Skip to main content

The Team and all their Accomplishments!

The March building team rocked! They were an tremendous group of people that did an enormous amount of work. If you're a March building team member reading this, THANK YOU FOR THE WORK YOU DID! YOU MADE A DIFFERENCE! For the rest of you,  here's some pictures:
Mike installed somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 lights, and he has an amazing testimony. To sum it up, it's never too late to give God everything!
Our director Jerry is on the left and his son Jerry on the right. Although they fought like little girls the whole trip, they did get some work done, such as framing the basement bathrooms!

This was Randy's 3rd time to Ukraine, and he tiled the bathroom on the 2nd floor and did some ballet moves I think.
Daniel installed cabinets to prepare for Anya and her nurse! Also in picture: a dork.
One of the lovely ladies, Brooke, did everything from painting to scrubbing to cleaning out an old fridge! Plus we have the same shoe size.
Tina, Brooke's partner in crime, also painted, scrubbed tile, scraped and cleaned windows. And we both love stickers!
Steve was our vahonka man. What is vahonka, you may ask? That's Steve's little secret and you may write to him for answers. He may write back if you stuff the envelope full of twenties.
This is Steve. Magician by day, window cleaner by night, he rocked the trip with his mad skills and fearlessness.
Hooray for the March Team! This is us squinting into the sun. Aren't we nice squinters?
Yeah, we had fun! You can have fun, too. There are two building trips in July, so sign up now! Go to http://www.mannaworldwide.com/ and click on "trips." This is the opportunity that you won't want to miss! In fact, to encourage you more, here's what Tina wrote: 
"Once at Smile House, I met Janna and Daniel... I was really impressed with how they tried not to waste any materials that they would use. Always being conscientious and using the most out of what they had. I am glad that I could be a part of getting Smile House ready. My experience in the Ukraine had been a positive one and I owe it all to Janna, Daniel, the Stoddards, and of course the team that I went with. I hope and pray that God gives me the opportunity to go back. I also want to thank God for breaking my heart(in a good way) and for giving me a burden for Smile House."

Yes, I'll admit it: Daniel and I are rather charming. But more importantly, we want you to come to Ukraine. It will change you. We will feed you squid chips and they will change you. You will serve the Lord and He will change you. The choice is yours.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How Ukrainians act during missile strikes

     I have been in Ukraine during many air raid alerts and have been close enough to hear and feel a number of explosions (primarily Russian missile being shot out of the sky), but, strangely, I haven’t actually been around Ukrainians throughout the duration of an air raid until this past week.   I had gone to a small warehouse store where I buy nails for my framing gun.  In the middle of placing my order, everyone’s phones started dinging.  Kyiv was under an air raid alert.  The young man who was helping me just kept working on his computer, but his colleague immediately stood up, looking at her phone and started wondering out loud if we should go to a shelter or if we should stay put.  Within a few seconds another worker came in from outside, and a lady came down the stairs.  They were all on their phones.   “Ballistic missiles.”   said the man “… heading towards the Kyiv area.”  Said the woman who had just come d...

Anya’s Russian Dad

How war and propaganda have been affecting families across Ukraine, Russia and the world. On February 24 th , 2022, Anya, like millions of Ukrainians, was woken up at 5 o’clock in the morning by the sounds and reverberations of missiles striking in and around Kyiv (where she lived) and all over the country.  She spent that morning rounding up her very large family, including a 13 year old son who was at a sleepover more 30 minutes from their home.  Imagine being separated from one of your children in a situation like that.  They did get all of their family (18 people) together, but it was a lot of work and stress.  While getting everyone together Anya and her family had to pack up not knowing how long they would be gone.   Then, they joined millions of people on the road who were heading West.  It took them 3 days to make a trip that would typically take 7-9 hours.   As Anya sat in the car, she started thinking about her parents.  ...

Anya’s operation “The whole story”

Brace yourselves:  This blog is 3309 words long.  Honestly, I cut a lot of information out and simplified it so much to keep it short.  But the story of Anya’s operation is a monster and I wanted to tell it start to finish so that you have one place to come learn about Anya and what she’s been through these past months, as well as what it has taught us about the lives of orphans here. The core problem:  Our helplessness to help Anya A few weeks ago a friend from the states wrote me a few emails asking about Anya’s situation.  At that point Anya had been in the hospital for almost four weeks … waiting.  Her operation was first scheduled for the day after she was checked in, but it kept getting pushed back again and again.  It was incredibly frustrating, mainly because no one in Kiev had the authority to check her out of the hospital, and so she had to stay there for four weeks..four very boring weeks.  I would have gone crazy. Normally, the par...