The Last of the Mongolia Pictures

Here are some great pictures from Matthew's new camera the day of the photo scavenger hunt. I wanted ALL of us to get in the manhole, but nobody else agreed.


The restaurant workers stood at the door and laughed at us!


A big statue of Gengis Khan is behind us. We're all acting tough.


Doesn't Heidi's face amazingly resemble the picture?


The Beatles were really big in Ulaan Baatar. So funny.


Happpy!


The guys each got their picture taken like this at the Mongolian Grill Restaurant. It was all-you-can-eat and oh-so-yummy!


Riding the fence in front of the horse statue.


One of Matthew's requirements for the scavenger hunt was to get 17 books in different shots all throughout the day (with one of us in the picture, too).

Our squishy faces on the bus. Normally it's SUPER PACKED on the buses there.


Us girls.

Back in Russia

We're back in Russia after a lovely week in Mongolia. Here are some more pictures.




For Matthew's birthday, we went on a photo scavenger hunt. It was really fun. Matthew got a nice new camera for his birthday and got some great shots. The Wickers have the better pictures. I'll have to get copies soon.



Anneka loved "flying" with Matthew!



One of the requirements for the scavenger hunt was to find a distinguishable item of clothing on the ground somewhere. This wasn't hard, as there were articles all over!



We enjoyed playing games after Anneka went to sleep.



The market was HUGE. They had lots of great stuff for really inexpensive prices. I bought some pretty fabric to make shirts for Anneka and me.



This is from the day Sharon and I helped make borsch. The middles schoolers and high schoolers from the co-op school painted several walls with Russian scenes. It was pretty amazing.

These are just the grated carrots and cabbage!



This was one of Anneka's favorite things to do on the train- climb up and peek out the window.



Some cows at one of the train stops. Anneka woofed at them until I told her that they say "moo".

On top of a Mongolian hill, trying to shelter ourselves from the roaring wind.


Anneka's scarf "turban" to cover her face from the wind. (Heidi saved the day by donating her scarf for the cause).


This Mongolia man wanted to hold Anneka, but as you can see, she wasn't too thrilled about it. 90% of this trip, though, she's been THRILLED to run around, play with Heidi, Matthew, John, and Sharon, and to take in the new sights.


"Flying" around town as it snowed.

... and more on another day...

In Mongolia!

Hello from Ulan Baatar, Mongolia! It's been so nice to be here with the Wicker family. Our train ride down took almost 24 hours, and our train wagon was SO nice! Anneka liked visiting all of the neighbors (although she wanted her mama with her for each trip). We were able to get her into a clinic here for a couple of her vaccinations and ate at a Mexican resaurant last night. Mmmm! Yesterday, Sharon and I helped make borsch for a local school co-op. I've never seen so many potatoes, beets, carrots, onions, etc in one place at the same time!! We also went to a store with imported goods and I bought Hershey's syrup, brown sugar, corn syrup, Mrs. Dash, Velveeta, corn chips, and some other goodies to bring back to Russia with us. Hooray! We'll post some pictures when we get them.

What are they doing?

We've only lived in our current apartment for two years now, but if we remember correctly, this tractor has dug up a huge hole here 5 times now since we've lived in the neighborhood. In the spring, summer, and fall, this area gets all swampy and mucky. And it's right on the way to the bus stop. We want to know what they're doing. Do the pipes underneath break? It's a mystery.

We were told that our visas to leave (and re-enter) for Mongolia will be ready tomorrow. So, if all goes well, we'll be on a train to Ulan Baatar (capital of Mongolia) on Tuesday morning. Little Anneka has been sick with a high fever the last couple of days. Thankfully today, her temperature was almost back to normal and she's been happily running around. Some other kids on the team had the same thing and have gotten better after 2-3 days. Sometimes it's nice to know that other kids have the same thing (so I don't start worrying about meningitis or appendicitis or something).

We were thrilled to learn that my parents received their visas to come to Ulan Ude in two weeks. It'll be so great to see them! On another mostly-happy note, our Swiss teammates' boxes made it from Moscow to Ulan-Ude (long story but a miracle that they were released). Now their boxes have been sitting in the customs office here for over a week. We pray that they'll get their belongings SOON. It's been about 3 1/2 months now that they've lived here without their things.

Spring

Spring officially starts on March 1st here. Everyone talks about it being spring and says "Happy Spring!", but it's all a deception. I went outside without long underwear one day- big mistake. I froze. But we have the hopes of "spring" coming soon, as the temperatures have almost reached the freezing mark on a few occasions (and areas in the sunshine have even melted a bit). My grandparents sent this comic and the funny thing is that it doesn't seem funny. It seems real. It IS real. haha.

My three least favorite parts of the day:
* a man's beer exploding all over Anneka and me (and others, too) while riding on public transportation
* dog poop everywhere on the ground where the sun has melted the ice
* STILL not getting our exit visas to go to Mongolia (we were hoping to go last week).

My three favorite parts of the day:
* getting to talk to my grandparents on the phone and then getting a package from them later in the day!!
* having a lovely borsch lunch with our favorite neighbors
* really wanting to buy a "spring" hat for Anneka but not feeling justified because she already has a hat... I prayed about what to do and then the lady at the market gave her one for FREE!!

Out For A Walk

Inka and Elisabeth are back!

We went to the airport yesterday morning to meet and greet Inka and Elisabeth, as they returned from Germany. Their flight was a couple of hours late, and Anneka LOVED exploring the airport! She climbed the stairs several times, without needing our help (this picture is a rare moment when she stopped long enough to scope out the view). She was in toddler heaven.



For a lot of the time, Anneka wanted to carry her own "diaper bag". It was cute how she toted it around. She was so happy to see Inka and Elisabeth when they arrived... as were we! Welcome home!



In the States, I was the one who cut Leif's hair, but in Russia it's so inexpensive and easy to have it done that he goes to the "beauty shop". It's really funny because I always think his hair looks like an animal when he returns. Once he came back looking like a duck. Another time a were-wolf and another time a badger. This time it was a little hard to decide, but I think it's like a toucan. Anyways,after Leif washes his hair, it looks like him again. So my declarations of which animal he looks like aren't really so mean.

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!