Friday Recovery

Since many people left after midnight from the Thursday birthday party (the look above is after we've eaten through the piles of food), we spent Friday trying to get back to normal. Both Lena and I had good meetings with two church members, just times to encourage, answer questions, encourage a little more. Our Friday group was huge this week. People just kept coming. I think over 25 came. Liza and Sergiy gave me two 2-litres of Cola Lite for my birthday. During one of my trips downstairs, Vitya was sent to delay my return to the meeting hall. As I was finally allowed to enter, Tanya Zh. was holding a huge "Napoleon" cake Lyuda had made. Candles had been lit and I received the traditional singing of "Happy Birthday" in Russian followed by a second Christian version of the familiar tune. I then blew out the candles. Big mistake. Napoleon cake is topped with a heavy layers of basically very lightweight crumbs. As I blew, several people were coated in the delicate morsels. Fortunately, they don't stain. It was a great cake, though. I had bought my favorite Kyivsky cake (which has really gone up in price--now it's about $7 for a kilo cake) and we also enjoyed buckwheat, boiled sausages, and cooked cabbage.

It also snowed for the first time on Friday. It melted almost instantaneously but it did snow. My mom called and said it was 80 F in Athens, TN. Oh well.......