My blogs have been limited lately and it has nothing to do with the title of this blog. I’ll get to that blog title in a minute but first I must explain my failure to produce any blogs for the last couple weeks.
Kathie and I have been “teenage sitting” grandchildren, not in the Ukraine but in Mahnomen, MN. Their parents were off soaking up the sun in Jamaica while the grandparents held the fort down in the north country.
Teenage grandkids are much easier to care for then when they were younger. Both Logan and Miah are involved in basketball so we attended three evenings of basketball games while we were there. That meant no worries about what to make for the evening meal as we all lived on pizza, popcorn, pop, etc. from the concession stand.
They got up in the mornings made their own breakfast and Logan drove them to school while the grandparents slept in. I’m almost feeling guilty sharing this with you. 🙂
We did work on one group project, a three thousand piece puzzle. We took turns through the week searching for pieces that matched. When we left for home there were 2500 puzzle pieces still scattered around the table tops. I’m more of 500 piece puzzle guy myself. If parents Jill and Greg would take one more eight day vacation this winter I think we could lower the unattached puzzle pieces down to a possible 1000. That was one tough puzzle! 🙁
When the grandkids were younger it was our job to entertain them but they turned the tables on us this time and entertained us. They invited us to attend a Llama Knowledge Bowl Contest in Crookston, MN. It was a 4-H sponsored event. I didn’t know there was so much to know about Llamas proving once again one is never too old to learn something new.
The afternoon was capped off by a trip to the bowling alley in East Grand Forks where my wife almost beat me even though I have been starring in the local Wheaton winter bowling league. (“Starring” might be a slight exaggeration. “Participating” might be a better description.) 🙂
It was fun watching the young 4-Hers, many whom had never bowled much before. There was much laughter and quite a variety of ball releasing styles. 🙂
Mahnomen is famous for its casino so we had to visit it briefly. We enjoyed an Ash Wednesday brunch at one of its restaurants. We did leave four dollars at the casino which took about two minutes to accomplish. 🙂
We came home feeling like we had been on a winter vacation ourselves. We didn’t have that nice tan but we had a ‘glow’ resulting from the time we spent with a couple of special grandkids and their friends. 🙂
Now about that title to this blog…..visiting the Ukraine without leaving home? Let me explain. If you are one of those people who reads my blogs over and over again because you enjoy them so much you might remember two years ago I received a contract from Publishing House Smirna, Cherkassy, Ukraine. (By the way if you are that person who reads my blogs over and over again please let me know because that would do wonders for my ego! Old people have egos too.) 🙂
A couple weeks ago I received an email from the editor of Smirna Publishing verifying my address. It seems my book “The Easter Sparrows” has been released in both Russian and Ukrainian just in time for the Lenten season.
The editor needed to know my address because they were sending me ten complimentary copies of the Russian book and ten copies of the Ukrainian book. Even though I am the author I will not be able to read a word of my work.
About a week after I received that email a package arrived in the mail full of Ukrainian stamps and a foreign appearing return address. The mailman delivered it to me personally and I think he was more excited about delivering a package from the Ukraine then I was receiving it. It was a refreshing break from all that junk mail he has to deliver.
The books are beautiful. They are a little smaller then my original version printed by WestBow Press and the pictures have been increased in size slightly.
So I will be visiting the Ukraine for this Lenten season and hopefully many more to come. Of course I will not bodily be there but my words will and hopefully they will make a difference in someone’s life in that far off land.
What if the Russian President Putin got a copy of “The Easter Sparrows” and became a Christian as a result. I could be in line for the Nobel Peace Prize. I’m not holding my breath on that one however. 🙂
Until next time.
