Happy Harvest Day

     We enjoyed celebrating Zhatva or Harvest Day with our church family a couple of weeks ago.  One very special part of the day was Vlad and Masha dedicating their baby to the Lord.  We are thankful to be a part of this family's life and are excited for them as they seek the Lord with their family.  We are starting up a home group with this couple with the hopes of reaching out to unbelievers.

We had a meal after the service, where everyone brought dishes from the harvest.

   

     Ella played with her little friends.  Galina made this hat for Ella and a matching one for Anneka.  They're so cute and were a labor of love!   Leif and I are now in charge of the little ones (ages 2-4) during children's church.  They're busy, busy, busy!

     It was so cute- on the morning before our Harvest service (at home), Ike seemed really tired.  I told him, "When we get to church, you can sit on Inka's lap and go to sleep".  When we got there, I had to run home really fast to get some songbooks.  When I returned just a few minutes later, Ike had already made his way to Inka and was totally out!  He stayed that way for 2 hours.  This last Sunday he seemed tired, too, so we told him we could sleep on Leif.  But no luck!  He needed Inka.  =)

     Vera brought sunflowers to give to the kids.  They took the seeds out and ate them.  Anneka was very excited about this.  She and Leif are the squirrels of our family.  They often have sunflower seeds or pinenuts in their pockets.  I like them both, but to me they're a lot of work for a small reward.

And Leif got the privelege of feeding Ike watermelon!  Messy, messy, but oh, so good!

     There's a new family that's been coming to our church for the past few months.  They came to the last member's meeting and people asked them what made them decide to stay at our church.  They said a big reason was that their girls had made friends with our girls.  This was encouraging to us.  We like this family and look forward to getting to know them more!