We pray that God’s rich blessings are being showered on each of you as they have been on us this past month. When I wrote last I thought we had seen our busiest and craziest month come and go, but this is Ukraine and we are always amazed at each adventure that awaits us!! The business slowed a bit but the craziness did not!!

We had our last full three week term and one week seminar in May. Jay Don was thrilled to have Tim Burrow, Denny Sneed and Wayne White here to help him teach and though Jay Don taught the whole month he had plenty of time to run the school and visit some of the orphanages we work with. I stayed busy having various ones over for breakfast or dinners.

Saturday, May 22^nd we were blessed to partake in our third graduation at UBI. It was an awesome time and we saw fourteen more wonderful Christian men and women graduate with two years of very difficult Biblical training behind them and now "stored away" in their brain.! Our theme this year was, "Serve with Christ’s Love". Each of the speakers drew upon the theme to challenge each graduate (and all of us) to go and serve with Christ’s love continually. The ceremony started at 10:30 AM and ended after two, with a light lunch be provided. The ceremony was very touching. A time again, when the Ukrainian students thank you, by name, for leaving your country and your family to come and teach them God’s Word---- a very humbling experience.

Jay Don and I had spent over eleven hours at the school on Friday doing all the decorating. We used burgundy and gold for the colors with many flowers and candles everywhere. It is a lot of work but worth it when you hear over and over again how thrilled our students and their families and friends are to see something so pretty. Beauty, decorated beauty, has NOT been a luxury many of them have gotten to enjoy.

As soon as graduation was over, we had to hurriedly take things down, throw it all in Jay Don’s office and rush home to pack for a weeks trip to Warsaw, Poland. We made the decision, at the last moment, to go with Rhett and Julia for her visa interview. They had asked us to go several times but we thought we might be interfering. We told them they could enjoy the time together by themselves. They kept saying "Visa interviews" are not a time of enjoyment and we could go along to support them so we did.

This is where the craziness begins!! Two days on a train is a killer to start with but in Ukraine, it’s a nightmare! The first train was the 12 hour train to Kiev. You board the train at 6:40 in the evening so except for a few hours it is mostly night time. We arrived in Kiev at 7 the next morning, got a taxi and went straight to the Arizona, a restaurant where you can get an "American" breakfast with REAL coffee, not instant! We stayed here a long time, each taking turns to clean up and "prepare" for the next 20 hour train ride. Our train for Warsaw left at 2:00 PM. Julia had gotten us separate compartments on the Polish car! We were all hoping they would be nicer than the Ukrainian cars. They were cleaner but much smaller and there was no table in them. We shuffled suit cases and made our own table as and played 42 until the guys got sick of losing!!! We didn’t buy any food for this train as we thought any train ride of 20 hours would have a dining car.........WRONG........NO dining car. All we had in our back pack was chips, cheese, and candy. It was terrible. Finally we just tried to go to sleep. About 1:00AM we were awakened by customs police wanting to see our passports. After, they left, the train pulled into this huge warehouse type thing where they CHANGED THE WHEELS ON THE TRAIN!!!!!!! I am NOT kidding. Seems as Russian and other Soviet countries have a different size track from the rest of Europe and the wheels have to be changed when the train enters Western Europe. Well, now this was a sight to behold! First, Rhett and Julia got kicked out of their compartment because they had to unscrew a thing the their floor where there was a big hole and they worked from that hole!! Good thing they knew us and could come into our compartment for a couple of hours. They literally lifted the train and changed all the wheels, by hand. It truly was a sight to behold. When they finished we tried to go back to sleep but it was hopeless. Upon arrival to Warsaw, we got a taxi and headed for our apartment. The four of us had rented an apartment because they are way cheaper than a hotel. We finally got there, lugging everything up 3 flights of long stairs. The man told us about everything, we paid him and he left. In just a couple of minutes he came right back and said he had better check the water. Well, you guessed it NO WATER!!! Seems as though they clean the water pipes in Poland also!!! We all could not believe it. The man had to find us another apartment, lug all the stuff down and go to another place but this one was just up 2 flights of stairs. It was being cleaned and as soon as she left we all hit the showers. Two full days with no shower, make- up etc. VERY YUCKY!!!! We all felt like new after getting cleaned up. We spent the rest of day working on getting Rhett's visa extended at the Ukrainian Embassy. This was a "grand" experience. The first thing the man told Julia was that Rhett’s documents were all wrong. These are the very documents we use to invite all visiting Americans. Well, they weren’t good enough for him so Julia ask him if she could invite Rhett, herself to Ukraine for three months. He said of course. Now, here is a Russian inviting an American to Ukraine but we just all prayed he would not look at HER passport. He didn’t. He was just interested in the extra money. After they filled in all the forms he told them to pay but NO, not here at the Embassy, of course not, that is too simple. We must walk forever to find the Marriott Hotel and pay there. We finally found the Marriott and were told this was not the place but a bank around the corner. We went there, but no this was not the place. After four times of being told to go different places we finally found a place that would take the money. Back to the Embassy to get the stamp in the passport and Rhett is now legal in Ukraine for three more months. (The hardest way they can make you do something is the way they do it here but showers of blessings, WE GOT THE VISA!

After that was accomplished we decided to go to a classical concert that evening. Warsaw is where Chopin was from so we "thought" we were going to a concert of Chopin. However when we got there the program said it was a baritone, a pianist, a trumpet player and a bass player. Well, we thought that would be ok BUT when the baritone came out and started to sing I just couldn't believe it. He was from Korea. He had a beautiful voice but he sang every song in English and couldn't pronounce his R's. His English was so bad you couldn't understand hardly any words. Well, we listened and watched for about 3 songs and then I just lost it. I started laughing and couldn't stop. I was trying to be quiet and the whole row was just shaking. Well, that started Rhett and Julia (laughing to themselves) and I literally thought I was going to explode before the intermission, dying laughing on the inside but having to hold it in. Tears were just running down my cheeks and I was coughing and trying to think of anything sad as to quit laughing but I could not. When we had the intermission break we got out of there as fast as we could and we all 4 laughed for over 2 hours. Thank goodness the "concert" was free!!!

The whole next day was spent in the American Embassy waiting for Julia to get her time to turn in her papers and then the interview. What a process. At least they did have seats for you and you didn't have to stand the whole time. We were there at 8AM and did not leave with the visa until around 4PM, with one break for lunch. They had "one close call" as the lady who took her paper work "LOST" one of the forms from her desk to the desk of the interviewer, a few yards away!!! This reeks of corruption as Julia would have had to come back, possibly pay again and have another interview. Thankfully from past experiences she had all of her papers in doubles and a third copy ready to be faxed, if needed from Donetsk. When she produced the forms they "LOST" the man just said, "My that was a close call!" After about 20 minutes of "interrogation" he basically told her she had the visa but to come back after 3 and pick it up. Rhett was ready to celebrate but the 3 of us were very cautious as she did NOT have the stupid visa in her hand. Anyway later in the day she did get it in her hands so we all wanted to celebrate then!!! We found a beautiful Italian restaurant and had a lovely meal there. Showers of blessings. WE GOT THE VISA! They are now on cloud 9. They just can't believe they will be leaving and she can actually live in the US.

The next day we left EARLY and caught a train to go see Krakow, a famous Polish city, one of a few that was not bombed out in WW II. The train was Polish, very nice and HAD a dining car for just a 2 hour trip!!!! We had a very nice day there and saw lots of neat things. It was very much like Prague with the quaint buildings, the cobble stone streets and the big open squares with outdoor cafes all around. Flowers were everywhere, it was so pretty. Jay Don even treated us all to a lovely horse drawn carriage ride. We all were ready for a day of R&R!!! We took the last train back to Warsaw and were beat. The next day was time to pack up and head back home. Our train didn't leave until the evening but we had to be out of our apartment by 11. We stored our luggage at the train station and took a tour of the Warsaw Castle. It was beautiful. We had a lovely lunch of Polish food and then later ordered KFC and Pizza Hut (they have these in Warsaw) to go, because the long Ukrainian train ride has no dining car. (back to junk food!!!)

Oh, the night mare of the train they put us on this time. It was a true Ukrainian one. It was a real OLD one and so dirty and small. They had the windows sealed and there was NO way to open them. It was ok for the night but it got very cold. We had our coats and blankets and I actually slept in my coat, gloves and the blanket. The weather had been very cold and rainy the whole time we were gone, like in the 50's. Well, during this night we were awakened at 1am and 3:30am for customs for Poland and then Ukraine. Poland was no problem but the Ukraine people were so rude. We were very sleepy and they were shouting at us to get the forms filled in quickly. Jay Don only had one pen and then he was going to fill mine in. The guard got very agitated and asked Julia why I wasn't filling in mine. She told him I wore contacts and had them out and couldn't see very well without them!!!! (She's a nut!) He then yanked the form and pen away from Jay Don and went and filled them in himself, even to the point of signing his name on my form!!!! Hope I am allowed to leave the country in July!!!!

We finally got back to sleep and slept in as long as we could. When we got up we played 42 but it began to get too hot and absolutely NO air. We were all getting very cranky and miserable. We asked the conductor to please open the windows but he said he couldn't so we melted all day until arriving at Kiev. The train station at Kiev was a zoo. Julia had not bought return tickets to Donetsk as we were not for sure when we would be leaving Poland and they wouldn't sell us Ukraine tickets in Poland. (Figure that out) Well, she immediately tried to get us tickets and you guessed it, there were NONE. It was a holiday weekend in Kiev!!! She and Jay Don then went to a place and tried to buy airline tickets but no tickets there either. No tickets that day or the next day. After a couple of hours of hassle we finally called a taxi company and found a van that would drive us to Kiev for $300.00!!!! We took it. The drive is suppose to be 8 hours. 11 hours later we finally got to Donetsk!!! (We left at 8:00pm and arrived at 7:00 am) We were just dead. The stupid taxi driver got lost several times and drove around in one city for 2 hours looking for the right road. Jay Don finally got Julia to tell him we weren't going to pay him the full amount if he didn't stop and ask for help. He finally did. We were all unhappy campers after that ride. Much of the time was on roads worse than our back alleys. So bumpy and bouncy it nearly made you sick and we had to pay $300.00 for this!!!

We drug our stuff up the 84 steps, took a shower and fell in bed until noon!!!!! Traveling in Eastern Europe is sheer craziness!!

During the past month we have been able to go back to the "Street Kids" orphanage where we delivered a lot of toys, sports equipment and Summer sandals. We also went back to the Children’s Hospital and presented then with an EKG machine. They were in disparate need of this. It cost about $1000.00 and they could have never gotten one, were it not for your generous donations. The director was just overwhelmed and they presented us a program of songs and poems to show their gratitude. I just wish you could enjoy the appreciation they we get to receive.

There are several orphanages we work with who are in great need of toys and as God always provides, we just got an e-mail this morning from Cory Church and Ashley McWaters saying their congregation at Pheasant Run had just shipped eleven boxes of toys!!! God is good.

Last month I mentioned the orphanage for the mentally slow children and how they had invited us to their "Last Bell" program where they were going to "show off" the music entertainment center you provided. Sadly, we ended up being in Warsaw that day and had to miss it. We still have plans to do a Character Counts Seminar there in the Fall.

Jay Don left at 5:00 AM Sunday to go to Feodocia to do a Character Counts Seminar for four days. I "bowed" out of this one. It as going to be another 10 hour drive or a really "nasty" train trip. After the Warsaw adventure, I just couldn’t "bear" it! I really needed to stay here and get a lot of house things done that I had neglected for the past several weeks. Sunday, June 6^th was our 37^th anniversary and the first time I ever remember us being "apart" on our special day! However, on the 5^th, Jay Don had filled the house with flowers-----roses in the bedroom, lilies in the living room and wild flowers in the kitchen and bathroom plus he took me to dinner at Titanic where the piano man played for us the whole time------Pretty Impressive------so I didn’t mind him leaving on the 6^th!

We are looking forward to a quick trip home (Canada) in July. We will be flying into Chicago and then Portland on the 4^th. I am a bit leery about this but strongly believe God will take care of us. We especially covet your prayers on that day. We can’t wait to see our Hannah again and have some time with our family. Jay Don will also perform the marriage ceremony of our dear friend, Lara Hoff, on the 24^th. We will then head back to Ukraine all by ourselves!! My prayer is that our family can all be together again just once during this time. It has been over three years now since we were all together.

Rhett and Julia will fly back July 2^nd to set up "house keeping" in Vancouver, Wa. I try not to think this is the last few days we will all be together here in Ukraine. My heart is a bit heavy when I think of them being gone but God is good and I know He will help us through this. They can’t wait to plant their feet on US soil!

We continually thank you for your love and support of us and our work in Ukraine and ask you to remember us constantly with many prayers during another transition.

With much love and gratitude,

It’s hard to find words to describe the last couple of months!! We have definitely experienced many "FIRSTS" in our time home in the US and Canada this furlough.

Our first Thanksgiving with my sister and her sons’ families in over 20 years, our first sleigh ride with real horses and bells, our first Christmas with a pregnant daughter-in-law, our first time to do a soul winning workshop in Mesa, Arizona, our first time coming "home" to Canada to deal with a totally trashed house, our first time in arbitration against our tenant but most important being blessed to be with our son and his wife as they gave us our first grandchild! God presented Hannah Lee Rogers into the world on March 7^th, 2004 at 1:42 P.M. She weighed in at 7lbs. 3 oz. and is a perfect beautiful baby girl. There are just no words to describe the feeling of seeing your children have children. The flood of memories that overtake you when you were doing the same thing is awesome. What a beautiful way God carries on life.

We arrived "home" to Donetsk on Thursday, March 17^th to blowing SNOW! Welcome to Ukraine!

We were actually very homesick to get back to the Ukraine the whole last month we were gone BUT then little Hannah was born and our hearts were so torn about leaving that tiny bundle we could hardly stand it! After holding Hannah for hours at church and kissing all over her, I could hardly bare to hand her back to our son knowing we wouldn’t see her again for months. But God is good and I know He will give us the strength we need to continue our work in Ukraine.

Except for the birth of Hannah, February was the most miserable month one could imagine. We stayed with a dear friend, Jan Johnson for over a month! ( I hope she is still a friend!!) We got up early every morning and came in late every evening after dealing with our house all day long. Our renters had turned our lovely home into a "party house". Seems it was well known in Tsawwassen as the drug-party house to hundreds of teens and the police as well. There was nothing that was not ruined or broken. We were just in a bit of shock the first few days wondering how we were going to deal with all of this. However, God is in control and just as we were about to give up, a friend of my sons suggested we should check to see if we had taken out renters insurance when we left. Thankfully we had done this but had forgotten about it. We now just had to line up contractors and start the process of totally redoing our house. We had three year old carpet all over the downstairs that had every stain imaginable on it, from mud, soaked in drink stains, bleach and urine (they did NOT have pets). It took all of February to bleach bathrooms, repaint the whole house, put in new carpet, new linoleum, new roof, new gutters, repair the deck and re-stain the hardwood floors. Some things just couldn’t be repaired, like our gas fireplace where they had let huge amounts of wax rundown into it as they heated their drugs!! All in all over $30,000.00 was spent on repairing our house. The insurance company paid for half and we had to pay for the other half. Thank God, Jay Don had sold his car before we left Canada and we had that money to fall back on. Oh, yes, I didn’t mention the fact that our renter quit paying rent back in November and we didn’t get him evicted until Feb. And yes, we had hired a Property Management Company for $107.00 a month to look after our house! (We may see the later in court!!!) We had also worked very hard all of Feb. collecting papers from the police and neighbors to start building a case against this company, but just to make matters a little worse "our car", which was a loaner from Jim and Earline Seagler for over a month, was broken into on our last night in Canada! All of our files and paper work were stolen along with all of Jay Don’s favorite CD’s!

As we were cleaning up the glass from the broken window and calling the Seagler’s with the "news" about their car we were also saying, "We have had enough for now!)

We left Canada the next day and drove to Vancouver, Wa. with plastic taped over the window, a bit noisy but thankfully it didn’t rain!

The minute we arrived in Vancouver, Cory Church and Ashley McWaters "took charge" of getting the car fixed and let us deal with packing our things for the trip home. With the hassle of dealing with the car we did not get to say some final "goodbyes" to several friends in Vancouver and area but know they understand.

The following day Cory and Ashley took us to the airport. We were flying Lufthansa for the first time and discovered they weigh carry-ons!! We always pack our carry-ons to the hilt so we were way over weight. Jay Don and Ashley had to go to a luggage shop in the airport and buy another small bag. We re-packed our carry ons, in the line up and finally got them to the proper weight. When Jay Don went to pay the over weight charge the lady had no change. The lady then told Jay Don since we had been "nice" about the whole deal and IF he would go get her some change she would bump us up to business class. Hallelujah!!!! Something went our way and WOW what a blessing. All the way from Portland to Frankfort we were in total comfort and even able to sleep some and you have individual lazy boy type chairs!!! We had a long lay over in Frankfort and a short one in Munich and then on to Kiev. When we arrived in Kiev we were back to the land of not understanding most of what is said. However, the school always arranges for Alex, a man who gets you right through re-entry and customs without any hassles, and very fast. When we walked out of customs there was one wonderful sight, our son, Rhett had flown up from Donetsk, by himself, to meet us at the airport. It was soooooo wonderful to see him. We got a couple of rooms at the airport hotel (Ukrainian style but there is a bed and a shower!) We visited until we were falling asleep! We flew out early the next morning with no problems. Since we were coming from an international flight and we had Rhett to carry a couple of bags for us we had to pay very little over weight. We arrived in Donetsk an hour and half later to blowing snow and sweet Julia. It was so good to see our Russian kids again.

They helped us get back to our apartment and carry all the bags up the 84 steps. We paid the taxi driver extra to carry a couple of the biggest ones for us. It was a very strange feeling to be back—we had been gone so long this time but as bad as the living conditions may be and as bleak as the country is, it is still home and we were very glad to be back!

Jay Don and I both caught miserable head colds on arrival but we figure our bodies had been running on stress and adrenaline for weeks so we weren’t surprised. We spent most of the weekend with the kids. We played 42, watched a movie, ate at a couple of our favorite places and talked non-stop for hours. Sunday morning Jay Don preached at the two congregations Rhett preaches for. We enjoyed that and it was so great to renew many dear acquaintances. I didn’t even mind not understanding the singing—it just felt sort of good to hear the Russian again.

Monday we were finally back to the school. The students wanted Jay Don to speak in chapel and they were all so very welcoming and told us over and over how very much they had missed us. Of course I had dozens of pictures of Hannah to show them. They all called me "babushka"! Ugh! Our names are Grandie and Gran Gran.

We have only been back a couple of days and already are having many pleas for help. We just smile so big and say of course we can help you! What a great blessing to be able to do this. We have students (married with family) who are just making $80.00 a month and just can not make it on that small amount but thanks to you, we can help increase their support. We have a student whose husband and son have been very ill and needs extra money for medicines and thanks to you, we can help. We have a young man who needs to go to Kiev for pacemaker surgery and he can now go thanks to you.

God just opened the flood gates this time in the amount of money that was raised for our work over here. The many congregations that we visited, the many individuals that were touched and the awesome DVD of our work that was produced by Cory Church, Ashley McWatters, Brent Albrecht, Mark & Anniece Foster and the Pheasant Run Church of Christ, just produced thousands of dollars that we can share with our students, the hospitals, the orphanages and our building needs. THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF OUR HEARTS. To the individuals and congregations who received us so well and shared with us your hearts and finances we are truly thankful.

I can promise you we will use it all! We thank God daily for the generous spirit that you have in sharing in our work. You are doing more good than you will ever know—literally saving lives in some cases.

Jay Don will be teaching a full day next term plus running the school. Rhett is planning on teaching a course to help his dad out as we have no visiting teachers this term. Please remember them in your prayers. Things at the school were in great shape when we returned and we want to send HUGE thank yous to Doug Reeves, Marge too, for letting him come for a month, Chris Swinford and Robert Waller. We wouldn’t have been able to witness one of life’s greatest blessings if you all had not been so generous with your time. We have 8 new students at UBI and our financial position is healthy. God continually blesses in spite of difficulties.

Again let me say how very much we love you, what a joy it was to see so many of you and how very very grateful we are for your generous contributions for our work.

May God Bless You Over and Over Again,