randoms

     I want to do a blog about our recent English Club camping trip, but I realized that I have these random pictures on my phone that I want to post first.  Here are our kids in front of the "I Love Ulan-Ude" sign.




     We enjoyed having these two friends come.  They talked with a lot of people from a lot of different churches to find out what is being done already and to learn what kinds of needs there are for reaching the unreached of Siberia.  We tried out a new restaurant downtown together.



       We enjoyed going to a different church with our guests, who gave the message.  I peeked in on the kids and loved seeing them hanging out on the windowsill.



     Our neighbor from our old apartment misses us so much!  She called us two days after we moved and said she felt so sad.  She looked over at a painted fish Ike had made her and she said it looked like it was crying, and then she started crying, too.  We went and visited her a few weeks later, and she had gotten a kitten and named it Ike.  She said she didn't think we'd ever come back, so she thought the cat might keep her company.  She was so happy to see us however, that after a couple of nights of the cat jumping on her in the night, she got rid of it.



     The girls had a piano recital and each did very well.  In this song, Ella played some bells while Anneka played the piano.



     Sveta is an excellent teacher!  Here she is with each of her students and the flowers they all got for her.

     

     Ike had missed his buddy Rostik, as they don't go to our church any more.  Imagine his delight and surprise when Rostik came one week!

     We've known Sasha since he was an early teenager, and now he's married!  It's been so amazing to watch him grow and to become more and more a man of God.

Ella and Ike caught a fly at the wedding in this bottle.

     This summer has been full of challenges, too.  I don't have as many pictures of those because I don't think to pull out my phone and take a picture!  We found mold in our bathroom and had to take apart all of the walls.  Our bathtub was moved into the office and the cabinets into the girls room.  We scrubbed all of the panels to kill the mold and scraped and treated all of the walls.  It was a bit tricky to have no bathtub or washing machine while so dirty (and after camp when we all had the stomach flu)!

     Ike's best friend, Vadim, chose our family to invite to his birthday party.  Here, his dad dressed up as a detective.  It was a really cute and fun party.

They had a friend there who painted the kids' faces.  Ella and Ike chose not to get their faces painted.

     We had our annual church family camp.  The kids went on a special scavenger hunt one day.

     I hadn't wanted to go with all going on this summer, but it was truly a blessing to be there!

     Matthew had to go be in the hospital for an appendectomy.  Ella and Ike made him this sign to bring him cheer.

     We've had lots of people come out to see our house and to ask us questions about our lives and ministry.  This day a team from Krasniarsk came out.

     ... and the leader's name is Jamie!  She's been in Siberia about as long as us, has kids the exact ages as our kids (plus a baby) and we have a lot in common.  It was very fun to meet her!

     Anneka enjoyed a week at kids' camp by  herself.  She won an award for the best hairstyle.  It's hard to tell, but she had a bottle wrapped under her hair.  Her friend from our neighborhood also had a great time!

The week the Krasniarsk team was here we had 30 people at the home group!

     Taking pictures is not Leif's strong suit.  I found this lone picture from his TNT (Training National Trainers) course on his phone.  =)  It was the final course of eight.  They've had one every 6 months for the past 4 years.  It's cool to see the second generation groups that have come out of it and to see how the men have grown in their ability to accurately teach God's Word.

Village Life

While Leif made us a garbage box, our kids and neighbor kids hammered right along with him on their own projects.

     Village Life.  It's so different from city life.  I always thought I was more of a city person, but I was wrong.  I think we are village people.  Who knew?!  Here are a few glimpses of our life in the village these past weeks.  Each day is very full, as there is a lot of work to be done on the house still.  But it feels good to fall into bed tired every day.  And I absolutely love how easy it is for the kids to be outside.  They play and play with the neighbor kids.  We already have had several encouraging interactions with people all around us.  

My sweet Ella

     When I look at pictures like this, I see that, indeed, we have made a lot of progress in our home!  While we are still chipping away at our lists steadily, there is still so much to be done, and sometimes it feels that the progress is imperceptible.  

Ike, dumping out some dirty wash water

     Village life has created more opportunities for natural chores for the kids.  I see a lot of benefits of this!

     Everyone around us has a dog.  We will eventually get a dog, but for now we are dog sitting.  We've all enjoyed going for walks each day as a family with the dog.  Sometimes the neighbor kids follow along, too.



     Before we got running water, Leif dug us a very deep outhouse on a day that was 99 degrees.  He's our hero!

Ike, getting chunks of wood out of the newly dug hole for Papa.

The kids like helping get water out of the local well.  We've met nice people there, too.

... or they like mooing at the cows while I fill up the water.  =)

     All of the neighbor kids have their own "house" on our block.  It's an old abandoned house, and the kids have made "beds" and a "kitchen" and love playing in there together.

     One night after dinner, Ella declared, "I'm going frog hunting!"  She came back about 20 minutes later with this guy and a bunch of little boys.

Introducing the frog to Ratty Pie

     All of the kids like searching for frogs, tadpoles, and bugs in a swampy area near our house.

          I love hanging laundry to dry in the sunshine!  It dries so much more quickly than inside!
     One of the new challenges of living in the village is that the roads are way worse!  We had three flat tires within 4 days last week!

     Thankfully, there are tire repair places everywhere here!! While we were at one of them, Ella and I put a sheet down on a curb in the shade, drank water, and talked.


     This week Anneka is camping with other kids from another church.  We dropped her off at the bus together with a friend she's made in our new neighborhood.

On the bus, waiting to go to Baikal

     After we dropped off the girls for camp, Ella and I took the van in for some repairs.  While we waited, we walked around and passed by this new second hand store.  We decided to stop in, and everything was 90% off that day!  This kind of sale is not at all normal for here.  It was absolutely crazy inside the store.  People were grabbing carts and piling clothes inside.  Since we had time, Ella and I joined in on the fun.  I got a pair of jeans for $1 and she got a few things for less than $1 each.  You can see  the line for checkout was long!  We had a kind lady hold our spot while we went in search of lunch.  ;)

     Naomi and Ioana have come to help us with things around the house a few times this summer.  Here, Naomi was painting antiseptic onto the walls.

     A friend of ours cut the girls' bunkbed into 2, so now they each have their own bed.  They have enjoyed displaying their stuffed animals and making things look cozy.

Naomi brought her brother and sister to join in on the fun!

I found this picture later on  my phone!  =)

Leif is a kid-magnet!

     We made hamburgers for the 4th of July, and the neighborhood kids were so fascinated!  They'd never seen such a thing before!




     Even though our house isn't really guest-ready (we don't even have a door to our bathroom!), we had a few guests to celebrate Independence Day with us.  Yulia brought this lovely bouquet of greens from her garden.

 Nettie brought festive whoopie-pies.

     Not only do we not have doors, we don't have floors!  My cousin sent us her graduation announcement, but I dropped it as I was opening it, and it fell under the house.  Leif was a good sport and went underneath the floor boards to fetch it.

This little guy celebrated his first birthday with us!

     One of the things that has surprised me so far is how many guests we have had! After the 4th, I told Leif, "I don't think our house is guest-ready yet, so let's not invite anyone for awhile".  But lots of people come.  And it's both humbling and totally ok.  We have people from the city and people from our village.  Sometimes I'll turn around and there will be a kid in my kitchen or a random toddler in my living room.  Or adults and kids hanging around our yard.

    

One of the views from our window!

         

The Big Move and Many Blessings

     We're moved out of our apartment and into our new home in the village!  Even in the midst of a busy and stressful time, we were-and still are- amazed by God's loving care for us.  I wanted to transition well and to say goodbyes well, and yet I didn't know how this would be possible with all of the pressing things that were involved with getting our new house ready while packing up the apartment.  Anneka had shared that she really wanted to say goodbye to a certain friend.  We hadn't seen this friend for several months and her phone number didn't work.  We prayed about it, and then this girl appeared outside several days that week!  They had a chance to play and to talk and say goodbye.  Also, I didn't have time to call or see all of the friends I wanted to say goodbye to, but they called me and stopped by to see me.  I saw God's loving care in these situations, and there were many more!

Anneka with this special friend

      On this day Leif and I got the floor boards on the 2nd floor sanded, prepped, and lacquered so that there would be enough time to coat three layers and have them dry before we moved in. (the boards on the first floor still need to dry for several more months before we can do anything with them)  It took one very long day, and the dust in the air from sanding made us white all over!  This was the white left on my nose after I had used a tissue.  =)  Lisa was so wonderful and went to our home the next two days to follow up with the next two layers of lacquer so that Leif could prepare other areas of the house and I could focus on things with the kids and the apartment.  Many other friends helped as well!  The kids even got their very favorite babysitter to watch them on this long day.

     Friends also helped with getting the bedroom walls ready.  This is the wallpaper Ike chose for his room!

    Lisa helped with the grossest job of all- cleaning a nasty, greasy, sooty layer off of the tops of our cupboards.  I am soooo grateful to her!  As soon as we moved, I promptly taped sheets of old wallpaper to the tops, so next time I can just tear them off and put on clean again.

     It was truly encouraging how many people came alongside us and helped us on our moving day.  Bruce prepared a big meal to serve to everyone who pitched in, and there were so many guys who came (several from another church and not all pictured) to carry our heavy furniture and to travel back to our house for the second truck load of stuff.

     The Blakers, the kids, and I waited (and worked) at the apartment until the truck came back for the second round.

And a few more blessings from the week...

*  We had no stove that week, but I was still able to make soup each day for the workers with my multicooker.

*   Ella had really wanted to give her dresser away to a a person she knew instead of putting it out by the dumpster for someone to take.  It was old and falling apart, so this was stressful for me to know what to do.  Our neighbor stopped by one day and was THRILLED to have the dresser.  We merely had to carry it across the hallway, and Ella was happy to know it had a good home.

*  The week of the move we were helping some visitors to get connected with local church leaders.  One of our friends was soooo helpful in helping to make these connections for us and to find translators at the last minute.

*   warm, nice weather for the kids to play outside while our apartment felt chaotic inside.

     It is both wonderful and a bit overwhelming to have all of our things inside of our new house.  Everything is so dirty and all of the furniture is dismantled.  But the most stressful part is over, and the rest can be done a step at a time.

     We're all sleeping on mattresses on the floor until we can get our beds assembled.  The girls looked so sweet cuddled up our first morning in our new home.

    Something is wrong with our pump/well, so in the meantime we have been getting water from the well and meeting nice people along the way.

     We bought this handy little sink that we nailed to the garage wall.

... and this temporary toilet until Leif can dig an outhouse.

Leif, putting up our kitchen cupboards

Ella, showing Ratty Pie to her new friend

 
     One of the biggest blessings to my heart was that our kids made friends with the neigbor kids our very first day in our new house!

     At one point, Leif and I were working on setting up the kitchen, and it was really quiet outside.  I looked on the street and saw these bikes laying all over.  I wondered where my kids went.

     ...but they weren't far!  They had all found a stray puppy and had decided that the kids would take turns caring for it.  While the kids were playing, I met a couple of moms and we stood and talked out on the street.  I was thankful for how normal it felt and how friendly they were.