Celebrating Christ and Christmas

     The Christmas season isn't over yet, as the church here celebrates Christmas on January 7th.  But we like Christmas so much, that it's our pleasure to draw it out a long time!  Starting four weeks before Christmas, we lighted the advent candles each night and read verses from the Bible that centered around the main themes of hope, love, joy, and peace.  Then we sang a song.  The kids were busy and squiggly, but it was still something that we looked forward to each day.  It's cool because one evening a young man from our church was over doing laundry when we had our family advent time.  A few days later he called Leif and asked him about it and said he wanted to lead something like that with the youth.

     We also had a special calendar, starting on December 1st and leading up until Christmas.  Every day there was something special in the envelope that we got to do.  The kids loved it and looked forward to what would come next.  

... But even with all of our special activities, they loved these calendars with chocolates inside the very best!!  A sweet family from Germany sent them to us.  Even Ike would hop up and down each day saying "calendar, calendar"  and he didn't mean the other calendar!   I guess you can't quite compete with chocolate!  And I guess we also do special things on lots of other non-Christmas days, too.  =)

     One day we made Christmas cards for family.  It's sad how difficult it is to send letters from here and how long the mail  takes.  We ended up scanning and emailing them to make sure people got them before Christmas.

     We also celebrated Thanksgiving with fried chicken and most of the traditional Thanksgiving side dishes with together with friends.  We were in Thailand on the actual Thanksgiving, which was very special.  But it was nice to celebrate at home, too, and use our traditional "thankful tree" with different leaves with things that we're thankful to God for.

     Since Jesus is the reason for Christmas, we try to focus a lot of our days on Him.  One day, the girls chose special things from a World Vision catalog for people in need.  This year they wanted a share of a cow and Bibles.

     On another day, the card in our calendar was very general (something like "give to someone in need").  I'd planned to have the girls go through their clothes and toys later that day.  But our plans changed so that the girls ended up having a friend stay the night.  I was trying to figure out what we should do when an old lady came to the door (sober) and asked us for food.  We'd never seen her before, but she knew the family who lived here before us (3 years ago).  She was grateful and told us that she'd be alone for New Years (which is the biggest holiday here).  We invited her to join us, and her face lit up with such joy!  We gave her some clothes, too, and she was so thankful.  But she had no idea how much she blessed us by coming.  Just her coming was a reminder that God guides our day and He knew how he wanted us to give to someone in need and brought her right to our door.  I love how He cares about every little detail and reminds us of His presence in our lives.

We had many fun times with different friends (old and young) and family game times.

We had fun decorating together.

... and dressing in Elmo shirts.

     Another fun tradition we have is setting up the nativity set so that the wise men are in the east, the shepherds are on a hill overlooking Bethlehem, and Mary and Joseph make the trek all around our living room (moving a little each day) with her pregnant belly.  On Christmas morning, the kids run to see baby Jesus!

Making snowflakes is always a favorite craft.

     For Christmas Eve, we got to host our team plus another missionary family from Romania and a lady from Moldova.  It was so nice to be together for this special time.

    Something that has become a tradition is acting out the Christmas story.  Almost everyone participates and runs and grabs something that will work for a costume.  Here, the wise men were giving gifts to baby Jesus (Ike).  This was probably close to the actual age of Jesus when the wise men arrived.

... and it's wonderful to sing Christmas carols!  

     And each year our whole family sleeps under the Christmas tree.  We had a nice day as a family, celebrating baby Jesus being born, opening gifts from family and friends, skyping with family, eating good food, watching a movie, playing a game, and resting.

   ... and the Christmas season continues!  But I'll write about that in a future post.  =)

Settling in to Winter

 

     Winter is officially here.  It's been -30 this week, and it's dark until almost 10:00am.  We've pulled out all of our many, many layers and have them heaped on a chest by the door for when we go outside.  Leif was gone last week at a seminar for pastors and local leaders on how to write sermons.  It was a really good week for him and the other men there.  And God took good care of us at home, too!  Nettie and Renata each spent a night here so I didn't have to bundle all 3 kids before 8:00am on two of the mornings.  It was so nice to have that time with them.  And the other mornings we had this handy-dandy sled that I just pushed them all on.  (I took this picture before the super cold days).

 

    Things have quickly returned to busy/normal.  We've had a cold run through our family, and we're a little worn down.  It's nice to have some Thailand memories to brighten our days!  Here are some fun ones of our family jumping on the beach:

 

 

 

     Leif was gone this last week with a bunch of local leaders/pastors at a training on preaching in Chita.  One evening, the kids and I were lighting the advent candle.  The theme of the week is love, and so I was talking a bit about God's love and how when we ask Him for that kind of love in our own lives, he gives it to us freely.  Out of nowhere, Ella interrupted me and began praying, "God can you please come into my heart?" She was so excited, she wanted to call Leif right away and tell him.  And she loved when Anneka told her that the angels in heaven are celebrating!  We pray that Ella will live her whole life for Jesus and will shine His light wherever she goes.

Conference In Thailand

  Whenever our long winter can be broken up, even just a little, it lifts our spirits soooo much!  We had the privilege of going to our SEND Russia conference in Thailand this year.  It was so nice to have time with people from our team, leadership from America, and to get to know others serving in Russia more closely.

 

     It's also a breath of fresh air when we can hear good teaching in English and sing praise songs in our heart language.  It was also very encouraging to hear reports of what God is doing- not only in Russia, but all around the world!

 

 

 

     One very special gift is that Leif's mom, Irene, came to the conference to help with the children's program.  The kids loved being with her (and not just our kids!), and it was fun for her to see us in a beautiful place, enjoying flowers and interesting animals together.



 

      The kids program far exceeded any of our hopes or expectations!  They had a whole super-organized and fun program on what it means to stand strong for God.  The teachers had costumes and acted out Bible stories and the room was made into a castle.  Here, the kids were building a wall.  They still talk about the time and the lessons they learned.  It's so special when third culture kids can have these times with other kids just like themselves.  They really bond.

 





    Anneka and Lina were inseparable the entire week!  Their common language is Russian, so at any given moment you could hear little girls chattering away in Russian.

 



     It was really special to have Anna Blaker come and help with the kids program.  She lived in Ulan Ude with her family a couple of years ago and is now grown up and living in the States.  Ella and Anya also just love to be together.  They call each other "My Ella" and "My Anya". 

     The kids got to act some things out, too!

 

 

     The place where we stayed is a service for missionaries and Christian workers.  It was a lovely property.  In the afternoons we had time to talk with others and play fun games like this one where you throw blocks of wood.

... and we spend a lot of time swimming!

 

 

I just love these snuggly guys!

 

 

     Kelsey (in the middle) is 16 and joined her mom at the conference.  Her mom is in charge of caring for SEND Eurasia missionaries and led a very special time for the women.  Kelsey also worked with the kids, and these two girls just LOVED her.  They would sneak up to her window in the mornings and follow her around.  She was very sweet about it, too!

 

 

     On two of the nights, they set up vans for anyone who wanted to go to the market.  On the first night, Irene stayed with the kids, and Leif and I enjoyed a date together.  We went to this place where hundreds of little fish bite off little bits of your feet and legs.  It was so crazy!  I can't believe we did it and actually sat there with our feet in the water for 15 minutes!  They eat off dead skin and calluses, so our feet were soft and smooth afterwards.



 

     The other market night, I went out with Irene while Leif stayed back with the kids.  We had a nice dinner with John and Sharon and did some Christmas shopping.  It was very fun to have this time together!

 



 

 

     The flight back is 6.5 hours, from Bangkok to Irkutsk.  The kids did great.  It's really nice not having to change time zones too much.  We don't have to deal with the jet lag like when traveling to Moscow.

 

     We waited in the middle of the night at the train station, before our final leg of the trip back home (an 8-hour train ride).  The kids were playing some sort of game, and the security guard came to watch.  We all slept almost the entire train ride!

 

      After the conference, we also had a week of family vacation time with Irene.  I'll tell about that in a blog post soon!

Grancy

It has been a tough stretch for us as far as having to grieve the loss of people we love.  A few days after Jami's grandpa Charlie died, a good family friend Cheri died (I will probably blog about this later), and then two weeks to the day after Jami's grandpa passed away, my grandma "Grancy" also came to the end of her days here with us.  She was very special to us, and we will miss our visits to her, her straight forward talk, and the cards that she would send for holidays or just to keep us informed.  She had really been waiting for this day for quite some time.  It was very hard on her when her husband, my Gramps, died now about 15 years ago and her soul left her body on what would have been their 72nd wedding anniversary.  We are thankful that she got to meet each of our three kids, but are a little sad that they will have little or no real memories of her.  I talked to my dad and he shared that the end went as well as he could imagine.  He and two of his three brothers were able to be there with her and hold her hand as they shared stories and memories before she passed on into eternity.  Their other brother is already there now as they will spend time remembering their mom together.  Dad had high praise for the care at the hospice house where Grancy spent her waning hours.  I have always heard good things and have such respect for people who spend their lives caring for those who are imminently facing death.  They were great for the family and helped the last hours go by well.  Deaths like this usually hit us twice.  Once when we hear the news, and then again when we travel back to the States and our loved one isn't there waiting for us.  We love our Grancy and are so thankful for the love that she showed up.  We will miss her.

The one memory that may stick with our kids, at least Anneka, is getting to ride on Grancy's walker.  I think sometimes it was tough to tell who was happiest about this, Grancy or the girls :).

We love our six year old!!

I had been planning on posting this blog the day I flew back to be with family.  Better late than never!....

      "Will you be sad tomorrow that you can't hug your five year old anymore?", Anneka asked me the night before her birthday.  "Nah," I said, "because I'll still be hugging my Anneka Dorothy, and I'll love hugging you at six!"  My mom always told me that she enjoyed me at every age, and I think that's helped me to not feel sad about my own kids growing.  It's really rewarding to see them grow and develop.  And I have to say that in this last year, it's been really great to see Anneka mature and blossom.

     For her birthday breakfast, Anneka wanted everyone to have their own puffed pancake.  Puffed pancakes are what we eat every morning before school, but usually it just takes 3 to feed the family.  =)

     It was special to have gifts from my parents and grandparents to open on her actual birthday.  Anneka wanted her hair fixed like a fairy named Fawn and then she wore her new fawn dress from her great grandparents.  So fun.  For dinner we let her choose whatever she wanted.  She chose walnuts in the shell, avacodos (hard to find here), pelmeni (kind of like dumplings) and these fish.  We all ate the fish to be polite, but were musing at her choice of foods!

     We wanted to emphasize relationships that Anneka has (through the team, church, and school from last year) instead of focusing on her classmates from this year that she'll less likely continue knowing. We also knew that it would be a great chance to connect with some parents that we don't really know and hope to begin a relationship with them.  We realized that she has a lot of friends and didn't even invite everyone  (as our space is limited).  Anneka took special care in picking out little gifts (notebooks and pens) for her friends and writing their names on them..

     When we first asked Anneka what she would like for the menu for her party, she said "soup" (probably thinking of her Russian friends).  This was laughable, as she doesn't herself really like soup.  We decided on pizzas and also veggies and dip and fruit/dessert pizza (pictured above).

     Anneka really wanted a clown to come to her party.  I asked around and got a phone number for this lady.  I didn't actually know if she was a clown or not until she showed up.  She led with lots of trivia questions and comparison games.  It was a little touch-and-go there for awhile, but she ended with games that everyone liked.  In this game, Leif got to dress like a famous Russian cartoon character.  

   

     We go to swimming lessons with this boy and his mom on Saturdays.  It was fun to see him get into the songs and games at the party.

These are Anneka's new friends from church.  

... and a friend from school.  Anneka's two school friends stayed after the party, and they all had a marvelous time jumping off of the bed and giggling.

Even Ike got into the games towards the end!

This picture is blurry, but I like it because it shows Anneka's pure joy!

     I had planned on ordering a cake, and we found a place where Anneka could choose what she wanted.  Unfortunately, the one she wanted (a Barbie cake) they couldn't make.  So I made her one.  I set it on our covered balcony to keep it refrigerated, but the sun shone into the windows and acted like a greenhouse.  All of the frosting began sliding down!  Thankfully I caught it before it all turned to liquid, and I just made a point not to point out that Barbies dress became strapless.  Anneka loved it.

      Happy Birthday, sweet Anneka!  Your name means gracious gift of God, and that is what you are. We look forward to another wonderful year together!