use number 132 for a tire!

Okay, so I (Leif) am not really sure what the first 131 uses for a tire are, but if you gave me some time I'm sure I could come up with well over 132 uses. This weekend we used them in a whole new way.
The youth from church decided that we should go out of the city to have some fun in the snow now that it is "spring" (the temperatures acually have edged to almost freezing on a couple of days for the first time in months :)). And as youth round the world always like to have a little thrill, we decided to pull people behind a van through the snow. The thing is that we didn't have any inner-tubes or good sleds for doing this so we used some tires that the pastor had available. To be perfectly honest, this isn't the stranges thing that I've been pulled behind a vehicle on. I remember one time as kids the extended family was together and we cousins talked an uncle into pulling us behind his truck. Then we had five of us. Two were on an innertube, two on a tobogan, and one on a snow shovel. Still, this last weekend was the first time to be pulled on a tire. All in all it went really well. The only problem was that it was probably the coldest day of the week and the wind was blowing the snow around a bit. You can see below how the blowing snow stuck to our faces after taking a round on the tires.

Tying the tires on.


Taking off for the first round.


The snow kicked up the most going in this direction.


Here I am, happy and ready for some hot cocoa.

The Water Scooper

The water scooper at church grosses me out. People will get up in the middle of the service and dip it into the water basin (pictured below) and then drink out of the scooper. This in and of itself wouldn't be so gross EXCEPT that the water scooper travels. Sometimes it's hanging, sometimes it's on the dirty counter, sometimes it's resting on top of the water basin (which is dirty), sometimes it accidently gets dropped onto the floor, and sometimes it falls inside of the water basin. This last option is actually the one that grosses me out the most. People go and use the outhouse and then they hold the water scooper (often to fill up the little spout in the sink to wash their hands) and then if the scooper falls into the basin then the germs from the handle go inside, too. And infect all of the water. Once, I caught a girl holding the water scooper out to give Anneka a drink. She was centimeters away from her mouth when I pulled out her sippy cup and said, "Oh, thanks, but no need. She has water here." Phew! That was a close one!

Happy Women's Day!

Today is March 8th- International Women's Day. It's a very important holiday in Russia and all women, young and old are honored. Leif let me sleep in this morning and made me a nice breakfast. And he and Anneka also make me a Women's Day card. I squeezed Anneka into her asian dress one last time so that we could be twins.




Last night we had some couples from our church over for dinner and fellowship. There were supposed to be more, but one wife was sick and another husband had to work. The ten of us plan to get together once a month. We talked about ways that we can make the time meaningful. It'll be neat to see how this time evolves.

What Anneka Does For Fun

Anneka loves to stand on the windowsills and look out at the people, cars, and dogs below. When she sees dogs, she gets SUPER-excited and starts pointing and saying "Dog! Dog!" and then "Woof-Woof-Woof!" When she sees workers outside in their orange vests who are sweeping the snow or chipping away at the ice, she calls them "Papa" because Leif has an orange coat. And anyone else, she calls "Man".




















Our friend, Ashley recently started a website for missionary moms: http://formissionarymoms.com. It's really creative and helpful and fun! One of her activity ideas for small children was an "indoor sandbox" with bowls of rice. Anneka LOVES this. I let her do it twice yesterday and she was in heaven.



And then, as you can imagine, the cleanup is great after such an activity. After one particularly large dump of rice, Anneka went and got the broom and dustpan all by herself. She really likes to help me clean- vacuuming, sweeping, and mopping the floor on our hands and knees with cloths. It's takes a very long time to clean this way, but it's worth it because she has so much fun and is so cute.

Pictures From This Past Week

Here are some pictures from this week that didn't make it in other blogs:



Leif, showing Vasia an American football game. Anneka liked watching, too.



Blueberry Face



Yulia, Natasha, and Sasha getting their coats on after Bible study.



Two of the cutest girls in all of Ulan Ude!


Jami and Adriana


Adriana's birthday party- she made us a feast!! In the morning, four of us girls (I always think "ladies" or "women" sounds funny) went cross country skiing.



Anneka sitting nicely in the row in front of us during the church service.



Anneka playing with Vanya on the dirty floor after she stopped sitting so nicely in church.


Anneka and her new friend, Maylinne.

Whiter Than Snow

On Saturday, we had a celebration called "Whiter Than Snow" with other believers (from different churches). The purpose was to give praise to God and to reach out to Buryats who don't yet know Christ.

February is known as "white month" and is very important in Buryat tradition. In the past 300 years or so, it's been a time where Buryats burn old useless things to get rid of everything bad and sinful from the past year. Sagaalgan is the name of the big holiday of the month (commemorating the coming of spring). It symbolizes purification. People clean their homes, eat white foods, and go to the Buddhist temple to relieve their souls.

The word Sagaalgan means "white moon" in Buryat. As believers, we celebrated how Jesus makes us whiter than snow.






We had a time of worshipping God, singing Buryat songs. It filled my heart with such joy to be in a room full to the brim of Buryats, singing praises to our creator. After the singing, a Buryat man shared some of the history of Sagaalgan. Interestingly, before the 18th century, "white month" was just the name of February. People ate white foods such as milk skins, homemade cheese, curds, sour clotted milk, buns, dairy cookies, pozy (big meat dumplings) because it was important to get vitamins at the end of a long winter. Formerly it had nothing to do with sin purification or Buddhism. Originally, the Buryats/Mongolias served a monotheistic creator god. After that, the Chinese empire plotted to make Mongolia weaker. They introduced Tibetan Buddhism to Mongolia (and in that, polytheism). Since then, Buddhism has been a big part of the Buryat culture.

This Buryat man showed how Christ actually brings Buryats closer to their roots. Christianity doesn't rob them of their culture. To become a Christian is to become an even better Buryat. This is so huge because many Buryats feel that to become a Christian (even if they know that the claims of Christ are true) they have to leave their culture. They believe that to be Buryat is to be Buddhist. What a freeing and wonderful message to share with these dear people!




Many different people performed songs, dances, and skits. It was wonderful to enjoy such a rich variety of talent. We were supposed to sing a song called "Whiter Than Snow", but there were so many acts that we weren't asked to do it. I was relieved, as we didn't really know the song and didn't have accompaniment.





This skit/song showed an old woman with her Bible. As she shared the truths with her family, her grandchildren honored her. Honor to parents and grandparents is very important in the Buryat culture. I loved thinking about the generational effect that God's word will have in this place, as people share with their children!



These funny boys were sitting next to me, squiggling and doing silly boy things. I snapped this picture and they giggled and giggled that I'd "caught" them!



This was an attempt at a crowd shot. I'm behind the rapper guy. He and some other youth did a dance/rap routine. I noticed that he kept slyly turning up the volume on the mixer. It was really loud! Funny.

Saturday was a time of encouragement and a reminder that God is a God of every nation, language, and people. We pray that every person in Buryatia will know Him personally.

Outhouse In The Winter

Outhouses don't stink in the winter. Everything is frozen! Did I ever tell you that I fell through the floor of the outhouse at camp this summer? Well, I did. Thankfully I wasn't holding Anneka at the time (many other trips, I'd taken her in there with me). The floor was rotted and broke beneath my weight. I should have a complex because I've broken several chairs and a bed just by sitting on them. (and then, of course, the outhouse ordeal). But I've chosen to not have a complex about it.

Leif has been really busy these last weeks. He's been diligently learning Buryat. I am SO impressed by how much he's learning. He has had me quiz him on his verbs and he already understands the conjugations and past tense changes for words. Amazing! I know he feels like he has a long ways to go but it's easy for me to see how far he's come... in such a short time! I know he'd appreciate your prayers as learning a new language is not an easy task.

He's also been involved with helping some guys start a garbage business. Leif was kind of the "middle man" in getting them a loan to buy a truck. They've met a couple more times this week to go over details and logistics. It's really great because it gives a lot of guys in the church jobs who otherwise would have a hard time finding work (for example, ex-convicts and ex-drug addicts). It's also nice because a whole area of town that has not had garbage pickup now has this as an option! I'd sure be happy if I lived there to have this new service!

Monkeys and Happy New Year (again)

Anneka loves playing with her monkeys and making monkey noises. She likes it when I swaddle her animals and tell her that I used to do that with her when she was a teeny tiny baby. And she likes to pull her monkey on her sled.

Today is the most important Buryat holiday- Saagalgan. It is a new year celebration (after the January 1st new year and the January 14th old new year) that signifies the coming of spring. I'll write more about it this week, as we'll be celebrating on Saturday.

I probably shouldn't be blogging now because I'm multi-tasking a little too much. I always try and cram as much as I can into Anneka's nap time- today it's making pizzas for tonight's Bible study, making lunch for Leif and his friend, cleaning, doing a language lesson, and now I'm chatting with a couple of friends over skype while writing this... and I hear her starting to stir. Anyways, I'll tell you more about Saagalgan later this week.

Our Funny Little Daughter and Our Snack Trends

Anneka is at such a funny age and makes so many different sounds and does so many cute things. But she doesn't let us capture them on camera. As soon as we pull out the video camera, she becomes very interested in what we're doing. We need to remember to pull it out more often and maybe she'll become bored with it.

Anneka has been testing us more and more. The other day she put her hand on the handle of our cabinet that holds some electronics. I told her, "Don't touch that, Anneka" and she immediately pulled her hand away. But I could tell that she REALLY wanted to see what was inside. I watched as the wheels were turning in her head. She walked over to me, took my hand, led me over to the cabinet, and put my hand on the handle of the cabinet so that I would open it for her. So funny. Then yesterday I told her not to touch some things that were on the end table. She ran over to the table, kissed it, and ran away. She knows that we give her praise when she kisses us, so she thought it would maybe work to kiss the table. Then there's a basket where we keep receipts and bills that we also told her not to touch. She leaned way over and touched it with her cheek and looked at us like, "is this okay?" She's also been hiding from us- her favorite place is behind the curtain in the living room. She laughs and laughs when we find her.

Funny side note: I didn't notice this until after I'd posted the picture because it's so common around here... Anneka has my swimming suit around her head in this picture. She likes to go into mine and Leif's underwear/sock drawer and wear our clothes. She is especially fond of my swimming suit and a certain pair of Leif's boxers. At any given moment, you can see her wearing either item.



Leif and I go through fads of snacks that we like to eat. In America, they were fads like nachos with homemade guacamole, frozen chimichangas (oh, how I miss those things!), and bacon cheeseburgers from Carl's Jr. (we'd buy them on a whim as a late night snack. SO unhealthy, I know). In Russia, we've had several fads (we'll eat them almost every night for weeks and then one day we'll just switch). Some of them have included freezing cups of yogurt, eating chocolate cookie sticks dipped in mint tea and then slurping the tea up through the cookie like a straw, smoothies, milkshakes with candy bar pieces inside, cinnamon toast, biscuits, and bread sticks dipped in marinara sauce. A continual on and off fad has been eating things that go in dipping sauces. For example, we'll fry these things called vereniki (little potato pieces in dough). Sometimes we'll just fry them in oil and sometimes in honey or soy sauce. And then we dip them in ketchup, mustard (haven't been able to find normal mustard for a few months), barbecue sauce, and other mystery sauces. We've also done this with pelmeni (meat in a noodle) and french fries. The stores will go through trends where they'll sell french fries for months and then they won't have them for months. Lately, they've only had them mixed with mushrooms (this seems like a strange combo to me). Anyways, I really like ketchup mixed with mayonnaise. It's so good. But Leif things it's nasty. He likes weird sauces that say "ceasar salad dressing" but really are tangy and yellow and taste nothing like ceasar dressing. And occasionally we've found chicken nuggets that are good, but usually they only have the kind that are made out of ground chicken parts. And THOSE are nasty. But Leif will eat them.

Speaking of ground meat, the name for ground meat here is "farsh". For some reason, that word is really gross to me. I was explaining to someone the other day what is in lasagna and it grossed me out to say "farsh". "Ground beef" sounds so much nicer. Even though it's the same thing. I just can't think about the word "farsh".

The Missionary Table

When Vitya and Svyeta were over the other night, Vitya asked, "Have you ever been to the Chinese Restaurant?" We were confused and said, "Yeah, we've been to a Chinese restaurant", but he said, "No, I mean the Chinese Restaurant for missionaries.". After seeing our blank faces, he said, "Come on!" He made Leif hide in our bedroom and he asked me to get plates, chopsticks, a tablecloth that could be cleaned easily, a candle, napkins, and glasses. Then he charred the bottom of one plate from the candle and made it black-black-black. He dimmed the lights and called Leif into the room. Then he said that Leif had come to the missionary table and needed to do everything exactly as he did them. He proceeded to lift plates and use chopsticks and make funny movements with his glass. Leif followed suit quite nicely. Then Vitya rubbed his hand along the bottom of the plate and put his hands on his cheeks. Leif caught on and always kept his hands a centimeter away from touching his skin. Vitya tried and tried but it didn't work. Leif turned out to be a good missionary! Vitya said that someone did it to him once and at the end, his face was covered in black. So funny.

It's been very cold this week, several days under the -40 mark. We looked at the weather history and it actually got up to freezing (32F) on the 8th. That's 72 degree difference in the period of a week and a half!!

February is the LONGEST month here. It's cold and dark and our bodies are deprived of all of the sunshine vitamins. The whole month is called "White Month" and a lot of spiritual stuff goes on (Buddhist and Shamanist). I feel so much more tired at this time of year, too. But the days are getting a little longer each day. And soon February will be over!

Quadruple Date

Happy Valentine's Day! On Thursday, Leif and I celebrated together. He took Anneka for most of the day and I had a lovely time with Jesus at the nicest coffee shop in town. When I got home, Leif had made a wonderful pasta dinner with heart-shaped red peppers on top and chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese icing (also with hearts on top). On Valentine's Day morning, he made me heart-shaped pancakes with strawberries. Mmmmm! I have the best husband in the world!! Last night we went on a quadruple date with three other couples from our team. The restaurant was really nice and the food was delicious. We played a couples game where we answered questions about our spouse. Leif and I won! After dinner everyone came back here and we played the game Cranium (the guys barely won with two super-easy questions at the end).

We awoke this morning to Anneka barking like a seal. She sounded so awful and was breathing rapidly. I called my sweet aunt (a nurse), read about croup online, and got some steam going in the bathroom. I was contemplating taking her outside (cold air is supposed to help), but when I looked at our thermometer, it was below the -40 mark! (-40 is where Fahrenheit and Centigrade meet, by the way). So we opted to stay indoors. She's been her normal active self today and seems happy. It's so sad when she gets sick! I just want to do everything to make it better- and fast! Nighttime is supposed to be the worst time for croup so we'll keep our eyes (and ears) out for her tonight. We're praying and anticipate that she'll be well soon.

Blunders

We had Katia and Sasha over for dinner tonight. Afterwards, we played Settlers of Catan. If you don't know this game, you build settlements, cities, and roads by trading resources such as wheat, coal, brick, wood, and sheep. At one point, Sasha asked to trade his broom for bricks and we're like, "What?" and then we realized that the picture on the wheat card DOES look like a Russian broom. And then later I asked to trade sheep for coal. Well, that's what I wanted to say, but I actually asked for breasts instead. Ah, the blunders we can make!

Last week, I was telling someone about us being foreigners. I meant to just say that we were foreigners (making the noun plural), but instead I said we were little foreign people. haha.

Lately I've felt like such an airhead with my Russian. Today I even forgot that I had class. Thankfully my teacher comes to me, so it worked out just fine. I ordered three new language books online today in an inspiration to try new strategies of study. Hopefully they'll work!

Getting Out

Most days we do leave our apartment, but it is usually to briskly walk somewhere (or wait at the bus stop) heading somewhere else. There's not too much incentive to just "hang out" in the cold and wind. But this weekend we went cross country skiing with our Romanian friends and some of their Russian friends. It was so nice to be in nature and enjoy the sunshine.



All of the kids went sledding while Marios, Adriana, Leif,and I went skiing. The kids were so cute. (Anneka is on the sled in the middle of the above picture). There was another baby Anneka's age who went sledding, but Anneka was strapped to Leif's back.



I enjoyed talking with Adriana as we skied. This was her first time, and she did really well.



Anneka was so relaxed that she fell asleep almost immediately. There was one point where Leif came down a hill behind Adriana. He knew that he could either miss Adriana and fall backwards on Anneka, or he could plow into Adriana and keep Anneka safe. So he ran right over Adriana! Thankfully she was okay. They both fell in a heap, but Anneka didn't even wake up.

That evening we enjoyed a nice dinner at Marios and Adriana's house and played Settlers of Catan. It was a time that reminded me of God's many rich blessings.

And Another Birthday Celebration

We celebrated Leif's birthday again at church yesterday. In Russia, it's traditional to plan your own party (if you have one), prepare food for everyone, and make/buy your own cake. Often people will bring a cake to church on the Sunday near their birthday to share with everyone after the service. It was Vera's birthday, too, so along with Leif's cake we had a feast that she brought (three other cakes, bread, sausage, cheese, and tea).



Anneka like playing on the piano with her little friend, Vanya, and Katia. Katia babysat for us on Friday and Anneka awoke from her nap to her. Katia said that Anneka just looked at her with really wide eyes, like "Who are you?" but then she happily played with her toys. I'm so thankful it went so well. It's nice to expand the number of people that we can leave Anneka with. And it's nice if she can get a Russian language lesson, too.

Heidi and her family (the Wickers) had to go to Mongolia. They were told that they DID receive their temporary residency. But a day too late. The good news is that it'll be waiting for them when they return and they won't have to travel back and forth any more. The bad news is that they'll be gone for a few weeks. Anneka already misses Heidi! She talks into her little toy phone and says, "Heidi? Hi Heidi!"



Anneka konks out when riding on her sled. This is a picture after coming home from church.



Then later she likes to play on her sled. She just plain loves her sled.

Leif gave a talk last night at the youth club about man's love for God. He created a skit where Vasia (the guy) wanted to show his love for Natasha (the girl). He told her he could say he loved her 1,000 times or build a statue of her or make a temple in her name or go to war for her. Natasha kept trying to tell him that she just wanted to spend time with him- maybe go for a walk and talk... something simple and meaningful. But Vasia just talked right over her, not listening. The point, of course, is that to show our love for God, we need to just listen to him and do what He asks us. Leif created a powerpoint with different verses that went well with his talk. I think he did a good job.

It was a good birthday!

Yes, I had a good birthday this year. I'm not sure how many of you know this, in fact I know many assume the opposite, but I really don't like cold weather at all! In fact, I often think that I would prefer to sweat away in the tropics than feel a bitter cold wind cutting through my face! Well, God knows me well and decided to send me a little birthday present. Quite often in early February we will still get temperatures as low as -40, but yesterday on my birthday it got all the way up to -7C which is almost 20F. Now, I know that this is no tropical heat wave, but for Siberia I count that as a positive :). In addition to this, I had my first Buryat language class. In some ways this is kind of a tough thing to jump into studying a completely new language, but when I look at what I am hoping to do in understanding the people and culture here and being able to be a blessing for the Buryats, I count this as a great step, and it will be easy to remember when it was that I started my official studies. In addition to this, I got a number of emails, phone calls and facebook congratulations from family and friends and there is nothing better than realizing that there are people that you care about and that they care about you too. To celebrate we went bowling with some good friends of ours (Chingis, Ksusha, Vitya and Sveta), and I far and away beat my best bowling score ever with a 202 (check out the picture)!!!

I could hardly believe it myself, and as much as bowling is not a part of my life, it always feels good to do something really well :). After bowling Vitya and Sveta came back to our place and our temporary neighbors Sasha, short for Alexander, and Katya joined us for lasagna and German chocolate cake. Through all of this Anneka was a stellar baby enjoying our guests and doing amazing with a new babysitter (Katya) while we were bowling. The best part of all was Jami who put all of this together. She took the morning duty with Anneka who decided to get up at about 6am (I was allowed to sleep as long as I wanted) and made a wonderful breakfast of biscuits and gravy with eggs, nachos for lunch, and the aforementioned lasagna and cake. She also got me a couple of great presents, a wonderful card and just made me feel loved all day. As I said, it was a good birthday!

International

Something I love to think about is how Anneka will grow up with a much bigger picture of the world than I did. I love that our team is comprised of people from the United States, Canada, Germany, and Switzerland. I love that Anneka will be bilingual and will understand nuances of Russian culture that I never will.

Last week, Kandid and Daniella, invited us over for dinner. They are from Switzerland and moved here at the beginning of December. Their friend, Misha, is living with them for 2 months, too. They are all taking Russian language classes now (even though Daniella speaks really well already). They have an adorable little daughter who is 3 1/2. She and Anneka played together quite nicely (none of the pictures turned out), while we chatted over dessert.

We feel SO badly for this family because they've been living here for THREE MONTHS without their belongings!!! Their boxes were supposed to come on a plane within a couple of days of their arrival to Ulan Ude, but all of their stuff is trapped in Moscow. They've gone through a huge process trying to get their boxes, including giving a code number for every single item (after looking through a manual of 1,000+ pages. I am NOT exaggerating), phone calls, letters, etc, etc. They would love your prayers, as their patience is running thin. They don't want to buy a ton of stuff that they won't be needing, but at the same time, it's hard to live without it! We are so thankful that this family has joined us. They are really great people.

Sushi Night

The Wickers came one night this week to make sushi. Well, they're actually more like California rolls, but it sounds more fun to say "sushi". In the peak of winter, it's fun to do things like theme dinners.



Anneka is not pictured because she was crabby and we put her to bed. But she had a cute little Asian dress on with eye liner. Yes, we ALL wore eyeliner (even the guys).



I made a Japanese salad and then thought, what could I make for dessert? We had some cookie dough in the refrigerator, so I baked it into a pie plate, covered it in chocolate and then had Leif draw the Japanese symbol for "God" on top with white chocolate. It wasn't at all Japanese, but it looked festive anyways!

On Wednesday, Leif and I were cleaning the apartment before a bunch of people came over for a Bible study. We were laughing because when my parents clean their house before their Bible study, my Dad always jokes that he's cleaning the bathtub in case someone wants to take a bath. Of course, no one ever takes a bath at my parents' house when they come for Bible study. But Leif was cleaning our shower because people most likely WOULD shower at our place (and they did). Just a little difference in culture.