In Mongolia.... in just 20 years!!

     In the past 20 years in Mongolia, Christianity has grown tremendously.  In 1990, there was just one church and 50 Christians.  Now there are 480 churches and 100,000 Christians!  The Buryats are very closely related to the Mongolians.  This is exciting for us to see, and we pray that this work will spread to our region!

Conference

     Have you ever come across something that you just really don't understand?  Where all you can do is scrunch up your brow and scratch your head?  Well, that is what every westerner runs into when they first encounter Tibetan Buddhism.  It is also what every Russian runs into.  In fairness it is really the same way for the Tibetan Buddhist who first encounters Christianity.  These things just don't make sense together.  Sometimes we use the same words, but what we mean is completely different.  We have come to see that this lack of understanding can create all sorts of problems as we try to reach out in love to those around us here in Buryatia.  Because of that we have been part of putting on conferences to teach those in the church about particulars of Tibetan Buddhism and to work out ideas for better reaching out to people from this background, and just finished one in November.  We had some great speakers who shared their expertise and experience and added a lot.  We had wonderful interaction with people from different churches and cultures, and we are praying that God will use what we learned so that we can better share the good news of Jesus with our friends and neighbors.

One thing that becomes very clear as we begin to talk about Tibetan Buddhism is that there are many spirits involved.  Because of this we realize how important it is for us to pray so that God will work to open our hearts and the hearts of those we are talking with to the truth.  At this conference we tried to not just talk about the importance of prayer, but to actually take the time to pray!

It is wonderful how God unifies us and works in and around us as we stop to bring our requests to Him and to listen to Him!

Another great part of the conference was time in fellowship around the table for lunch and dinner and tea breaks.  As much as people wanted to interact in the program of the conference, it was clear that people were really excited to engage in this informal setting.  I was encouraged as I saw people from different denominations loving and caring for each other as they talked and shared and showed interest in each other.

Actually a number of people mentioned that they really appreciated this time in the conference.  It certainly didn't hurt that the food was great!

This is part of the great kitchen crew that made the wonderful meals.  We are so thankful for the work and sacrifice they made to be there each day with long hours in the kitchen while the rest of us interacted in the courses and discussion groups.

Speaking of other people blessing us to allow us to enjoy the conference, I really want to say thank you to Jami!  She is such a wonderful wife.  So often she makes the sacrifice of watching the kids so that I can be involved in various ministries, and she did that again during this conference where I was really busy with the administrative side of things as well as participating myself.  I was glad that she was able to come with the kids a couple of days for part of the time so that she could be a part of things too.  I love her so much!

A few of the other kids got to come too.  Here's Anneka with a couple of her international friends.  They enjoyed playing together while the conference was going on.

Isaac got to borrow this stroller for a nap.  He slept for hours here, even with all of the noise and people walking by.   I think he enjoyed being at the conference too :).

Thanksgiving Blessings

     There's so much to catch up on from the past two weeks!  I'll probably post a few over the next few days, but I'll start with Thanksgiving!  We always miss being with family on Thanksgiving.  God blessed us this year with a wonderful Thanksgiving this year, however.  We had the Robertson family, Nettie, Renata, and Melly over to celebrate with us.  Anneka made placecards and herself decided where each person would sit.

     Here's a picture that includes Melly and me at the far end.  It's so nice having so much room in our apartment!

     Over the past weeks, our family has added a leaf to this "Thanksgiving tree" each day. (Leif and the girls helped me collect sticks outside to make it.) On one side of the leaf is a Bible verse about thankfulness and on the other side we've written something we're thankful for.  Then on Thanksgiving Day, every person read their verse as we sat around the table, and then shared something that they were personally thankful for.  It was encouraging to hear, and fun to see our tree filled with leaves.

     The girls also made these little hats leading up to Thanksgiving.  Here, Ella's was already missing several feathers.

     Anneka wrote different things she's thankful for on her feathers.  She came up with them all on her own.  She wrote "love, joy, Jesus, wisdom, and family and friends".

The girls loved having friends to play with!

     The kids "helped" Nettie make monkey bread, which was a HUGE help to us, as Leif and I were getting the last minute things ready (gravy made, turkey carved, etc) for the dinner.  This year we found BOTH a turkey AND celery... the first time for this to ever happen!

Here, Ella was helping Nettie to test the monkey bread to see if it was done.

     After dinner, we wrote on feathers ways that God has worked in and around us this past year and stuffed this turkey that Nettie brought with the feathers.  To name a few were Ike's healthy birth, people coming to Christ, friends and family visiting, and encouraging trips to the States.  We have so much to be thankful for!
   
     This morning, as I was pulling Anneka on a sled in the dark and subzero temperatures on the way to school, we shared, back-and-forth, things that we're thankful to God for.  It's so good to focus on Him and to see His many blessings all around us.

Thank you to all who prayed for our Thanksgiving away from our families back home!

The Best News!

Conference Near Irkutsk

So, for some reason I can't write text between the pictures today... but that's okay because I wouldn't know what to write... haha!  These are pictures from a church conference Leif went to with some of the guys from Ulan Ude.  The first part of the conference was on what it means to be a pastor and the second part was on true freedom.  I don't really know a lot more except that it was a good time, both learning and connecting with others.  Leif has his plate full this week with preparing for a conference next week, so I thought I'd post these pictures, and you can just imagine what happened... after all a picture is worth a thousand words, right?

Coat Repair

     It's the time of year when we switch from wearing regular winter coats to needing to pull out our heavy-duty winter coats.  This morning it was 1F (-17C), and it's just going to get colder.  Ella and I took the coats in to get repaired.  My coat had holes in the pockets, so I had lots of treasures floating around in the lining.  Anneka's coat had a hole inside- right where the sleeve attaches to the coat, so if she put her arm in through the hole instead of through the sleeve, it got stuck in there.  And we needed some new zippers.

     So, we took this bundle to the repair shop, but the repair shop was closed.  I double checked the sign on the door.  It opened at 10:00 and we were there after 11:00.  I commented to a lady that it wasn't very convenient because I had a little girl with me and all those coats (and it made it hard to do other needed shopping!)  She told me that I should have come in the day before to double check with the seamstress to make sure she'd be there.  Oh, yes, that would have made everything easier!!  Thankfully that day, I had the van (normally we would have walked), so we were able to put everything outside while we did more shopping.

    After we bought a few groceries, the repair lady came!  I told her we'd be right back, I just had to grab our coats from the car. When we returned a few minutes later, she was gone and the door was locked.   By now everyone was staring at the little girl and her mom with all the coats.  Then we found the lady. And she unlocked the door.  And now we should get our coats back tomorrow and be officially prepared for winter!

Opportunites

     Last Saturday Leif and I were talking about how we would love to share about Jesus more with people, but we haven't had a lot of opportunities lately.  So we prayed.  And the next day, Leif had some great conversations with some of the people at the tea time after the English Club!  One young lady declined a ride home from the Brubachers because she had so many more questions and wanted to keep talking.  Leif came home feeling encouraged and energized.  It's so life-giving to share about the Life-Giver!  We are thanking God for this answer to prayer and are trusting Him to open more doors.  Please pray with us for more of these opportunities!

Russian Lessons and Homework

 

     When we first came to Ulan-Ude, I took Russian language classes in the university for a year.  During that year I was pregnant and felt like I had lost part of my brain... but of course, I learned a lot.  After that, we had a baby...and another baby... and another baby.  And frankly, official language classes went by the wayside.  At one point when Anneka was a baby, a retired Russian professor from the university came to our home to give me lessons.  But it was hard if Anneka woke up from her nap or if one of us was sick.  And it was a stress to clean up the apartment and make something to go with tea, even though the lessons themselves were good and I loved the teacher.

     But now I am LOVING taking lessons from a teacher from a language school in Ukraine via skype.  She is excellent, and the lessons are so helpful.  I just have one lesson a week, after the kids go to bed.  I go to the apartment next door so that I can focus (Leif is with the kids).  We have been going through basic grammar (the six Russian cases).  The difference now from the first time I learned the cases is that I know the vocabulary!  The first year I was so hung up on learning the nouns and verbs that it was hard to remember everything AND put it all into the proper form.  But now I know most of the words and am learning how to say things correctly, and I'm SO HAPPY about it!

     The first 30 minutes of our lesson, I talk about things in my life, and Irina corrects me.  It's great because these are a lot of the things I talk about with other people.  It has helped me to have more confidence with neighbors, Anneka's teachers, and people at church.  

     Last week I went to the church members meeting and Leif stayed home with the kids.  (he is the one who always goes, but this time we decided to mix it up a bit).  I was so pleased that I understood 99% of what was said at the meeting!  

     The one detriment of taking these classes is that I'm ALWAYS correcting myself now.  My mind tells me immediately if I've said something wrong and I stop and correct it.  This makes for longer conversations, but I'm guessing that over time, the right grammar will come more quickly- before I say it the wrong way!

 

     Anneka, of course, is also learning Russian in a more intensive way, as she's in school.  She has homework, too.  Each week there is a theme.  The first weeks were pretty basic themes:  seasons, fruits, vegetables... and then it went to types of birds and  then types of mushrooms!  I don't know types of mushrooms in ENGLISH much less Russian!  
   
     All of the kids are expected to memorize three riddles and one poem a week (a picture of two poems about autumn is above).  I wrote a letter to Anneka's teachers, explaining our goals for her and how it's really hard for her to memorize poems in another language.  I told them we would work with her on the vocabulary from each week's theme, but that she would most likely memorize less riddles and poems than her classmates.  The teachers have been really great.  And most weeks, Anneka memorizes two, and lately three a week!  We always choose the shortest ones possible, of course.  And lately, I've noticed that Anneka's mistakes are less with the sounds and more with the meaning.  For example, instead of saying the word for "to walk" differently (like "valk"), she'll use a different word that means walk (for example " to stroll").  This shows me that her comprehension is going up.

     And she continues to make friends.  We are praising God for this!