For many of you keeping up with Oksana, one of the gals who's close to my heart, she is so looking forward to having a place in Naomi's home. When I shared with her this last week that we bought land for Naomi's home it was neat to slowly watch the understanding sink in and the smile spread across her face. 

This special gal, and orphan, has been through a lot in her short life of 20 years. We've spent much time building up to October 7th when she had almost 7 hours of major surgery. She's been through some long nights of pain after major jaw reconstruction so her teeth could line up so she can eat normally. There are challenges that still need to be overcome, but we got the okay from the surgeon today.  It was our 2 week mark after surgery. 
Oksana really is doing very well by the grace of God.

Before 

2 weeks after

Kamitra, Beverly and I

have tried to be the nurse at home that Oksana's needed with the help 

and encouragement of many ladies from the local church and friends here in Austin, TX.

So very blessed and cared for.

Today is Friday

Jennifer and Joe Brown offered their time again today to work with Sasha to transplant trees, take out trees that got infected and put in new trees in the therapy garden at the Stephen's Home plot before winter sets in. So grateful for their help and Julia's too in selecting the best trees for the garden.

THE HOUSE DESIGN FOR STEPHEN"S HOME

This is what we are going with, the Ukrainian designers approval of the floor plans we submitted to them with very minor changes.

From here the construction designs can begin.

So the unanimous vote by the board was for option #1. The owner was willing to come down in price to $8000 and this past Tuesday, October 14th, the payment was made and ownership papers were given over to our director, Sasha, on behalf of PROMISE. Here are a few more photos of the plot, the existing building that will most likely come down, when we begin building Naomi's Home.

Looking at the front door of the existing little home on the plot, back at the road,

the yellow pipe in the air is the gas pipe for the village, 

so the gasline, it's close.

This is a well on the plot, but the plot does have city water, 

it simply needs to be hooked up/turned on again.

The house from the road. It sits in the north west corner of the plot.

The owner had the electric meter removed so folks couldn't hook other equipment

up to it and have him be charged the expense. He is willing to help pay for the

hook up of the electricity again once we'll need it for building Naomi's home. 

You can see in this picture, there is an electrical line coming into the existing building.

I hope while I am here in the States with Oksana to begin the designs for the women's home.

The process we went through with Stephen's home, we learned a lot. Planning to use what we learned

as a stepping stone as we go into designing Naomi's home. Excited! The ladies will have a home too.

We have a meeting with the Board of Director's of PROMISE, this coming Thursday, to decide whether or not to purchase one of 4 different plots available for Naomi's home. Below are some images of the plots we are considering in the village of Darivka, just blocks from where we are building Stephen's home.

Option #1 - My favorite, it's wide open and the amount of land that we need

for Naomi's home and some expansion. It's got garden space and it's a good price.

We could keep and expand from the small house in the far corner

OR take it down without much work and begin fresh and anew.

Option #2 - Has potential, good size main building that would 

need major refurbishing, but is laking a gas hook-up

that is not close so it'd be costly. Sits along the main highway so it could be loud

if we didn't put up more trees as a noise barrier. No back yard to speak of.

2 back out buildings, one quite large in size

Option #3 - A farm, right outside the village of Darivka, 

these crossroads in the foreground take you into the village.

It is 3.5 hectors, 2.8 acres to a quarter of a hector

Lots of land and therefore the cost is higher, but appropriate. 

The amount of land would allow for lots of possible expansions, but the concern

is that we'd just create another isolated community, like what they've been in all their lives

and we are trying to help them become part of community.

Option #4 - the original plot we been considering, just not certain

how honest the owner is, he's really wanting to get rid of it,

uncertain of his motivation. It's the closest to the church and Stephen's

Home plot, it's a good size, but not enough to give us space to expand.

Smaller than option #1 and twice the price. Has a illegal well on the plot, not registered.

We'd need to completely start from scratch, saving what materials we could from the structure as many

of the materials are reusable and then use the foundation and add on to the structure. 

Lots of paperwork to do all that if it's worth it. Again no gas hook-up here.

WORK IN THE THERAPY GARDEN

Jennifer and I went through the fruit trees, after consulting two other ladies with green thumbs, and discussed which trees needed to come out, which trees are healthy and can stay, how many apple trees we really wanted as a majority of them are apples and such. We've narrowed down the number of trees by half to allow for space for each to grow and mature. There are plans to plant other fruit trees in the central part of the garden once the construction is complete. But for now we plan to have 2 cherry trees, 4 apple trees, a pear, 2 peach, an apricot and 2 plum trees. There is a dead walnut tree that we tried, but it just didn't make it through the hot summer, so we'll replace that this fall with a new one to become the central shade tree around which the rest of the garden spreads out. The Japanese flowering tree has grown taller and the grape vines are doing great, we've got 10 of those in varying kinds that are unknown at this point, 

Sasha just knows he bough 2 of each :-). Hibiscus plants will go in this fall, possibly hollyhocks as well along the neighboring fence line. All other smaller plants and flowers are going to have to wait as this central area of the garden will be a work area through the building of Stephen's house.

Trying to discern how far from the neighbor Larisa's property line we want to have 

the back trellis with morning glories planted. 

It will form a semiprivate wall at the back of the swing.

Trying to wrap the smallest grape vine around the string supports 

so it will grow up and not out.

Measuring for the width of the the sidewalk and then the width of the trellis that 

will shade the sidewalk area leading back to the swing.

Jennifer represents the location on the new apricot tree, 

I am standing in the spot of the spot of a lilac transplant 

to fill the far corner and mark the boundary.

The plot for the therapy garden is just now beginning the transfer process of documents from the owner, Larisa, to PROMISE. We've had to wait as local offices are changing across the country to consolidate the number of little offices in villages, to one local office at the largest village in the surrounding area. That's the slow step #1 that we've had to wait on. #2 is that Larisa does not have any documentation stating that she is the owner of the property. This is typical for elderly here in Ukraine as the plot has simply been passed down from one generation to the next without question.  #3 This therefore implys that she does not have documents privatizing her plot, making the land hers as well as the house on it. That is necessary in order for us to then go through the official purchase process. Hoping that all this will process sooner than later, the Lord knows, grateful.