KIDS CORNER
Well, it's official.
We now have a 3, 4 and 5 year old!
Wow, where does the time go?
Isaac just had his 3rd birthday on Feb. 25th,
and although we were unable to have a party because we all had colds, he was
perfectly content with his ice cream cake and the plane he got as a
present.
Isaac is always full of
surprises and the other day was no exception. He came out wearing nothing but his underpants and when I
asked him why he had taken off all of his clothes, he answered, "I wanted to be
like baby Jesus!" Hard to argue
with that!
Jonah is growing up more every day and likes to read books
and color. We are working on
learning numbers right now and
practicing writing his name. He
and Isaac are getting along a lot better now that it is just the two of them,
and it is a lot of fun to sit and listen to them playing (nicely) together!
Alex just had a program at school and got to sing with 6
other little boys and each of them had to sing 4 lines of the song in
Russian. Alex went last, and when
he was done everyone started cheering before the song was even over! He can't tell us what words he knows in
Russian or Ukrainian, but he understands a lot already! What is even funnier is when he says
something in English with a Russian accent! |
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I love it when the circus comes to town!
I will never, and I mean NEVER forget the look on the faces
of the people on the bus when we got off. It was a Friday night, and we decided to go to the
store as a family. The shopping
trip was fun and the boys got a kick out of helping find the items on our list. We gathered all of the things we
needed, paid at the checkout and began our trip home. That is where the "show" began.
We did a sort of "tight-rope act" across the parking lot and
across the street, being careful not to slip on the ice, to wait for our
"Marshutka" or small bus.  There
was about 12-15 inches of snow on the ground and we were toting all 3 boys and
3 very big, very heavy bags of groceries.
For Act 2, when the Marshutka finally arrived we had about 30 seconds to
try to get all 3 boys up the snow bank and help them "Trapeze" from there to
the steps of the bus. Luckily
there were a couple of young girls there who were kind enough to help us. A couple of long minutes later, we were
all seated on the bus.
The 3 boys
were in one seat loudly telling "Knock-Knock" jokes for a comedy routine, Jon
was doing a balancing act in the aisle with a bag of groceries between his legs
as the bus bounced all over, and I looked like a lady riding a camel as I was
sandwiched between by two huge bags of groceries.
When the bus arrived at our stop, we politely said, "Excuse
Me" about 80 times, did one more "Trapeze" act and finally managed to drag our
circus off of the bus. Jon and the
boys walked on ahead while I tried to readjust the bag of groceries I had. When I turned around to look at the bus
I had just been on, EVERY person on it was looking out the window at us, some
with their noses pressed against the glass, as if they were thinking, "When did
the Circus come to town?!?!" Jon
and I have come to realize, that if we are able to bring nothing else to the
Ukrainian culture, we can sure give them a good laugh!!!
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What we've been up to...
When we left Davenport, Iowa on Dec. 28th, we had
no idea what our ministry would actually look like when we got to Kremenchuk,
Ukraine. And to be perfectly
honest, the picture is still not all that clear. We met with our team leader Stas and with Willi Lowen, the
head of the Eastern Europe part of Kontaktmission, a couple of weeks ago to
talk about what we should be doing and when.
They were very encouraging and impressed with where we are
so far with our language and our ability to do some small tasks like going
grocery shopping and riding the bus by ourselves. They encouraged us for the next couple of months to
concentrate on learning the language and culture and to consider every task, no
matter how small an accomplishment.
So, for the time being, we are enjoying attending the church in Rakovka
where Stas is the pastor, and are trying to build friendships with the people of
the church. Jon has been going in
to the office to help Stas get ready for the Kontaktmission conference in
Germany later this month, and has been attending the Tuesday night Bible study
at the church. When it starts to
warm up, he will be going to help out at the new church building to get it
fixed up and ready to go.
I am
going to start attending the Friday night ladies Bible study and hope to
organize some sort of fun "Girls Night", like card making or swapping recipes
or something. We are excited to
see what God has in store for us next, but for now are thankful for the
wonderful church family we have and the relationships and fellowship we are
building there.
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Will you Join Us?  | Partners needed.
When we left for Ukraine, we had $2685 of our $3000 monthly
budget accounted for.
Unfortunately, due to some major changes in the lives of some of our
supporters, our monthly support has dropped to $2400. Would you please prayerfully consider your or your small group partnering with us and
what God is doing in Ukraine? If God is calling you to this opportunity to serve him, you may go here to sign up online. JOIN US! Thank you for bathing this in prayer. For those of you who are our prayer partners, please pray for added partners.
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