It is really hard to separate Friday from Thursday.  Even though it is Friday, it is still Thursday to us.  We arrived in Minsk Friday afternoon about 1:30.  We all are pretty exhausted by this time.  It was hard to sleep on the plane from Chicago to Frankfurt.  

We went through 2 more security checkpoints in Frankfurt.  It seemed every time we turned around we were taking things out of our bags and going through another detector.  Katie got pulled for the wand.  We arrived at the gate for our next flight with some time to kill before we left.

The seats at the gate were very nice…leather, soft and most importantly, no side arms.  There were no people where we were so I stretched out across a section of seats, took my handy travel pillow and got comfortable.  The next think I knew Bro. Danny was waking us all up yelling, “They are calling our flight…they are calling our flight!”  It seemed we had all gotten comfortable and almost slept through the flight to Minsk!  We were all on the transport bus that drove us out to the plane before we were awake and knew what was going on.  If he had not alerted us I would probably still be asleep in the terminal!

We arrived in Minsk and went straight to a counter where we bought insurance.  I think it is more of an entrance tax than anything.  After we filled out some paperwork and paid out $4 we were off to go through passport control.  Passing through this process we went to baggage claim, got our bags and were escorted through the “green lane” right out the front door.  I couldn’t believe we didn’t have to go through customs where an agent went through our bags piece by piece.  We were blessed with a very smooth process.

Dan, our helper, was there to meet us.  After introductions and greetings we loaded up in vans and headed off for the city of Minsk.  We took a side trip to a very solemn place called Khatyn Memorial.  It is a WWII memorial.  During the war 1 out of every 4 Belarusians was killed.  There were entire villages, like the one where this memorial site is located, wiped out by Nazi soldiers.  There is a granite monument shaped like the roof of a barn on the site of the actual barn.  The soldiers locked all the villagers in the barn, began firing their weapons into the barn and then set the barn on fire.  All were killed except for one man.  He is depicted in the statues of the old man holding the child who has been killed.  There were chimneys everywhere from the homes that once stood.  Each chimney had a plaque with the names and ages of family members that once lived there.

There is another monument erected with names of areas affected.  There are teddy bears, pictures and money placed in window openings in the wall.  These are in remembrance of the children.  The Nazis used the children as blood donors.  When there was no more blood, they would toss their little bodies to their dogs as play toys.  Horrific stories of the torture and abuse they received.
It was a somber place.  There were several groups of people there, families, couples and groups of school children.  There was no running, laughing, joking or loud talking, just people walking through the memorials trying to imagine living under such fear of Hitler and his band of mad men.

Arriving in Minsk, we unloaded the vans and checked into the hotel.  We had dinner at the hotel with both helper families.  It was a fun time of fellowship as we talked about the work and prepared to get the week started.  Following dinner we tried to occupy our time until bedtime.  We didn’t want to go to bed too early.  The time difference would have made it difficult to sleep all night.  So we sat around in the hotel lobby visiting.  Some walked to a local grocery store.  The lobby had a wireless network for guest so I, and a few others, sent some emails.

The hotel was very nice.  President Clinton stayed there a few years ago.  The rooms were tiny with 2 twin size beds in them.  The bath was also very small.  We were so tired it didn’t matter!  Katie and I crashed about 10:30.