God's Smile When We Were In a Bit Of a Pickle

I can't load pictures on, as our computer isn't working and our super-old computer freezes up even if I try to add one picture to it. So I'll just tell you a little story.

Yesterday Martina and I got together with the mom that I told you about from the playground. We talked as the kids played outside, and it was nice. Meanwhile, Irene (my mother-in-law) was back at our new apartment, painting the girls' room door and their dressers pink. I was very grateful, as the paint fumes were SO STRONG and I didn't want the girls to be around that (or myself, being pregnant). I'd told Irene I would call her after an hour to check in, but she didn't answer. At first I thought her hands were sticky or that she was taking a shower (we don't have hot water where we're living, but there is hot water at our place-to-be). But after several calls, I thought it was a little odd.

Still, we talked a bit more as the kids played. When I'd been gone 2 hours I thought I should head back, as I still hadn't gotten ahold of Irene. Martina and the boys headed home and my new friend and her son walked me and the girls to our new place. When I ran the special phone for Irene to let me in the apartment building, it rang and rang and rang. My alarm-level went up. We waited for awhile until someone exited the building so that we could get in. And then we rang the doorbell several times. After a bit, I heard Irene yelling that she was trapped... and then she started coughing really hard. This totally freaked me out, as I didn't know where or how she was trapped, and I remembered just how strong those paint fumes were. I yelled some questions to her but got no response. I'd given her the key before I left so that she would have freedom to leave in case she needed to go somewhere. When she let me out, she'd dead-bolted the door. There was no way I could get in to her. And if you know anything about doors to Russian apartments, they are steel and VERY strong- made to keep anyone out.

Anneka started freaking out and crying. I said, "It's okay, Anneka. God will help us. Let's pray". So we prayed right there in front of our new friends that Jesus would help Irene and to help us to get to her.

We went outside and started shouting up at the windows. No answer. I went around to the back of the apartment and heard her! Irene had taken the door handle off of the door, but hadn't removed the inner workings while she was painting. The window had been open, and a big gust of wind slammed the door shut (and dumped the can of paint all over). There was practically nothing in the room for her to use as a tool to try and open the door. She'd tried for over an hour and had had no success.

I went back to my friend and had her call our friend, Erdenei, for me (as she could explain all of this way better over the phone in Russian... I don't know the words for deadbolt, etc.) He was calling for help and would get back to us. Meanwhile the girls and boy were shivering and eating cookies I'd bought them. My friend said that we needed to go to her home so that the kids would be warm and we'd wait for Erdenei's call from there. Just as we were leaving, we heard this voice from out the window, "I got out!". Irene had found the casing for a screw and had attached it to the end of her paintbrush and inserted it into the mechanism in the door. Hoory! We thanked God and went up to give our congratulations.

I told my friend that I was so thankful she'd been with me for this. It's kind of an odd thing to happen in the beginning of a friendship, but it's neat how God allowed it to work for good. He showed how He loves us and answers prayer, and he put me in a position where I needed my new friend. I love how fun God is!

Washing Babies and Making New Friends

Anneka lately has been very attached to her baby dolls. Usually at least one of them (if not both) is under her arm at any given time. And if she's not holding on to them, she makes sure that one of us will babysit them. If we neglect her babies by leaving them alone in a room, she gets quite upset. Because these babies travel so much, they get very dirty... in the sand, on the ground by the outhouse, in muck by the river, etc. I told her that we should give her babies a bath by putting them in the washing machine. "No!", she exclaimed, "You would never put a real baby in the washing machine!" I convinced her to give them baths in a little tub. But when I suggested hanging them on the clothesline outside she said, "No! You would never hang a real baby on a clothesline!" She enjoyed washing her babies and after bedtime, I gave them another "special bath". Nice and clean.

This week I got together with another mom that I met at a playground awhile ago. I was so happy and surprised that she called me! She invited me and Anneka over to her apartment (Ella, too, but I left her home with Gramma). Anneka was shy at first but then warmed up when the little boy (4 years) accidently let the parakeets out of the cage and they flew around the room. And when she got to play with all of his boy toys, especially his machine gun. While they played, I had a great conversation with Irina! I look forward to continuing this friendship, as she lives very close to where we'll be moving in August. I love how God places people into our lives, even when we don't expect it!

Gramma Irene Is Here!

Leif's mom is here for a month to visit us. The trip wasn't originally planned, but when we were in Germany, we found out that I'm pregnant! And I knew that with moving this summer and being tired and nauseous, I would need help... so we invited her last minute, and she came! We're so happy she's here, and the kids are thrilled to have Gramma around. She's even sharing a room with them. A tiny room, I might add. She's pretty brave!



This picture is from the first day she arrived. We had to go downtown to register Irene, so we checked out a new fountain by the main square. I didn't get any really good pictures of the fountain (silly me!), but it's so beautiful. And every so often, music comes on and the water dances with the song. It was so cute because the first time this happened, Ella immediately began dancing, all on her own. Irene and Anneka joined her. Celebration!

A Little Construction

Our church is hoping to have a new room completed before the cold sets in so that there will be a place for a the kids during the service. Right now we have lots of little ones and they roam around or get fussy and it's challenging for parents and children alike.

Leif helped Denis and Dave last week with the frame that will go around the furnace. Dave has been working other days to encourage and help Denis with this construction. All of the parents are especially happy about the progress! =)

Summer Camping

Anneka and I had the wonderful opportunity to go camping two weeks ago. The bad news is this was supposed to be a trip where the whole family went. Unfortunately Jami hurt her back the day before we were supposed to leave and we decided that a long trip on bumpy roads and sleeping on the ground might not be the best thing when she couldn't even straighten her back. We decided that it might actually be more relaxing for Anneka and I to be out of the house so off we went with a bunch of people for our church to camp on Lake Baikal. Jami and Ella did well and had a great time and thankfully Jami's back is feeling a lot better now.



We spent a lot of good time hanging out together with people around the campfire, eating meals and spending time on the beach. We had good times praying together and studying the Bible too. I was so thankful that there were other kids there that Anneka could play with. She especially liked having the Brubacher boys there (Nathan and Matthew). One of my favorite moments was hearing them playing in the background and hearing Nathan yell out, "I'm the knight!" Matthew yell out, "I'm the king!" and Anneka yell out, "I'm the princess!" In fact on more than one occasion I heard Anneka making up games where she was the princess :).



Here is my little princess enjoying some of the wonderful treasures in nature (i.e. rocks, sticks and flowers).



These cows where the closest thing to wildlife that we saw, but it was still pretty fun, and the kids enjoyed watching them walk through the camp down to the beach.



Anneka and I got to share a tent together too. She liked having this little temporary home.


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But probably most of all Anneka loved playing in the sand on the beach...



and getting very, very dirty!!!!!

If you want to see more camping pictures, you can check out the Brubacher's blog.

Summer Fruits

We're enjoying summer fruits- watermelon, plums, peaches, and strawberries!


On a much more serious note, it's been a stressful and emotionally charged last week for Leif as he's been part of the process to help guide a church through a difficult time. We see God's hand at work amidst opposition from Satan, and yet it still is not easy. Pray for incredible wisdom as these local leaders and the local church make big decisions.

Uh-Oh!

Ella's favorite new word is "uh-oh". She says it all of the time and purposefully drops things so that she can say it. She's already much better at saying it then when I took this little clip. =)

The Goats Are Out

What are goat owners called? Shepherds? Well, they're out with their goats in our neighborhood again. They like to eat all of the grass. The name of our neighborhood is "green" in Russian. It's one of the greener areas of the city, hence the name. On the fourth of July, we walked out to the road to meet the Wickers for dinner. It was a hot day, and Anneka had on a cute sundress. But on top she had on several layers of dress-up clothes from her toy box. She loves to wear these, and was very happy that we let her wear them out in public. She also loved walking up close to the goats. Thankfully they didn't try to butt her. (is that what you call it when they ram into you with their horns? That looks so funny written out).




And here's a duck that Anneka drew all by herself. Her artistic skills are growing every day!

Until We Meet Again...

It was a sad day on Tuesday when we drove the Wickers to the airport to say goodbye. The Russian word for goodbye literally means "until we meet again". I like that. I explained to Anneka what we were doing and that we'd be saying goodbye to our friends for a long time. "Yah," she said, "and Heidi is my really best friend". We're thankful for these last years with this wonderful family and cherish many memories with them (and hope for many more to come).



The week leading up to their departure, we spent as much time with them as they could spare. We had a picnic together at the river one evening (a few minutes drive away).


And we celebrated Heidi's 16th birthday.



And made a day trip to Lake Baikal.



They shipped a bunch of luggage by train to Moscow and had to sew them into these bags. I went over one day to help Sharon and Heidi helped me by taking the girls outside. Some help I was! The fabric was so thick and I had to push so hard that the needle went all the way through the bottle cap I was using as a thimble and all the way through my thumb!

It's hard for me to get used to all of the goodbyes we'll have in our lives as missionaries... and in that all of the goodbyes that Anneka will have. I know that God has called us, and therefore He'll take care of all of our hearts. I hope that we will continue to seek and have deep relationships always.

At The River and Exciting Things

It's been really hot the last days. Right now it's 95 degrees outside! It's perfect weather for going to the river. Last week Rebecca, Natalia, and I along with eleven kids went to the river to swim and have a picnic lunch. It was a lot of fun. Natalia lives in Rebecca's neighborhood and they met through both of their sons being the same age. Natalia used to help Andrew with his Russian homework while Rebecca helped Vadim with his English. A friendship formed and over time, Rebecca was able to share Jesus with Natalia. She received the news with joy and grew rapidly in her faith.



Since that time (1.5 years ago), Rebecca has been discipling Natalia and they've been reaching out to other moms in the neighboorhood. Just this spring, they've seen several other women come to Christ!



I love going places with Rebecca because not only is she really fun to be with, but I feel like I learn a lot from her. She's really good at striking up conversations with new people, and she's sincere and warm. People are drawn to her. I know that much of the fruit is through years of prayer and years of forming relationships here. But it's so exciting to see and be a part of!



I pray that I can take lessons I've learned through Rebecca and implement them in my own life and neighborhood (in ways that fit with my own giftings and strengths.)



Rebecca will be going back to the States for a year. I will miss her and her family while they are gone!

Time In Irkutsk

After our trip to Germany, we spent a couple of days in Irkutsk. We saved quite a bit on plane tickets to fly into there instead of Ulan-Ude AND we got to spend with with our friends, Alex and Yulia! They were very warm and welcoming and forgiving of our extreme jetlaggedness. We orginally thought that we'd take the night train to Ulan Ude the same day we flew in, but our bags were lost (even after a 4-hour check-in in Moscow)... so we got to spend two days with our friends (and wear their clothes).




The weather was sunny and hot, and they took us to this fun fountain.






In Washington where we're from, there's an espresso stand on every corner. In Siberia, there's an ice cream stand on every corner. It's creamy and wonderful. Hard to resist.





Alex and Yulia both were so sweet with our girls. They must have played hide and seek with Anneka a bizillion times, and Ella took to both of them.

It was really nice to have this place of transition before stepping back into our life and ministry in Ulan-Ude right away.



Thank you, Alex and Yulia, for a wonderful time!

Happy Birthday, Ella!!!

Last week we celebrated Ella's first birthday! What a delight this little girl is. She's such a happy girl, full of life and fun. We awoke to her special day at a hostel in Hanover, Germany, and celebrated with the Kerin family. Ella's candle was in a yummy German pastry.




Here's the gang (except Garnder, who took the picture) eating our birthday breakfast and giving our attention to little Ella.



We bought some little shoes for Ella in Lemgo as a birthday present, but didn't wrap them, as she wore them right away. But the Kerins, Wickers, and Elisabeth's brother and sister-in-law Benny and Maria, all gave us wrapped presents for her to open. This made it feel like an official party! Rebecca picked out a baby doll for Ella, which was perfect, as Anneka is very protective of her dolls and doesn't want Ella touching them. It was evident Ella was happy with this present.




The Wickers got this sweet Hello Kitty dress for Ella. It's nice to have something girly and blue.



And Maria and Benny gave her these sweet little slippers (all Siberian kids need slippers!). They're so soft, and we were touched by their thoughtfulness. They gave Anneka a gift, too- gum and fun dyes for her baths. She LOVES the gum and talks about it constantly. The colors in the bath hide the rusty brown color in the water, and make bathtime an exciting event.
=)


Ella spent her birthday on two trains, a bus, and two airplanes. She's a traveling kid! In the airport, she led us around and around, walking all over the place. She knew exactly which direction she wanted to go and would get very upset when we veered from the proper course. When we'd let go of her hands, she crawled all over the airport floor. It's a good booster for the immune system.

This week Ella really started taking off with walking by herself (she really took off with it on Father's Day, per Leif's request). It's been so fun to watch, and she's so proud of herself. Today we were downtown and she walked around and waved at everyone, and I think I even heard her say "hi". She has started attaching herself to other people besides Mama and Papa. Today she wanted a sweet 9-year-old girl on the playground to carry her around. And last night she wanted our friend Igor to hold her. When we tried to take her away from him, she clutched his chest and sobbed. Funny girl. We love you, Ella! We love watching your personality come out more and more. We are amazed by how happy you are, even when you are tired. We love how you are so expressive and smart... you seem to understand everything we say. We celebrate you and look forward to watching you grow more and more!

The Conferences and Seeing Elisabeth!!!

Well, it's official- I looked in my pictures and didn't see any conference pics. I guess you can tell what stage of life I'm in when all of my pictures revolve around the girls and not historical sights or special events. Leif felt that his team leader training course was good and was valuable to hear what is going on with other teams and to connect with other team leaders. And the SEND Eurasia time was a great time of connecting with others from Russia, Ukraine, and Central Asia, hearing good teaching from 2 Corinthians, and seeing the kids enjoy other kids and be a part of a great kids program. We stayed on the campus of Brake Bible College. They had this Papa bunny that the kids liked to feed lettuce to. It's the biggest bunny I've ever seen!!! Ella watched the other kids feed the bunny and then 2 days later when I was there with her alone, she picked up a leaf and fed it all on her own. She totally knew what to do.




On Sunday afternoon of the Eurasia Conference, they organized buses for us to go on an excursion! Most people with kids chose the bird park. Anneka loved feeding many of the birds and holding a couple of them. And both girls really liked petting the goats. One tried to eat my dress!



My FAVORITE part of the conference was getting to see Elisabeth! She was part of our team here in Ulan-Ude up until 2 years ago when she moved back to Germany to be the Women's Dean of Brake Bible College. She had us over to her apartment, and it was just SO GOOD to be with her again! Anneka remembered her and took to her again right away. Elisabeth used to live right across the hall from us, and we miss her!



On the last afternoon, Elisabeth invited her family for us to see and spend time with. It was fun to see her parents, sister her family and sister-in-law and her kids and to talk with all of them.

This is Elisabeth's nephew, Samuel. We always used to joke that he was Anneka's future husband, as they would each watch video clips of each other over the computer and get very excited. Anneka used to go over to Inka and Elisabeth's and say "boy! boy!" and point at the computer until they showed her a video of little Samuel. On this day, they finally got to meet in person. Here, Samuel had dropped something on the ground and they were both looking for it. His little brother is Ella's age, so she had a boyfriend, too!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day! We had a relaxed day at home. We were so jetlagged, that we overslept and didn't make it to church. I would've never guessed that we wouldn't awake in time. Normally our girls are our early morning alarm clocks!

I'm so blessed that Leif is the father of our sweet little girls. And both Leif and I are so blessed to have wonderful dads and grandfathers.

I'll still write more about Germany, but I realized that I didn't take any pictures of the conferences. I just didn't think about it when we were in the meetings/sessions. Oops. The teachers of the kids program took pictures, but I don't yet have them in hand. But Anneka loved her "school" and playing with kids who spoke English. =)

Tonight we're going to wait to put the girls down at 11:00pm in hopes that they'll sleep through and have no 4-hour middle of the night stints.

Time In Germany

We are back in Russia after a wonderful time in Germany! We were there for both a team leader's training conference for Leif and a SEND Eurasia Conference (the last one was four years ago, and because of costs, this may be the last one they ever have). It was so wonderful to be in such a beautiful place. The second or third day there we were walking with Anneka in the stroller and Anneka said, "I never knew there were so many birds in the world!" The airport in Moscow was so hot. Ella konked out in her stroller.

A very special blessing for our family was getting to go a few days early to see our teammate, Inka, and her home in Muenster. She was a wonderful hostess and showed us all around. Germany is 7 time zones ahead of Ulan Ude (and 25 hours travel to get there), so it was also a blessing to have these days to get our family into normal sleeping patterns before the conferences.
When it rained our first day there, Anneka was delighted. She squealed and said it was a dream come true. She loved holding the umbrella. Everything was walking distance from where we stayed and Inka's family's place.

Inka made doctor's appointments for both girls while we were there. Ella got updated on her immunizations and didn't even cry! We were thankful to be able to do this, and the doctor was really kind and even spoke good English!


Traveling with kids looks a lot different than without! We spent a lot of time at playgrounds and pretty parks and waterfronts, enjoying the flowers and greenery and playing with the girls. It was just the vacation we needed after some busy months and before sitting for days in conferences.




We enjoyed meeting Inka's family and seeing her home. Here she painted Anneka's nails on the patio.


Anneka loved helping Inka's brother, Timo, pot some plants.


We loved eating Turkish and Greek food at outdoor cafes.



Anneka and Inka, playing at the lake.

I LOVED the beautiful boulevards!

A fun swing at the playground




Our last day in Muenster, John, Sharon, and Heidi joined us. And we had more fun.

We were amazed by the number of bicycles! Inka said that the statistics are 2.5 bikes per person in Meunster!!

On the train, on the way to Lemgo for the Team Leaders Conference...



Right now we're in Irkutsk, staying with Alex and Yulia. We had to wait for our lost luggage, but are on our way home on the night train in just a little bit. I'll post more about our time in Germany soon!