Back In Siberia

     We've switched worlds once again.  We had a sweet time the past few months in the States and treasure the memories in our hearts always.  We were blown away by peoples' kindness toward us and are so encouraged by how many more people are praying for us and for the dear people here in Buryatia.  Already we are seeing the results of people's prayers as we reunite with people here.  It brings joy to our hearts!  Our travels were so smooth this time.  The timing of our flights was perfect and we basically read books and watched a bunch of movies on the overseas flight.  This was our kids' dream come true.  We arrived in Beijing around 9pm, a perfect time to go to sleep!  Leif found someone's apartment for us to stay in.  It was so ideal for an inexpensive place to stay, near the airport.  There was even a little store in our building.  I embarrassed Anneka at the store when I wanted to buy eggs.  Since I don't know Chinese, I had Ike act like a chicken while I pretended to collect eggs under him.  I was happy they knew just what we wanted and gave us eggs! (Anneka was mortified). 

     We had a whole day layover in Bejing.  We had learned that the Great Wall was just an hour away.  The owner of our apartment not only took us to and from the airport, but drove us to the Great Wall, too!  The day was so beautiful and the wall was amazing.  In homeschool, we had been doing a unit study on China the previous couple of weeks.  Because of our study, we knew about a place at the wall where you take a chair lift up and slide on a gigantic, winding slide all the way down (instead of a cable car both ways).  We found this part of the wall and enjoyed every second of it!

      The next day we arrived back in frigid Siberia.  Our teammates were all at our house to greet us, a tradition that we cherish.  We've also enjoyed other reunions with friends and neighbors.  I haven't taken a single picture at any of these occasions!



      Denis, our friend who has been living in our house, was here right when we arrived to teach Leif how to use our furnace.  We had expected it to be much colder inside than it is, a happy surprise.  It takes more than an hour each time to prepare the furnace, but then the fire lasts 1.5 days or so.

      We're back to getting our drinking water from the well.  Back to eating borscht for lunch.  Back to bundling a lot before we go outside and walking a lot more.  Back to wearing slippers all the time inside.  Back to not having eye contact with people on the street and not being greeted by strangers.  And thankfully, we are filled with peace and God's love for this place and the people here.

      Ike's been enjoying having snowball fights as we walk places.  Yesterday was Men's Day and he and Leif joined some other dads and sons for a game of ice hockey.  They had a great time and it was so good for Ike to be with a bunch of other active boys, just like him.



     A day before we left for the States, Ella lost her beloved wolf stuffed animal (her "son", Wolfy).  She was crushed and has missed him for months.  Imagine her delight when we found him together with the other stuffed animals, packed away in a bag!  Ella has taken Wolfy everywhere with her and even bundles him in a coat and scarf when she goes outside.  Here, he's tucked inside of her coat.

The kids have loved being together with friends again!  

... and drinking goat's milk again.

   One cool thing from this past week was a guy who got baptised.  It was at a hot springs, as the river is frozen solid.

     Another cool thing is all of the people who have been coming to our English Club the last two weeks!  We've been having good discussions and are enjoying getting to know people more.  After the club today, we ordered a taxi to get home (we don't have a car yet and our friends had returned our pet rat to us, so it was bulky with the cage and too cold to walk outside with him and ride the bus).  The driver that came for us"just happened" to live on our street!  He's a neighbor we hadn't met yet.  I just love how God does things like that.