Family Stuff

         Here are a few snapshots from the everyday part of our lives from the past few weeks. We're pretty sure that Ike has eczema, so we've been trying different things to help out his itchiness and the spots on his face.  The best thing to work so far has been to put wet wraps over his face.  His sisters giggle and giggle because he looks like a "mummy".  He doesn't know what a mummy is, so he thinks they're saying he looks like "Mama".  He's a good sport about sitting in the wraps for a couple of hours at a time. 

    We always have a problem of mismatched socks!  Our kids like to play with socks (they make great sleeping bags for their stuffed animals, etc) or hide socks (we found one in the vacuum cleaner)... and because our apartment is so warm, we always take our socks off (often in strange places).  So when it comes time to wash socks, the pairs don't always go into the washing machine together.  And we end up with a HEAP.  Every so often, I'll gather the troops (often all three kids) and give them each a sock assignment- sorting, folding, or putting them into a pile.  It turns out to be a fun little time.

     The kids have been cooking/baking more, too.  Anneka's made zucchini bread and crockpot dinners all on her own and feels quite proud of herself... especially when she has to touch raw chicken!  Anneka is very conscientious of germs and makes sure that everyone washes their hands after touching money or before touching food. 

     Here's Anneka on her way to her Russian class.  There's a learning center close to our building that teaches all sorts of subjects to grade school kids.  She just goes for Russian language.  She has a lot of tedious homework (copying pages and pages of cursive letters and words- half a notebook per week!), but other than that, she and her teacher get along really well and it's been positive.

     John came again this April for some more meetings, and he stayed with us while he was here.  He wanted to go out to the village to see Inka and invited our family along. It was all a last minute thing, but we decided it was a great idea and enjoyed our overnight visit very much.  In the morning, she had the Ratinkovs over for breakfast, too.

 
          We've been trying to be more creative in our family times together.  A couple of times we've acted out different Bible stories, and the kids really get into it.  Here, Leif was David the shepherd, Ella was a bear (she's wearing a furry thing on her shoulders), Anneka was a lion, and Ike and I were the sheep David protected.  =)



     It's so great that the weather is nice enough for the kids to play outside during English Club!  I looked outside one day, and Ella and Ike had switched all of their outside clothes, right down to the boots!  It was so funny because I kept thinking Ike was Ella every time I looked at him.  Such funny kids!

... and then this week, Anneka and Matthew traded their sweatshirts, caps, and shoes.  They were hoping we would mistake them and take Matthew home and the Brubachers would take Anneka home.  =)

He is Risen!

     We enjoyed celebrating Easter this year in many special ways. Easter here is rarely on the same day as in the States.  It fell only one week later this year.  On the Thursday before (we didn't get any pictures) we had a special service at church of taking communion together and each one sharing what it means to us that Jesus is our Teacher.  Anneka had that Friday off from school, so we dyed eggs together as a family in the afternoon and read a special children's book that shares the Easter story.  The kids also helped me to bake throughout the weekend for our feast at church that followed the Sunday service.

      On Saturday we had a big church cleanup day.  The kids helped by stacking the wood that the men chopped.  Ike watched from the window and said that someday he'd be as strong as Papa.

     We attempted to take a family picture of ourselves Easter morning!  It was always a tradition for me to go shopping for an Easter dress with my mom when I was a girl.  I'd never done it with our girls before, but this year we went shopping together.  The girls were thrilled!

          We kept up our tradition of hiding and finding eggs again this year, and 12 of them were "resurrection eggs" that tell the story of Jesus' death and resurrection.  Leif prepared a special set of eggs for English  Club this day, too, that told the story of creation to Christ.

     The kids sang songs in the service that they've been preparing over the past several weeks.  Anneka also recited a poem in Russian.

 The kids also did a MARVELOUS job with a shadow puppet show.  I was so impressed!

     After the service, we shared a feast with our church family.  The kids had their own table.

Here are some of the foods at the adult table.

     It was a busy day, as we had English Club after the feast, sharing the story/meaning of Easter (and the Bible as a whole, really). Then after that, Dave and Martina took our kids and Leif and I got to go to a musical that shared the story of Jesus!  We piled our van full of people, some of the people not yet believers.

     What is especially cool about this muscial is that 60 people from 5 different churches worked together to put on this production.  Since we've been here, I've never seen this kind of unity among the churches.  What is also very cool is that between the two nights of the musical, there were 1,000 people to came to see it!  

     We had lots of conversations with people after the musical and afterwards came back to the Brubachers to find all of our kids sleeping sweetly.  We wrapped them in blankets and carried them out to the car.  Ike stirred a little in the van, opened his eyes and said, "Mama, I had fun".  Then he fell back asleep.  The girls woke up when we were in our stairwell, but they were so happy to be carried.  =)

I'm thankful  for this special day and for all the ways that God reminded us of Himself and showed His love.  It's so amazing that our risen Lord also gives us who believe in Him that SAME POWER that worked in Him to raise to life from the dead. 

Little Snippets From The Last Little While

 
      Ike and I were in the right place at the right time the other day when we saw this man fall outside.  He was hardly able to move and lived a couple of blocks away.  We had the car that day, so we gave him a ride home, helped him get inside, and made him some soup.  He was so delighted to have a little boy to give an Easter egg to (and play a game where they crashed the eggs into each other) and to put jam in his tea.  Ike was skeptical about the jam.  He prefers his tea plain.  =)  We talked a bit about the meaning of Easter and told him how very much Jesus loves him.  We helped him one other day to get to the doctors and to do odds and ends around his house (fill the teapot, make phone calls to clinics, peel potatoes, collect bones for the neighborhood dog, do dishes, etc)  It's interesting because this one simple act of helping this man has somehow gone public (probably because he fell right outside of the store and lots of people saw).  Several people have said things to me about how nice it was that we helped him.  It's a reminder to me that often God will do things in moments we're not planning for or expecting... and even when we're not really doing anything great.  He just wants us to be available and it's His job to shine!


 
     We've gotten to do some special things recently, and one was to go to the symphony and listen to our friend who we met through her coming to English Club.  She plays the violin, and we loved that she invited us.  We've been getting to know people more and connecting with them more outside of the club.



     Dima also came with us to the symphony.  He's our friend and comes every week to English Club.  Our whole family likes him a lot and he likes us, too.  ;)

     We've been having some great discussions in English Club recently with lessons that both Bruce and Leif have come up with.  We're mostly working through the Old Testament, with some other passages about Jesus surrounding Easter.  We've had more students come lately who are wanting to practice their English before working in the States this summer.  Leif offered practice interviews one week, and a lot of new people came (all of the pictures I took from that day didn't really turn out).

     Leif has also been preparing and giving several talks at church recently.  On Tuesdays the guys have been going through a training called TNT, on how to study the Bible and then to take what you learn and teach it to others.  They've had a really good turnout, with men from different churches coming.  From what they've been learning, four of the men gave talks from the book of Jonah.  Leif had the final chapter and did a really good job, I thought, of explaining it and bringing life to the story.  Even as I type now, Leif's translating his next talk into Russian (a passage from Mark 9).

   

      We recently had a church work day, cleaning inside and out, chopping and stacking wood, etc.  When I took this picture, I was standing outside, looking in at Ella and her two friends.  I ended up getting a picture of Leif in the reflection instead.  But if you look closely, you can see Ella's little face in the middle.  ;)

"Am I a papa now?"

     Our Ike is now officially a preschooler!  We had originally thought we'd wait until fall until he started, but he's been asking to go to "school" ever since he saw Ella's class program for Women's Day (and the kids got to dance with their moms). We've seen that it's been hard on him to be around Russian speakers and to not know how to speak.  So we decided to start him 2 mornings a week to hopefully jump-start the process.  Each classroom has a little "dressing room" when you first enter with cubbies for each child.  The kids wear shorts and slippers inside, as it's really hot.  I think it's funny/cute how the kids all tuck their shirts into their shorts.  =)

I told Ike to pose on the stairs for a school picture, and this was his "pose".

    He's been there two days now and has enjoyed his time, especially the singing and dancing in music class.  He told us that some of the kids in his class scream, but he himself doesn't cry.  =) And even after those 2 days, I now hear him babbling with Russian-type sounds while he plays with his toys.  When Ike came home after the first day, he asked me, "Am I a papa now?"  I asked him if he felt big enough to be a papa now that he's in school.  "Yes, I do", he replied. 

       Now that the weather is getting warmer, we get to stop at the playground on the way home.  All of our kids are loving playing outside!



     We enjoyed a monster cookie with candles to commemorate Ike's first day.  He thought this was just delightful.

Ike, getting his eyes examined

     Before Ike could get into preschool, we had to make the circuits to billions of doctors (well, really just 12 or so) with lab tests for his official medical card.  BUT this time instead of it taking over a month to complete, our friend told us about a new private clinic that makes appointments for all of the doctors back-to-back.  We did it in three different days, but still, I kept thanking God for how much easier this was than with the girls! 

getting checked out by the ear, nose, and throat doctor

     One separate trip we needed to make was to the dentist to get 2 cavities filled.  I was so impressed with this dentist!  He was really gentle and kind and FAST!  And for both cavities, it cost us less than $30.  Ike was a superstar, too.

     Even though Ike feels big enough to be a papa, he's still just a little guy.  I love looking at him when he's in a deep sleep.  So sweet.  And kissable.  As a side note, Ike has certain locations where he will and won't accept kisses.  He'll always accept kisses in the kitchen, but never outside (unless he forgets his rule, of course).  Sometimes he'll allow it in the living room.  Funny guy.  On another side note, we have the heaters in our bedrooms covered with blankets and our windows open, and we still don't need blankets on us because it's so hot in our apartment right now!

... and one more sleeping picture!  We went to the Buryat Partnership with Leif a few weeks ago, and Ike fell asleep in the van just a few minutes before we arrived.  We layed him on a bench in the back, and he slept through the whole meeting. 

Chicken Feet

     Carl and John were visiting last week for some important meetings with some of the local leaders to make decisions regarding our partnership together.  Leif was also a part of the meetings, and since we have the office as a great place for everyone to meet, I had the privilege of making dinner for everyone. There is no sarcasm in that sentence... it truly is a privilege.  But often funny things happen when I cook here because it doesn't come naturally for me, and I'm always trying to think of foods that wouldn't be strange or foreign for people here.  So this time, I had found some great Russian spices and had decided to just throw them on a bunch of drumsticks, serve it all with mashed potatoes and wa-lah!  A nice easy meal.  Right?  Well, it would have been, except that the word for foot and leg is the same in Russian, and I had thought I'd bought a bunch of chicken legs (they were wrapped in white bags that I couldn't see through)... and I had in fact, bought a bunch of chicken feet.  FEET!!  They were SO gross.  What is a person to do with dozens of chicken feet?  I have no idea.

     I didn't know about the mixup until RIGHT when it was time to put everything in the oven.  Thankfully, the kids were AWESOME and laughed with me and helped me by setting the table and taking snacks to the people in the meeting.  I scrambled and bought some chicken quarters and everything turned out okay.


     I'm sure everyone was happy that they didn't end up with chicken feet for dinner!  And way more importantly than the food, there was really good communication in the meetings.  We really feel like this is going to help with moving forward in various ministries together with our local church partners.  Thank you for your prayers!

What will we eat?

   
     We've had a lot of funny diets going on at our house lately, which is funny because normally we have no restrictions whatsoever.  It makes for challenges.  The first diet is that Leif can't have anything with tyramine in it or it could react strongly with the medicine he's on for these 9 months.  This means no cheese, sour cream, aged meats, pork, bananas, avocados, etc, etc.  Then, Leif and I decided for Lent this year to eat kosher.  We thought it would be a fun time to try it, as Leif can't eat pork anyways, and we don't really eat shellfish when we're in Russia.  We're not going to the extremes of having different cooking pots and plates for milk and meat products, but we aren't mixing meat and milk in a meal... so this means that all of the cream sauces that I make are out.  And a lot of things that I never thought of (like not cooking with butter or having mashed potatoes with butter with the meal)!  THEN I took Ike to the dermatologist for these spots he gets on his face, and she thinks he's allergic to red fruits and vegetables, bananas, and grapes.  So, this means no tomato bases now for cooking in.  And no cream bases.  And it means I have to use my brain all of the time to figure out what to cook!!!  The good news is that it hasn't really worked the past ten days to take Ike off of the red fruits and veggies, so I think it's something else (like a sensitivity to soaps and detergents).  The other good thing is that eating kosher has made us REALLY REALLY thankful we don't live under the Old Testament law anymore!  It's really hard to keep everything perfectly in the food department, and this is just a reminder that we all fall short of the law in every way.  We are all weak and we all need Jesus and there's no way we can ever "earn" our way to him.  How wonderful that we don't have to! He's already paid it all.

     Ike and I went on this little lunch date together after his dermatologist appointment.  He was SO happy.  He said, "this is a great day!"  He loved the doctor because she was pretty and sweet and gave him a toy.  And he loved going to a cafe and picking out his food (which turned out to be really gross!!) and then playing on the little playground there. 
 
     Another great thing about this day is that we bought a digital piano!!  It's already been wonderful to have in the home.  I'm learning how to play and am teaching the girls some things, too.  We have little family times where Leif plays the guitar and I play the piano and the kids beat on things (like drums) and we sing praise songs to God.  Music is so refreshing for the soul and this piano is such a gift from God!

Goodbye, Sally!

     Yesterday was a sad day, as we found our little Sally hamster had died in her cage.  She was quite the acrobat and had somehow gotten her leg caught under her house (on the second floor of her cage).  We found her hanging from the house.  This was very traumatic for the girls.  We had her since Ella's second birthday, so she's been a part of their little lives for a long time.  It was actually a perfect day for it, as Leif had meetings all morning and then all evening, but he had a couple of hours in the afternoon for us to have a memorial service for Sally together as a family.  It was also perfect that it's been above freezing for a few days, so the ground was soft enough to dig a hole.  We shared special memories of the fun times we had with Sally and the funny things that she did.  Ike was very clear that he wasn't sad and interjected comments (that if they weren't coming from a three year old would seem insensitive) here and there as the girls were bawling.  He also didn't understand what "burying" meant and kept thinking we were saying "marrying".  It made for quite the adventurous little memorial service.

     This event led to a lot of great spiritual discussions with our kids about God and heaven.  Our kids have been asking a lot of spiritual questions lately, and it's been fun to pray with them together for different people and things that are going on.  This week our teammate, Nettie, had a great English group in sharing the story of the Prodigal Son and having the students themselves tell the story.  We prayed together with the kids for the evening and then thanked Him when we heard how amazing the evening went and how well these people received the message of the father being like our loving God.  It's cool, too, because we didn't know what Nettie was sharing on and we just "happened" to as a family go over that same story that evening.  I love how God does that.

I decided to include the notes we made for Sally:



         We don't know if our beloved pets make it to heaven or not, but we know that God is loving and talks about amazing things in heaven like the lion lying down with the lamb and the snake with the infant.

I love how Ella drew a smiling Sally.

     Ike really wanted me to draw a picture of "dead Sally", as she was in her cage.  I didn't feel comfortable doing this, but Leif did it, saying that if it helped Ike, he would draw dead Sally.  What a guy!  I asked Ike what to write, and it was a little nonsensical.  =)

     I love Leif's note, too.

Goodbye, Sally!  You were a wonderful first pet for our family!

Fresh Cow's Milk (and other things)

     Leif came home in the middle of the night this past weekend with this bucket of fresh cow's milk.  Our friends called and asked for a ride to their village (about 3 hours away).  Their own car had broken down, and they needed to get out there quickly, as their electricity was out and they didn't want their little piglets to freeze.  While it wasn't part of our "plan" for the weekend, we can see how God really used it.  Not only did it show love to this family, but on his way back, Leif picked up a Buryat couple who'd missed the bus.  They had great spiritual conversations for much of the ride back.  Leif was really excited and encouraged, and it is a reminder to us that often the greatest opportunities come not in the scheduled parts of our lives, but in the places where we are flexible and available.  So, for the past few days we've been figuring out ways to use the 5 gallons of milk before it goes bad!  We made yogurt, frozen yogurt, hot chocolate, and used it in a ton of recipes.  And now we're just down to a couple of cups to use in our waffles in the morning.  So great!

     The temps got up to just above freezing this week!  Which means that spring is officially here!!!  And it also means that the season of mud and dirt has begun.  The kids played and played outside during English Club, and Anneka's white coat turned quickly brown.  I tried to get the kids some rubber boots, but the salespeople at the stores just laugh at me and tell me it's way too early.  In my opinion, puddles= rubber boot weather.  Ella was very sad when the other kids were covering the snow with dirt.  We prayed together for one more good "snowman snow".  Considering much of each day is still below freezing, I think there's a good chance.  =)

     Sometimes people need a place to shower and get cleaned up, and they'll come to our place.  Anneka took this picture of us having lunch together with this guy who came over.  It was a slightly crazy lunch between church and English Club, but this man was very gracious with the busy needs of our kids!

    There were some other pictures I found on my phone that I wanted to post from the past weeks.  Ella and Anya are such sweet little friends!  They love each other!

     This was a very sad day.  Pastor Zhenya's mom died, and we went to the burial service.  As far as anyone knows, she never made a decision to follow Jesus.  Our hearts were so heavy.  At one point, I looked and saw three of Zhena's friends, standing with him, all grieving- one American, one Swiss, and one Romanian.  This was such a beautiful picture to me of God's love and the Church that he's given us as family.

     I love how sometimes people will pull up to the sidewalk with a car full of meat or honey to sell by the side of the road.

     I'm back into teaching Sunday school for the little ones at church every other week.  A couple of weeks ago I stayed home with Ella, who was sick, and Leif led the lesson.  Of course, the kids all love him! By the end of the service, the bigger kids had all joined his class, too! They are sweet kids.

     Ella has been really enjoying preschool. It's great because she has the same teacher and classmates as she did before our home service.  Usually I pick her up with Ike and then tote them home on the sled.  But this week there isn't enough snow for the sled!

     John and Sharon visited a few weeks ago. We hosted a welcome breakfast for them at our place.  They do a great job of caring for our team (and other teams in Russia)! 

     Their schedule is very full while they were here, so even though they stayed with us for a few nights, we scheduled in a "time slot" with them to make sure we got to see them!  It was the first night they were here, so we kept them from falling asleep (from jet lag) by playing the game Rat-a-Tat-Cat.  It was very fun to see them!