The Joy of a Rat

The kids threw colored chalk paint at each other as part of the missionary lesson on India.  It was about 35F degrees outside- a warm day for Siberia this time of year (but still too cold to be out long without coats!)

  Every few months the youth in our church have put together a special missonary story (complete with learning about a country and group of people) for the kids in Sunday School.  It's been so special for the kids, and it's also been really encouraging to see people in our church growing and beginning to lead and serve.  This past missionary story took place in India.  One of the youth brought in a snake for all of the kids to pet.  The next day, Anneka asked to stop into the pet store just to look and see if they had snakes.  I knew, of course, that there was no way we were getting a snake, so I thought "what's the harm in stopping into the pet store?"  Leif and Ike decided to come with us, too, and on our way there was a lady begging.  I stopped and offered to take her grocery shopping and Leif didn't skip a beat and helped by going on ahead to the pet store with the kids.  But the time I caught up with them 20 minutes later, both kids had fallen hopelessly in love with a RAT.  (And we knew that if Ella had been with us, she would have been in love, too.)  Leif is much more low key about these things.  I honestly didn't know if I had energy for a rat.  But he was a baby rat (less than a month old) and very cute.  So how could I say no?  Within minutes we were toting home our new little pet.

 

     Ella was jumping-up-and-down-excited to come home from kindergarten to "A RAT!  A RAT!"
 

 So proud of her new little friend!

Superman, Batman, or Ratman?

     The thing I love most about having a rat is that he brings GIGGLES.  All. The. Time.  Ike really liked having the rat crawl around up and down his pant legs for awhile, but we put an end to that (he could get squished!).  But he loves to carry him around on his head.  We all have enjoyed putting up mazes for him and feeding him new foods.  The girls love to pet him and carry him on their shoulders.  His name is Midnight.  

     We didn't tell anyone about our rat right away, and Anneka got the great idea to play a joke on her teachers and classmates at school.  She told the story to my parents on this skype video message, and it was so cute (of all three kids), I thought I'd post it here, too.

     Within one week's time, the rat has gotten loose 3 times (and one of the times we found him in our bed!).  But thankfully he still continues to be cute and surprisingly not creepy.  I find myself concerned about our rat's social and physical needs.  Who would have guessed?  We read that rats are really smart and can be taught tricks.  This will probably be our next step with him. 

Burgers and Eggnog

We had fun taking a group selfie

      Every 2 or 3 months we have a contest at English Club: the person who bring the most new people wins a prize!  This time Masha and Erzhena both brought four new friends, so they tied for the win!  The prize was a meal at our home for the winners and their guests.

      We asked Masha and Erzhena if they had any special requests for the meal.  Erzhena had heard about eggnog and wanted to try it, and Masha wanted french fries.  Since we always love a good excuse to make really good burgers with all of the fixings, we made it a hamburger night (with eggnog and milkshakes and chocolate chip cookies).  =)  Our Canadian friends enlighted us by showing us how Canadians eat poutine (fries smothered in cheese and gravy).  Everyone enjoyed the burgers and admitted they didn't taste like burgers they had tried before here in Ulan-Ude.

They were huge, too!  Ike only had a half of one and still it filled up his plate.  

       This was a really great chance to get to know these people more and in a more personal way.  I think everyone enjoyed the evening's food and conversation.


     Here are the brave people who tried eggnog.  Everyone seemed a little hesitant at first, but seemed to think it was worth the experience.  ;)

     One of the guys showed us how to take voice-automated selfies, so several people were trying it out throughout the night, while sipping milkshakes.  We're thankful for these new friendships that are forming and were thankful for this casual time outside of English Club to get to know people more!

Catch-up (Somewhat)

     I haven't really blogged about our lives for what feels like a bazillion years.  So this is kind of a catch up blog (not all-inclusive, of course) from the past couple of months. One of Leif's roles as a team leader is to keep good relationships and to encourage pastors from throughout the region.  He's had the chance to visit several villages recently and has spoken at several churches in the past couple of months.  This is one of the pictures from his visit to Zakamensk.  The church there is very small and always is so happy when other believers come and connect with them.

     On another Sunday, Leif went to Shabur.  He spoke at the church service in the morning and then the rest of the day he took part in an outreach to the youth in the community through an indoor soccer tournament.  Oleg, the pastor there, is really gifted in reaching out to those in the village.  Everyone knows him and he's built a lot of trust with the kids and parents.  He appreciates it so much when men (like Leif) come from Ulan Ude come to help him put on bigger events like this.

Leif, sitting with guys on his soccer team.

     Leif was a champion this weekend, in my opinion.  He was up all night sick the night before the tournament, and yet he still went (driving a couple of hours on bumpy roads), spoke at the service, and played soccer all day!  I don't know how he did it! 





     Here Leif was, speaking at one of the churches in Ulan Ude that we have a relationship with.  It's neat to see how there's unity between these two churches.  One of the things that struck me when I heard statistics about church growth in Mongolia (rapid growth!) is that it happened when the churches (from various denominations) began working and praying together.  May the Lord do that here as well!



     We had tea after the service, and I was looking around for Ella.  I found her happiy sitting at this table with strangers.  So cute and funny!

     Some of the men from our church have been traveling to a village to bring encouragement and counsel to a young family.  This past time they drove in the middle of the night.  Dima works odd hours, so he fell asleep in the middle of one of the meetings.  =)

 
     We've had a lot of new people come to our English Club these past few weeks!  It's been encouraging to meet them.  When two of the guys discovered they were from the same region of Buryatia, they both began speaking in Buryat.  They knew immediately that that would be the first language of the other.


     Leif's been having some really good discussions in his advanced group about spiritual things. 

     There's a dear family in Germany that we've never met that sends us care packages!  Our kids just LOVE to draw, so they were thrilled with these huge books of blank paper.

     They also love the new costumes that this family sent.  Ella's new princess dress was perfect for a program she had at school, as it's important to wear very beautiful, frilly dresses when you're in kindergarten!

     They also sent us this game that we gave to a little girl in our church.  She loves when I lead the kids' group during English Club because I play games with them.  She told me that she doesn't have any games at home to play.  When I gave her this game to take home as her very own, she was thrilled!

     This feels soooo far away by now, but we had a Superbowl party right at the time of Leif's birthday.  I made Leif a German chocolate cake.  It was so gooey it kind of exploded!  At least it tasted good.  ;)

     We watched the game projected onto the wall.  It was an international event with people from Canada, Switzerland, Buryatia, and of course, America.  It's fun to share a bit of our home culture with friends here.

     Then as a family for Leif's birthday we went to a cafe that has a little play area for the kids.  Ella made friends with a little boy.  She kissed him goodbye before we left.  We gotta watch these little Gustafson girls!

For Men's Day Ella made this picture of Leif.  I just love it!

     Our teammates snapped this picture at a store, and I had to post it, too.  It's interesting how many store workers still use an abacus to add up the prices of items.  But now many stores have credit card machines, too.  It's so interesting to see the old and the new next to each other like this!

    We had another church work day.  It's nice when everyone pitches in to get a lot done!

Everyone sharing lunch together on the work day

     Vera (a lady from our church)'s mom died, and I went to the funeral.  It was encouraging to see how many people came.  It was bitterly cold that day with a wind that bit to the bone.  This funeral was drastically different from the last one we went to, as her mom was a believer.  The whole atmosphere is different when there is the hope of heaven.  All the same, this is a very sad time for Vera.  She was her mom's sole caretaker and spent much of her time preparing meals and caring for her dear mom.

     Here, we walked around the casket that had already been lowered into the ground and sprinkled dirt over the top.  We plan to have Vera and her son and his family over soon to reach out to them.  We know this is a tough time for her son, too.  We pray that the Lord will draw them close to Himself in this time.

     Ella had a holiday on a Monday so she got to go to the pool with Anneka and me.  We invited our friends Ira and Sasha to come with us, too.  There's a new little cafe in the building where the swimming pool is.  We had hot chocolate and potato piroshky with our friends.  The girls were "best friends" that day and wanted to share a chair.

     Often Ike will fall asleep in our room at night and then we move him to his room.  I sometimes find interesting treasures on my nightstand.  These heart stickers on my glasses were no exception!

     On the days that both Ella and Ike have kindergarten/preschool, I pick up Ella first and then we go to get Ike.  She loves to run back and get him (and he loves it, too!).  Both kids love to wear Leif and my hats.

Stay tuned for some more catch-up blogs!

Party At The End of White Month

 
         Two weeks ago we had a party to celebrate the tail end of White Month, which is a big Buryat holiday here.  We ate white food and played games and invited an assortment of people.  We've had a ton of new people at English Club lately, and we want to help some of the college-aged church youth to reach out better to newcomers.  So we invited a wide spectrum of people, with the hopes of sharing more about Jesus as well as helping others to share their faith, too.  I didn't get any pictures when everyone was here, but I think including kids there were 25 people packed into our little apartment. 


     Dave and Martina joined with us in putting this party together.  We were all thankful for Zhenya's help in cooking the pozie (traditional meat dumplings) to perfection!  We also had white chocolote fondue and white pizzas to keep with the white theme.


     It was cute how at home Ike felt with our guests.  Since many of the people who came are contacts through our English Club, he was happy to talk to people in "our voice" (that's what Ike says instead of "language")  He also really likes "pretty people".  Once when Ike was sick, I asked him if I could get Papa to lay with him for a bit while I did something else. And he said "no, I just want you or pretty people".   Of course, he LOVES his Papa and will always choose him over me for things like wrestle time and playing with cars.  ;)

     We played the game "pass the gift" where each person unwrapped a layer of paper when the music stopped to reveal a small gift.

     It was a fun way to interact and laugh together.

     Then we broke into teams to wrap up eggs and see if we could drop them without breaking them.

 
     Larissa's team dropped the egg just as it was into a "nest that they built out of newspaper, toilet paper, and cotton.  It only had a tiny crack after falling from the ceiling.

     Then Leif took a little time to share from the book of Revelation about how one day people from every tribe, tongue, and nation will worship Jesus before his throne.  He also shared how God is the God of everyone- not just Russians or Americans, but Buryats, too (and everyone in the whole world!)  Then we gave this small gift of a children's Bible in the Buryat language with some white chocolate and Bible verses attached (English on one side and Russian on the other).  People seemed to like the gift of the Buryat children's Bible.  Our girls' piano teacher, Sveta, was on the same bus as 2 of our Buryat friends who came.   Sveta said they seemed really interested and were reading the Bibles on the bus.  When she asked them if they could read the Buryat language, they smiled and said, "oh, yes!"  It was really special for them to receive a printed book in their native language. 



     Some people had to leave to catch the bus before the routes ended for the evening, but several people hung out and played games afterward.  We're thankful for this oppurtunity to grow in relationship with these dear people!

Guests

 
      We were blessed by a visit from some of our favorite people this February!  Sharon and Heidi arrived on a Thursday.  We made a Valentine's mobile together one of the first evenings.

 
    Sharon is the education coordinator for all of the missionaries in Russia, and she has certification to do academic testing with the kids.  She did 2nd grade testing with Anneka (no picture) and some pre-school testing with Ella.  It's nice to know that our kids are on track and is so helpful to have Sharon as a resource to our family!


     John had some business in Kazakstan, but he and Carl joined us on Sunday.  They were very busy in their days here, meeting with other missionaries and church leaders.  But we got to snag them for one evening.  We went out for pozie (a national food here) and had ice cream back at home.



     Then Heidi stayed with us after her parents left to western Russia.  We felt honored that we got to have her with us!!  The kids loved having her around.  Heidi was born in Russia and lived here until right before 11th grade.  This was Heidi's first time back to Russia since then- almost 5 years ago!

 

 Ike enjoyed giving Heidi a massage...

...and wearing wigs together with her!

 

     Anneka's working on a big project for school right now based off of the book Robinson Crusoe.  She'll give a presentation to our team at our next team meeting.  On this day, she enlisted Heidi to help her paint a big "rock". 
 
      Heidi had a list of places to visit, people to see, and things she wanted to do while she was here.  One of those things was to climb a hill overlooking the city that her family often climbed together.  One afternoon Leif and I got a babysitter and climbed up with Heidi. There was a biting wind that day, but it was also sunny and beautiful.  What a gift to share this special hill with Heidi!  I always love looking down at the city and being reminded of how God created each person and deeply loves each one.  I believe He will do big things here.




     The night before Heidi left she gave us a special children's book as a gift.  We love it!

      Saying goodbye at the airport was sad.  We are thankful for these weeks with Heidi and treasure each moment in our hearts!