Life skills.  You learned them and didn’t even know it.  Sharing.  Vacuuming the floor.  Making scrambled eggs.  Doing laundry.  Maybe you discovered the ones you didn’t have when you went to college.  Maybe your wife still says you still don’t have some of them down.

That’s one of the roles of parents in equipping their children for the “world out there.”.  In Key of Hope, we are trying to teach some of these skills in fun and creative ways to the orphans in our charge.  Next week, in fact, I’m going to a life skills training course, sponsored partially by CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network.

We do have another plan that’s forming.  Many of the basic skills that I mentioned above are difficult to do in the confines of the orphanage, due to health laws in the kitchen, or maybe child labor laws.  These are things I hear.

So we’re looking into renting an apartment for a month in Makariv, (home of the orphanage) and bringing the children there for life skills stuff.  One possible scenario would be renting it through the Christmas season, and preparing for a Christmas celebration.  But that may be too soon.  The ducks aren’t quite lined up.

I think it will be fun for kids to leave the orphanage and hang out in our little apartment.  Like a field trip.  Yippee!  In their village, rent isn’t expensive.  I’m told around $150 a month.  

Anyway, it’s my job to make a proposal and/or presentation for the orphanage director, to see if we can get permission to do all this.  In fact, no matter how good our ideas are, the director (who’s quite nice) controls the shots.  So keep me in your prayers.

One week, I’d like to devote to making pancakes.  Or actually the better Ukrainian version, which is called bliny.  They’re more like crepes.  In that week, we could introduce kids to measuring cups and spatulas and frying pans.  They can learn how to break eggs.  Plus teach the hygiene in washing your hands before, as well as washing dishes WITH SOAP at the end.  Sorry, the caps reveal a deep seated issue in my heart.

So here’s a nifty opportunity to make this communiqué a little more interactive.  I’m looking for suggestions on what life skills, and how to present it.  If you’ve got a clever idea, you can email me at captaincrouton@hotmail.com or post it as a reply on my blog  at www.markuswolf.blogspot.com  

¶ 10:35 AM

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