Sports Day

     Because of where the Buryat New Year and Men's Day fell on the calendar this year, most people had a 4-day weekend.  Our kids were invited to a Sports Day at a local gym.

     I wasn't sure how it would be for my three, as they didn't know any of the kids there.

 But within a couple of minutes, they were all interacting and playing.

Getting into a line to form teams

     Our friend, Olya, let the kids freely play for part of the time, and then she set up some organized games.

They had a lot of fun!

We all really enjoyed the time and look forward to the next Sports Day!

Buryat New Year

     White Month (Sagaalgan) began on Febuary 24th this year, a few weeks later than usual.  On this first day of White Month (Buryat New Year), everyone needs to be prepared for guests at any moment.  People have been spending the past week deep cleaning their houses. They also have been preparing white and traditional foods to serve guests who will stop in throughout the month.

     Our friends invited us to their home to celebrate the first day of Sagaalan with them. They had everything so perfectly prepared.

     During this month, you exchange gifts such as tea, towels, chocolate, and milk.  It is also common to give a blessing. Leif found a blessing in the New Testament (the Old Testament should be completed soon!) and learned it in Buryat to share with the family.

     It was a feast! Dumplings, horse and beef, cheese, sausage, cakes, salads, mushrooms and white sauces... each person is expected to try a little of each item.

     They gave everyone in our family gifts, too. Ike was so happy with his chocolate bar and 100 rubles!

     Later that day, the kids and I were listening to a history book for school. I fell asleep in the middle of it and was just waking up and thinking that I needed to go to the store and figure out what I would make for a party we were going to in a couple of hours. At that moment, I got a text message that our neighbors were coming over! We knew that you were supposed to be prepared for guests, especially on this day, but we honestly didn't think anyone would come to us, as it's a big Buryat family day. And we had planned on specifically inviting people to come later into the month. 

    Our house was a mess, and we had hardly any food! Each person in the family was a total rockstar and immediately began running around, cleaning and preparing.   Anneka was especially a hero.  She knew that it would be important to have a salad, so she whipped up a salad out of 1/4 cabbage, a carrot, oil and vinegar.  She's amazing!!  She also arranged our one cucumber and one apple nicely on a plate to make them look nice.  We dug through our candy that's been sitting in the cupboard for who-knows-how-long.  And I found a bag of chips to dump into a bowl.  We added some grilled cheese sandwiches and - Viola!- a 5 minute feast.  We laughed so hard later at our funny meal, especially in light of the amazing feast Natasha had made for us earlier in the day!

     We had a really nice time talking with our guests and exchanging gifts.  We acted like our foods were totally normal and encouraged everyone to enjoy everything.

     Later that day, we went to our neighbors for a Buryat New Year party.  We ate more dumplings and white foods and exchanged white gifts.  We talked about how no amount of inward or outward cleansing rituals will really change our hearts.  Only Jesus can make us whiter than snow.  

     It was a perfect start to White month, and the evening has already spurred new spiritual conversations with others.  We look forward to more special times with neighbors and friends throughout this holiday month!

Two New English Groups

     We've had a couple of local opportunities to open up new English groups.  One is through a mom that I met when Ike was in karate last year.  These ladies are so friendly and fun! I'm looking forward to getting to know them better and better.

a picture one of the ladies sent me from her phone

     The other group is similar to our other English Club.  We call it "English Nights", as we recently learned that the word club can seem more like it's for kids than for adults.  It's started out rather small, but with still enough people to divide into two groups (beginner and advanced) and to teach by using different passages from the Bible. 

     We are encouraged by the small start and by the people who have been coming.  One guy has written 2 poems already about how much he loves English Nights!  It's very endearing.

     Anneka has taken on the big responsibility of babysitting the small kids that come with their parents.  She comes up with activities for them and brings a snack to keep them happy.  It's so nice for us, because the kids naturally get wild right about the time that we start talking about deeper things.  Her role has been soooo helpful and valuable!



     The kids make huge messes, and Anneka cleans up afterward, too.  This is the broom she uses.  There's no dust pan, so she sweeps everything onto a piece of paper (a bit of a challenge!)



     The church who is allowing us to use their building for English Nights has had some conflicts with their schedule.  One night they told us we needed to cancel, as they would be using the facility.  We took that chance to invite some people over that we really wanted to connect with .  It turned out to be a really special evening, enjoyed by all!

Some Fun Recent Things

     I always have random pictures on my phone that don't really fit into any one category.  So here's a recent conglomeration....

     We found this mandarin orange on a plate that was forgotten on top of a refrigerator for a month.  It had turned black from sitting there.  Anneka's friend told her he'd give her 1,000 rubles if she ate the inside of the mandarin.  Guess who is 1,000 rubles richer?  ;)  Anneka was pretty proud of this feat.  She bought a new sweatshirt with the money.

     Leif and I celebrated our anniversary in January this year (because our actual anniversary was during the time I was in the States with Ella).  The kids stayed the night with friends, and we had a really nice time catching up and relaxing.  It was a great time for everyone!

We always love the fun ice sculptures all over the city in the winter.  

     The slides are very fun, too.  The kids convinced me to slide, too.  There's a slide in our neighborhood that our kids take sleds down with neighbor kids.  Ike has come home a couple of times recently with wounds from it.  They get going so fast!  But it doesn't seem to stop them.

     We were encouraged by how people came from several different churches to pray for the unreached people of the world.  It was a great time of singing praise songs in Buryat and praying with one another for the nations.  

Getting Water at the Well

Ella and Papa, drinking tea together.

     Anneka was busy one Saturday and Leif and I traded off dates with Ike and Ella.  We always like to get one-on-one time with our kids when we are able.

 
     I took this picture of Anneka and Nadezhda, preparing food for our home group.  I couldn't help but notice how tall and grown up Anneka has gotten!!

     Some of the ladies from our church had a baby shower for Olya.  The girls helped me make the diaper cake. 

     We celebrated Leif's birthday with a family dinner at home.  We've had a lot going on lately, so it was nice to not go anywhere and to play a game together.

     Leif had several meetings on his birthday (our family dinner was actually the day before his birthday), but we were able to squeeze in lunch together downtown between meetings. 

     Ike likes to experiment and is always busy!  On this day, he was trying to make a hot air balloon with a candle and a plastic bag.  I love watching him delve into these types of things!

Superbowl Party

     We used this year's Superbowl as an opportunity to invite friends- both old and new- over to come and watch with us.  I think it's interesting for people here to watch American football, because it is different from the popular sports here in Russia.  Mostly guys came, with a few women and kids, too.  There were so many people here that I couldn't even count them all!

     For some reason our internet connection was very slow and the game woudn't buffer.  So the guys brainstormed and came up with a way to download the game onto someone's phone and then plug it into our computer.  This whole process took almost two hours, but we all enjoyed eating and walking while we waited.



     I didn't take any pictures of the food, except for this fish pie that I ordered from a stand by Ella's dance school.  I thought it was cute how they even designed the bread with a fish picture.  =)  We made a bunch of nachos, which was a new food for many people to try.  They were a big hit, as you can imagine.  How can you go wrong with corn chips and melted cheese?!



     Of course, the Seahawks weren't playing this year, but this is the first time we've all had Seahawks shirts, so we had to wear them.



     It was soooo hot in our house with all of the people.  Daniela and I sat in the entryway where it was cooler.  ;)



     The kids had fun daring each other to do silly things like block the screen.  I don't think everyone understood what they were doing, which made it extra funny.

sweet friends

Everyone had a good time.

We were thankful for a chance to connect with people from different spheres of our life.