End of another trip. This week the team have been working on the third floor building partition walls, boxing in girder's and laying the last of the laminate flooring. All the rooms on this floor now have flooring laid.
Tuesday we took some of the children along with the house parents bowling. 29 played over 6 lanes for 2 hours, an enjoyable time was had by all.
Wednesday we were taken to the opera to see Cossacks Beyond the Danube, a mixture of opera and traditional dancing.
Thursday afternoon we were taken to the Black Sea Camp where we had time of fellowship and treated to one of Peters BBQ's.
Today we had the honour of visiting Odessa Theological College to witness a graduation ceremony. Paul had an opportunity to preach and afterwards we had lunch with staff and students.
This evening we shall pay one last visit to see the children before we leave for home tomorrow.

End of the first week and work at Transition House has gone well. The last of the floor tiling on the third floor went down which was a significant moment. The team spent sometime on Saturday walking around Odessa and in the evening Paul went to the airport with Peter and Sergey to collect Mark, Nas and Josh, who are from Pauls church and will be working with us this week.
Sunday, we went to the morning and evening services at Grace Baptist Church, Paul had the opportunity to preach in the evening service. The afternoon was spent relaxing.
At the start of a new week, Emlyn, John and Paul are building partition walls, Nick is tiling the window sills in the main stairway, Mark and Nas are painting the last of the rooms on the third floor and Josh and myself have been grouting floor tiles. Its good to have the extra hands on board.

Arrived safely on Sunday and greeted at the airport by Peter, Alex, Sergey and John. Sergey lives at Transition House with his family and has been working with us and translating for us. We are camped out on the second floor and working on the third floor and main stairs. Nick is finishing off tiling in bathrooms, Paul is finishing off painting walls in the corridor, Emlyn has been preparing walls for painting and I am finishing some floor tiling. We visited the shelter on Tuesday evening to spend some time with the kids and house parents. There are some new children at the shelter which is encouraging to see.

The team have arrived

Our latest team have arrived in Odessa to continue work on Transition House.

Keep an eye on the blog for updates on their progress

Many thanks to everyone who supported the car wash & breakfast yesterday.

Reflections

Whilst we have been a small team this time, it has been a productive fortnight at Transition House. Three of us have now returned home and are reflecting on all that we have achieved over the last two weeks.  John (Collinson), you will recall, had already been helping in Odessa for six weeks before we arrived and we have left him there for another three to continue the work (as well as learn Russian!). We have continued great fellowship with our brothers and sisters at Grace Baptist Church who have looked after us well whilst we completed a variety of jobs - although there is still a lot to do!

A selection of photographs below shows some of the work completed and also what we did when we were not working.

Ceiling Before

Ceiling After

Walls Before

Walls After

Pipework in Floor

Pipework cemented in

3rd Floor Ceilings

3rd Floor Ceilings Tiled

"Boxing In" Pillars

Boxed in

Spreading Hardcore on Driveway

Lighting the BBQ

At the BBQ

Ten-Pin Bowling with some of the Children

Some of the Children playing at the Shelter

The Team on our Last Day

There are signs that the Building Project is nearing completion, though there is more to do and we are hoping to send another Team out in September 2016.  Please contact John or Rob if you are interested.