Amber writes…Well it is hard to believe that we only have a few days left until we come home. I think I am ready to come home. I had fun at the orphanage spending time with the kids and getting to know some of them. Even though they have so little, they found things to give me as a gift to make my birthday special. I will miss some of them when I leave. I thank you for all your prayers. God has been really good to us on this trip.
Janell writes…..Yesterday Jon preached again at our sister church. We then had another meal and visited. We have really enjoyed the people we have gotten to know here and learned a lot about their church.
Pastor Alexander presented us with a gift at the end of the service.Jon preached the second out of the three sermons at this Sunday morning service. If you think our Sunday services are long, try listening to three sermons with two in a different language. We have someone interpreting during the Russian message but with no pauses. It is hard to hear with two languages going at the same time and our interpreter has to talk fairly quiet. It amazes me how someone can interpret and listen at the same time. I have a huge appreciation for people who can do that and will do that. I was so thankful to our friends for interpreting. When Jon preaches he pauses after each phrase and the translator repeats in Russian. That is easier to listen to but harder for Jon to deliver the message. For those of you who have traveled to other countries and visited their church services, you know that we in America have no reason to complain about long services. Maybe we have it too easy as Christians in America if we are not eager to hear more teaching from the Bible.
This picture was taken after Wednesday night bible study. Their church has been under construction for several years. We know what that is like.
Pastor Alexander and his wife Lubov.In the evening(Sunday), we walked to a salt lake with our friends, Tanya, Liza, and Dennis. Tanya is Vasily's wife and Liza and Dennis are 5 and 2. Tanya speaks English and has also been great to have as an interpreter as well as a friend. This lake is as salty as the dead sea. The salt and mud are therapeutic to people with all kinds of ailments. There is a large clinic here where people will come for treatments. The locals just go down to the lake and cover themselves with the mud. The lake is very large but shallow enough to walk across. The one drawback: the mud stinks. It was interesting but I opted out of the mud bath. Morgan, of course, loved it. I was mostly worried about her getting the coal black mud on her clothes because we have so few clothes along. I know, I know, I should just let the kid have some fun!
Today (Monday) we are preparing to leave. We walked several miles to a mall and found pizza. It tasted so good! We only order ham and pineapple because those are the only words we know. The other choices here seem to be salami, chicken, fish, and veggies. The crust has always been thin, very little sauce, and the cheese is a little different. We think maybe it is Russian cheese. We got a few other supplies and headed back to pack.We leave tomorrow morning very early for the orphanage to pick up the girls. If all goes well, we will be on an overnight train to Kiev Tuesday night. On Wednesday we could complete documents and be ready to leave on Thursday. Then we will have to try to get two plane tickets for Tanya and Lienna and change our four for an earlier flight home. That may be the toughest step. So we don't know when our next blog post will be. Maybe we will be headed home when you see it next! Hopefully we won't be in Kiev another week.
