Who's Nick?

The keen eyed amongst you may have noticed a new author to these posts! With both John and Rob not in Odessa on the latest trip they are not able to keep you up to date with what is happening, so John has allowed me free access to add my thoughts and try to keep the blog updated for the next couple of weeks!

This is my third visit with the team to Odessa (previous vists September 2014 & May 2015). Many of you will know my daughter, Lydia who has been a regular at Wood Green, though studying in Newcastle only tends to get to Wood Green during the holidays. I regularly attend St Peter’s Church in Droitwich but have got to know a few of you now through these connections. The last two times I came to work at Transition House involved tiling walls and floors and installing suspended ceilings. As I write I am not sure what we have in store this time and will tell more tomorrow.

For now please keep Emlyn, John and myself in your prayers, that we have a safe and productive fortnight. We send our love to you.

Nick Stone

Safe Arrival

Just a quick note to say that Emlyn and myself (Nick) arrived at Transition House safely last night, albeit without Emlyn's luggage! This is becoming a habit. We hope that it might turn up very soon. It was a long day, made longer due to the one hour flight delay at Kiev and waiting around at the lost luggage counter in Odessa. It was great to exit the airport arrivals barriers  to see Peter, Alex and little David waiting for us with John Collinson who has been working here for the last six weeks. We set off from Worcester at 7am yesterday morning and eventually got to bed at 12.30am this morning! We are two hours ahead. Off to Church this morning and will update more in the next day or so. Watch this space!

Car wash & breakfast

Many thanks to everyone who came to the car wash & breakfast last Saturday, well done all the car washers and cooks who washed 22 cars, cooked and served around 60 breakfasts and raised over £900.

This money will go with the men later this month to buy materials for Transition House.

Almost finished

Well it's Friday and we've almost finished our 2 weeks here in Odessa.

Yesterday we only worked in the morning and after lunch we went to the Black Sea camp for a rest and barbecue.

We had a great time even though the weather wasn't brilliant, it was a little cloudy and the wind was quite chilly.

Today it was back to normal with everyone trying to get as much finished as possible.

So what have we been doing this past 2 weeks apart from barbecue, opera, walks in Odessa etc.

Along with the 2 Igors, who have been working with us, we've :

Chipped, cleaned and bonded all the corridor floors and floors in 7 rooms.

Cut channels in the floors and holes in walls for central heating pipes.

Built and plastered a partition wall.

Plastered 3 complete rooms and the corridors

Built metalwork and plaster boarded the ceiling behind the new wall.

Boxed in pipework.

Constructed 5 door frames and doors

Fitted 2 of the frames and doors into the rooms.

Grouted 6 toilet/shower rooms.

Tiled 5 kitchen walls.

Tiled floors in 5 rooms and grouted 1 of them.

Tiled 2 more toilet/shower rooms.

Drunk lots of tea,coke, sprite and fruit juice, ate loads of biscuits and had a really great time with our friends over here.

So it's now time to complete the final jobs, tidy up and pack as we leave tomorrow morning to fly home. We've had time to build on our old friendships and to make new friends. As always we will leave tomorrow, looking forward to seeing our families but sad to leave such good friends, however knowing, that soon, we will be back to do more work.

There is still more work to be done but the building is now starting to look closer to completion.

Can you help?

Don't miss out, look out for next year's dates and get involved.

Wednesday

There was no wifi here at Transition House on Monday, so it was not possible to blog.

The last 3 days have been much the same as last week, apart from we are now well into our stride with floors and walls being tiled at an amazing pace, the doors are completed and 2 already hung, the others just waiting for tile cement to cure. Grouting continues at a pace as well, with John C now nicknamed 'the Green Man' after taking on a green hue from the tile grout.

Emlyn has been doing a sterling job cleaning down walls, chipping cement off floors for tiling and mixing tile cement. Igor has been catching up with the plastering whilst we have been doing the other work.

Yesterday evening we had  a break and went to the Opera to see 'The Barber of Seville', which was very good, particularly in the setting of Odessa Opera House. We were fortunate to get upgraded to seats in the 3rd row from the stage. 

We followed up with a pizza at a restaurant just down the road from the Opera House

Only two more days to go before we fly home, I'm sure that we will all have mixed feelings, looking forward to seeing family but sad to leave our friends over here.

Sunday and another week starts

Firstly an apology to everyone following the blogs and expecting an update before today.

Things here have been very busy as you may have noticed we don't seem to have had a moment to stop and take stock of what we've done.

Yesterday (Saturday)  we did a half day's work, had a shower and a rest for a couple of hours then went out into downtown Odessa. We went to the open market then walked around and saw the sights, visited some shops and had a typical Ukrainian meal in a restaurant.

Today has been the harvest festival at Grace Church, the morning service was slightly longer at 2½ hours followed by a church lunch outside in the grounds

After lunch we spent some time in the shelter with the children

We then went to an area by a school and apartment blocks where the Church was holding an outreach to the local area, with childrens' games and information for passers by

Time for a rest before bed as our 7am Monday start will soon come round again, we will be continuing with the work, plastering, tiling walls and floors, grouting the tiles, constructing door frames and fitting doors.

For those of you on Facebook check out Rob and John C's pages for more photos.