Celebrations continued today as the children of the Center put on a program of singing and friendship for us. The hospitality and attention shown us is out of this world. Again, Ukrainians are renowned for making guests feel comfortable and special. They make sure that we are never without food and that we always have transportation to wherever we need to be going to. There are 22 of us British and American guests in all. All but the four of us are from the United Kingdom. Some have come from the British Aid for Deprived Children charity and another new charity that will continue its work.

The Center has expanded to its full size with an overnight capacity to handle 30 children overnight from outside the city. Otherwise, the Center has two sessions of rehabilitation throughout the day. In the psychological area there are three sessions throughout the day. We watch the buses bring in the children and their mothers or guardians. There are now 15 sessions of rehabilitation a year and the length of treatment time has been reduced to 21 days.

A pharmacy and a dental office have been attached to the Center to help generate income, but this is not working too well. While Ukrainians have many wonderful qualities, they do have some that don't help anyone. One is their continual suspicion of someone attempting any kind of enterprise and "making money" on a fellow Ukrainians. They resent seeing someone getting ahead through enterprise. After the pharmacy opened there was suddenly talk about the Center trying to "make business."

The work done by Dr. Pasechnyk and his team of 91 workers is miraculous as seen in the positive outcomes in the lives of the children. The environment and atmosphere is a big part of the treatment and healing process.

Children are referred here by Polyclinic Number 2 headed by Anna Yakubova who was also one of the founders of the Center.

At 11:00 am the children put on a program of song, verse, skits and choreography. They sing with their whole hearts and are not shy about performing. They dressed in various creative costumes. After the program they gave gifts to us visitors. It was great.

After the program, Dr. P's neurologist son in law Valerie Hrymchak who works at the Centre and I worked on a problem with the densitometer that we had shipped by container last year. It had a scanner connection problem which I think can be fixed by eliminating probable causes. A technician is coming in next week to look at it, however, it may be necessary for me to order a schematic for it after I return home. It is a high-quality densitometer, only Kiev has one like it. It was shipped as part of our container loaded at Peine Engineering over a year ago.

Through the afternoon I spent time with some of the staff that I have gotten to know through the years, notably Lydia Sayenko. She showed me the Montessori materials that we had sent through Canada and St. Petersburg, Russia last year. They have a special Montessori room for special education and I will have to say that I was really impressed with the supplies and equipment for learning basics. Lydia and staff were absolutely delighted with it and expressed their thanks again. Lydia's son is a gifted musician and played the keyboards for our dinner the evening before. One disappointment she shared was our not following through on a children's exchange program that hurt the children. In our work, we are learning increasingly how important it is to follow through on what you say you are going to do to achieve successful outcomes in helping people.

We have looked back to the help that we provided over the past ten years that included sending six sea containers, major remodeling for the expansion of the clinic, acquiring significant medical equipment such as an EEG machine, densitometer, mammogram machine for another hospital, building a playground, providing for a Montessori program and seven trips to this area in that time period. Our last contribution was a mini-bus that can take transport 20 children and 20 mothers or guardians from pick up spots around Chernihiv to the Center. We made this gift on the occasion of the tenth anniversary.

In the afternoon we also went to visit a cerebral palsy victim at home. Her name was Nastya, about 9 years old. She lived in a one-room apartment with her mother and older sister Dina. The living conditions are deplorable. On each floor of the apartment house kitchens, showers and bathrooms are shared. The halls are dark and unwelcoming. It was hard how anyone could live like that. For us, it was painful to even be in the building much less think about this being "home." Twenty percent of the population of Chernihiv lives like this.

While attention was centered on us foreigners who had helped the Center become what it is, an employee appreciation program was held at 4 pm that was devoted to honoring the 91 workers of the Center. One of the two co-mayors and another pleasant official leader who gave out special awards to the workers. We were dreading a long awards presentation with lots of speeches, but thankfully it didn't work out that way.

Then the employees put on skits and acts there were most entertaining and hilarious. We thoroughly enjoyed the entire program. Then there was a reception and snacks for them and everyone was very cheery and talkative.

At this point, I helped neurologist and son in law to Dr. Pasechnik's get Skype to work on the Center's computer. Skype is a computer program that allows for free voice communication over the Internet. As big as the Center is, there are only two telephone lines in and one computer that has Internet access. I did notice that doctors were using cell phones as kind of an intercom throughout the Center.

Finally, there was another dinner with all the guests who were now ready to return to the UK or for us, back to the USA.

Through little mini-speeches we expressed our joys at seeing the success of building a place to help children We also shared our challenges with raising money, the heroism of volunteers but also disappointments and future plans.

After the dinner we walked home in the dark through mud and darkness. We finally found the apartment building after a 15-minute walk. The elevator did not work and had to walk up 10 stories in almost total darkness to where the Pasechnik's live. They live on the ninth floor, but the ground floor is floor zero. Once we got to our floor, we had to walk through an outdoor passageway and then another darkened hallway.

Valery called this the second adventure. The first being walking through the puddles (Valery called them "rivers"). It was an unforgettable entertaining experience. We will be leaving for Estonia tomorrow, Friday, the 16th.