On Sunday, our group was split up with Dirk, Vicki and me going Morshansk and the rest staying in Tambov for church. I took a few pictures of our time in Morshansk. We didn't know it until we got there, but this would be the last time the orphans would be in Morshansk because their orphanage was closing and they were moving to an orphanage outside of Tambov. At the end of the service, the church gave the children a picture of their time at the Friday day camp, which touched a lot of the kids to start crying. These kids don't receive a lot and for them to receive this picture they loved it. The picture they got was the group photo I took and sent to everyone from Friday's day camp. The picture is on the blog under Friday's posting.

As I understand it, the kids stay within these orphanages until they are old enough to leave, which I believe is 18 years old. Then they are given Rubels and are expected to live on their own, except this results in a problem in that the kids don't understand how to take care of themselves, and expect people to continue to provide for them. A small majority lead normal lives, but I have a feeling these kids were influenced by people such as those of the Morshansk and Tambov churches.

Finally, I've also come to appreciate our roads, traffic and some of the oldest American cars. I wished I could take a video of the driving... lets just say I've experienced the road in ways that I never thought was possible. Several times we commented to our drivers that an axile or wheel was left behind after a VERY hard jolt and that we had to turn around to get it. Most often, we all start laughing and keep going on.

Oh, one other thing... we are all becoming very good at using gestures or charades to communicate and it's taken quite well.