This week...our trip to ORPR camp!

This past week we took a trip to Chicago, stayed with our friend, Rita, who had sweet black raspberries growing in her yard.

Rita is 77 years old and has 3 children...one is 51 years old, Diana and needs prayers.  Rita has been with her as much as she possibly can, as Diana has been in the hospital for over a month now.  Diana was diagnosed with RSD a few years ago and there have been so many complications, most recently, her medication damaged her stomach, so on Friday, the doctors put in a feeding tube.  Rita still works at the YMCA with children part-time but has taken a lot of time off to be with her daughter.  Can you imagine how it would be to watch your daughter suffer?

 Bishop Alypy gives the sermon Sundays...

Then, went up to northern Illinois near Rock City for...

ОРПР (ORPR) camp.  That stands for "Oрганизация Pоссийских православных Pазведчиков" (which means "Organization of Russian Orthodox Pathfinders" in English).  

I did arts and crafts with the children at camp.  The first project we worked on was lanyard and beaded key chains, the second one was papier mache animals...here they are mid-way through...

Next the children will paint them...  The last project was a wooden icon corner.  Many of the children assembled them, and got to use the wood burning tools to design them.  There are still 3 more weeks of camp left.   

Masha washed all the Russian costumes...we did some sewing and repaired a few as well.  Most of the time, however, we worked in the kitchen, washing vegetables, slicing and dicing, serving food, then washing dirty dishes.

 

Olivia and new friends from camp ♥