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Sunday 17 May 2015

Home again

The team arrived home safely yesterday, after a very enjoyable but tiring 2 weeks. Soon be time to plan the next trip!
Keep watching for updates or why not sign up to our link to 'follow by email'


Friday 15 May 2015

Friday 15th May

The last blog of any trip is always written with a small amount of sadness. However, we all agree it has been another successful trip. In summary we have tiled 7 showers/toilets, grouted 2 of them, installed the ceilings, installed 13 window sills, tiled 3 kitchen areas and applied a first coat of plaster along one the main corridor.
The opportunities we have had to spend time with our friends and the children have been great and we hope our relationship with them will continue to grow.
We leave Transition House at 4:30am and hope to be back in Worcester late afternoon.




Tuesday 12 May 2015

Tuesday 12th May

Work on tiling the walls and floors and installation of the ceilings in the shower and toilet rooms continues at a steady pace despite some set backs. We are hoping we can complete this work in 7 of the 10 rooms on the 3rd floor before we leave. In addition, Emilyn and John started work on installing the window sill's last Friday, there are 14 in all and most are in place ready for fixing.
Last Friday evening we had the pleasure of being invited to Alex's new apartment where we had take away pizza. A lot has changed there too in the last 12 months.
On Saturday we had the pleasure of spending most the day down at the Black Sea camp with the families of Peter, Alex and Igor as well as the children from the shelter. The day was a mixture of fun, games and of course plenty of food.
The Sunday morning service at church was focussed on "International Mothers Day" or so we were told and some of the younger children gave a performance. Sunday afternoon we went into Odessa to have a look around the open market and to visit city centre. Sunday evening we were able to go and see an opera called Iolanta by Tchaikovsky. Alex was able to get us discounted tickets but we still had to pay 200 hryvna for all of us ( that's £6:33!!)
Monday evening we were invited to see a musical performance that the children of the shelter had done for their church over Easter. Afterwards we played games with them and had ice cream.
















Thursday 7 May 2015

Thursday 7th May

Apologies for not keeping the blog up to date, there have been some problems with the internet connection and accessing our blog.
Since our last blog (thank you John for uploading the information) work on tiling the floors and walls and installing the ceilings of the toilet and shower rooms is progressing at a good pace. There are 8 of these on the 3rd floor and each team member is working on a separate room with a new foreman called Igor over seeing the work while our usual foreman, Sasha, is away in America visiting his daughter and working for 4 months.
On Tuesday evening we took 11 of the children from the shelter bowling with two of the adult helpers. We had 4 lanes, played for 2 hours and all for £14:50, not bad value!





Tuesday 5 May 2015

Latest Update

Sorry for the delay in the updates, the team are having problems getting onto the blog from Odessa. However here is Rob's latest blog.

Arrived safely in Odessa and greeted by Peter and Alex. We arrived at Transition House to hear that Clara (the guard dog) had passed away only to be replaced by a new Clara. 

The young lads who had been living here have now moved on. 
After having tea and coffee we went to see what changes had been made and the four of us who were here in September were amazed. 
In summary, all toilet/shower rooms have been tiled with toilets, basins and shower cubicles fitted; all bedrooms have laminate floors laid; about half the bedrooms have been wall papered and the main corridor has been decorated. This was far more than we expected and we believe it is due to one of the pastors at Grace Baptist church working with Peter on a full time basis and the generosity of the people from the North Wales churches.
Because of this, we are now working on the next floor up and continuing with tiling the toilets/showers that our friends from North Wales started in March.
Its a real encouraging feeling to see such a big step in the progress of the project.

On Sunday we had the privilege of taking communion with the people of the church and in the evening we spent some time with the children, John and Josh were the only ones brave enough to attempt twister. Today we started tiling and will continue to do so over these two weeks.

Clara

Peter & the team








 Completed work




Ongoing work

Grace Baptist Church




The 'younger' team members playing Twister with the children

Watch for the next update

Sunday 3 May 2015

Arrived

The team have arrived in Odessa safely

Keep watching for an update from them

Friday 1 May 2015

Team fly out tomorrow

The team fly out tomorrow morning, leaving Woodgreen at the crack of dawn to drive to Gatwick Airport, where they will fly to Odessa via Kiev.

Rob, Emlyn, Nick, John & Joshua are taking some new tools and tile cutting disks out with them and will be working at Transition House for 2 weeks. Lets hope they have enough space in their cases for clothes as well.

Keep watching the blog for updates on their progress from Rob.