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An orphanage visit to the Lavra

A week ago, most of the kids from Komarivka came to Kiev on an excursion.  They were doing a concert and then having a tour at the Lavra, one of the oldest monasteries in Ukraine.  We got to watch the show and hang out with the kids the whole day which was great.  So I just wanted to share with you videos of their performance and some pictures of the kids on their tour.  For many of the kids, this was their first time in Kiev.
The show started with a song and then the younger girls did a dance, which was pretty much the cutest things we had ever seen.

After that, the older girls did a more traditional Ukrainian dance.

They didn't get to use the stage, not sure why, but the dance had been choreographed for a much larger area.  The week before, the staff at the orphanage had asked us if we could buy some traditional socks for this dance. So the socks the girls were wearing are a gift from us, thanks to our awesome supporters.

The show ended with a group song.

Then everyone changed out of their costumes and we went on a tour of the Lavra.

Because kids in the orphanages almost never have pictures of themselves, we started to give them photo albums for Christmas.  I knew this would be a great chance to get some really cool pictures that we can give the kids this next year.  So I took over 950 pictures during the 6 hours the kids were in Kiev.  A few of the younger girls who love to pose had more pictures than everyone else combined.  But that's normal.  Hope you enjoy.











This is most of the ninth grade class. They are graduating next month and then they will be out on their own.  Children's Hope is starting a home to help some of the girls finish high school and hopefully go on to attend university.











It was an awesome day, I'm glad I got to spend it with the kids. We followed it up by going to the orphanage the next day and we got to spend about 4 hours just playing and hanging out.  That made it a really good week.  

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