needs, and we would see if we can find some things for her. 

 After the concert,  they had a big spread for lunch , It was so cool to see all the kids pile in and get served by the adults.  We also had a good visit with Styopa's Babushka. He is one of our sponsored kids that was reunited with his family and moved to Russia.  We heard lots of wonderful stories about him, and will be getting his phone number, as well as exchanging email addresses.   When Styopa moved, the decision was made by his sponsor to continue to support other children in his name, we have just had patriotic updates from the Babushka, but it will be so great to be able to talk to him ourselves.  We told his babushka that I have a painting of he and I with some of the other kids from the orphanage on my wall in Canada.. I could see her eye's tear up so we stopped talking .