White Christmas

What are you doing December 21^st?

Wanna know what we’re doing?

Of course you do. That's why you read our blog.

We’re planning on sitting around for about a day and a half, eating bad food, getting very little sleep, and probably watching a few bad movies with a bunch of other strangers. I can hardly wait.

That’s right. We’re coming home for Christmas. So put a couple more boxes under the tree this year, hang up our stockings, and set an extra place at the table. We’re going to load up our plates with pumpkin pie, pour tall glasses of soynog, curl up on the lazyboy, put on “White Christmas,” and cry when Bing Crosby sings “I’ll be home for Christmas.”

Our tentative itinerary gives us three weeks in the blessed United States of America. Our director surprised us with the time off and a promise to pay for at least one ticket, her “Christmas gift” to us. Hard to believe isn’t it? It will be so nice to see you all again. You have no idea how much we miss our families.

It’s going to be a Merry Christmas!

three months in a nutshell

Our English church youth group is great and active. At the beginning of the summer they invited us to go with them to the mountains for a BBQ. Several of the youth have, or could borrow, cars. It was a blast! Here Gina is helping to prepare the vegetables for pilaf.

After lunch we played several games and had a grand old time. While we were playing a form of tag, four of our friends walked by. One was a student and the other three were regular attendants of Friday Club. Most of them had joined Gina’s beginner Sabbath school group. Gina and I had been wanting to go to the mountains with them for several weeks. They played with us for a while, enjoyed watermelon together, and we took this group photo while walking down the mountain. Not everyone was there but it did represent part of the group.

Gina and I decided to take the long way back with our friends. They had walked from Medeo. Gina, unfortunately, twisted her ankle on the way down and was not up to the hike. She rode home with the youth group and I hiked back with the girls. The mountains were so beautiful and full of wild flowers.

A few weeks later Rachel stopped by to visit us. We were on our summer break and looking forward to a fun filled time touring the area with Rachel. On Sunday just after her arrival, we took Rachel on a hike in the mountains with Gina’s friends. Gina’s ankle was strong enough to make the hike this time. Gina and I stopped on the bridge for a picture.

Isn’t Gina cute!

Here we are at the waterfall. Rachel and Gina studied together and graduated in the same class.

About a month ago now, we received a forwarded e-mail from our director that she had received from two Walla Walla guys that were planning on passing through town on their Asia tour and wanted to locate the English church for Sabbath. Friday we were able to make contact with them and we invited them to crash on our floor. They were glad for the budget break and to find people that spoke English. They helped us with Friday club with the various activities and gave a short presentation of where all they had traveled over the last two months. Sunday morning we got up early and took them for a hike at Medeo before taking them to the train station and whishing them off. It was a blur, but we had fun.

Two Sabbath’s ago it was children’s dedication Sabbath. Schools all over the country start on the same day. Our children’s department was packed this day and Galina, one of our office staff and great friend of ours, told the Children’s story. All of the children and adults were captivated by her story.

I keep mentioning how Gina and I got to the mountains with our students. Some may be interested in seeing how that works. 1) We announce in classes that we will be meeting outside the front gates of the business complex where out school is located at 10am.

2) Groups of any size are acceptable because we are riding the local bus system!

3) I drag the students up the mountain to an obscure location they have probably never been to before. Just before the students die of exhaustion, we find a nice secluded knoll with a view to set down blankets or sheets, those lungies from India work great, and start the picnic. We played games for a while. Card games are not popular here and so Gina and I have been teaching them some we brought with us from America. Uno as well as Head and Foot were on the table today. When it comes time to eat, everyone empties the contents of their bags into a huge pile in the middle and then people just grab whatever looks good to eat. Each person takes turns trying to encourage others to eat the food they packed up. No one wants to carry anything but trash down the mountain.

4) Finding a place for a group photo is always a must!

5) Take a quick snap of the two of us for the family. Now if only I can get that up of the internet in a timely manner. When the day is done, we hike down and students one by one disappear off the bus as they head home.

Meet 28 kilograms of farm fresh Roma tomatoes. They have just suffered a long bus ride home from the wholesale market and a one block hike up from the bus stop. For people that still cannot think in SI that is 28 kg * 2.2 lb/kg = 61.6 lbs.

Add a few fresh ingredients in our soon to be famous recipe and the never to be patented process but closely held trade secret

Run everything through a hand crank meat grinder.

Boil it down for about an hour and add all the right spices, seasonings, and salt.

Sterilize the jars in the oven. Fill, seal, and wrap them in towels to keep the boiling contents hot for as long as possible.

When the process is done, you are left with some delicious tomato sauce that can be used to make mouthwatering dishes in seconds.

Our first batch was so good and such a big hit that we gave much of it away to friends we have made here and others who have been giving us jars with delicious contents. Sharing home canned food is a tradition here. What a great culture!!!

Seven good reasons to pray

On Sabbath morning David was preparing his sermon and I sat down with my Bible. My plan was to read the Psalm reading for that day, but I kept getting distracted by the question of the state of the dead from Psalm 146:3,4 “Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.” The KJV says it even stronger “their thoughts perish.” I haven’t felt compelled to study the state of the dead for a long time but I reached for “Bible Readings for the Home” and began searching through the contents for the passages on death. Soon I was reading through old commentary on KJV verses and looking them up in my Bible. “How would I present this to someone?” I wondered. So, I picked out a few of the classic verses Genesis 2:7; Psalm 146:3,4; Ecclesiates 9:5; John 3:16; 5:24-29; 1 Corinthians 15:51-54; Revelation 20:11-15; and Malachi 4:1-3. “That was interesting,” I thought. Then something said, “now practice it.” I had nothing else to do so on impulse I practiced thumbing through the verses and explaining each one.

After I was finished, David and I went to church. The mission spot that morning was about an Islamic sect that calls itself the white way and communicates with the dead. One of our members had been in contact with them through a relative and was asking that the church pray for them. I looked at my Kazakh friend in front of me and wondered if she understood why our church member was so disturbed by people communicating with the dead. It is not uncommon for Islamic families to pray for and to their dead relatives. They even visit them in the graveyard and bring them food.

After church we invited my friend, along with a few other people over to our house for dinner. After the meal we were enjoying a very ripe summer melon and talking when my friend mentioned that she had never been able to finish a book on death she had borrowed from our church because it was rather dry and depressing. I laughed and showed her the book I had been reading that morning about what the Bible says about death. She read the first question. I think it went something like this “By what figure does the Bible portray death?” Of course the answer is “sleep.” My friend understood what that meant immediately and suddenly had many questions. What about the TV show she had seen featuring a woman who was contacted by her dead daughter? Soon we were deep in a Bible study on death working our way through the verses I had practiced that morning. We did not even notice when one of my guests went into the kitchen and washed the dishes and the rest, which included a hyperactive five year old who would probably be on ridilin if she had been born in America, got into a violent wadded napkin fight. I think David and the five year old were the primary instigators of that war.

At the end of the evening my friend was grateful for her new understanding about human mortality, the state of death, and the resurrection. She carefully copied all the verses down in her notebook so she could highlight them in her Bible at home. Everyone else had clearly enjoyed their napkin war. After we had walked our friends to their bus stops I thanked God for preparing me that morning for this special Bible study.

The Holy Spirit is moving over the Almaty English church and we need your prayers. Below are seven things you can pray about.

1) Pray for a family ministry here in Almaty.

Almaty is a modern secular city with a very high divorce rate. The young people who attend our English school learn about dating, sex, marriage, and relationships from movies, TV shows, novels, and magazines. There is a great need inside and outside of the church for proper and Biblical education, especially among young people.

While enjoying a Sabbath dinner with some church members David and I expressed our interest in a family ministry and our hosts responded very positively. They are excited about the potential for a relationship seminar presented in English and Russian and open to church members as well as English students. There are many young people in our church. We are looking for appropriate materials and praying that God will guide us in planning a program that will present simple truths and expose media lies about love and marriage. We hope the result will be healthier relationships and happier homes as men and women learn to love, respect, and understand each other better.

2) Pray for a health ministry here in Almaty

Traditional Kazakh meals all center around meat. David, Charl, and I have met strong resistance from our students when we have tried to share with them about vegetarianism. There are a lot of strong traditional ideas about what is healthy but no real nutritional education and the propaganda of the meat and milk industries are believed without question. Refined and sugary foods are often considered “healthy” because they deliver quick energy. Meeting any of this ignorance with medical research is difficult because many of our students do not know the difference between vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, etc. or about digestion and other physiological processes.

Because of the resistance I have met in students to listen to my crazy vegetarian ideas I was very surprised when Aiman, a church member, began asking me about vegetarianism after church last Sabbath. I told her briefly that it is not hard to substitute whole grains and legumes for meat, and that malnutrition is not a threat because whole foods deliver far more necessary nutrients than a meat centered diet. The key to getting a good diet is diversity. “Why isn’t the church teaching us this?” she asked. I replied that I didn’t know but I just thought that nobody wanted to hear it. Apparently I was wrong. Aiman wants to start a health ministry where anyone, but especially Adventists, can learn about nutrition and vegetarian cooking. It is possible that many of our members, like Aiman, are not vegetarians simply because no one has ever taught them why they should be or how to be. We are praying for the next ten days that God will lead us in making plans, that he will lead the right people to join us, and that he will shape this ministry according to his will. Would you join us in prayers? I am also looking for nutrition education resources and health presentations. Whatever shape this ministry takes I’m sure it will be practical which means that we will not only be talking but cooking together. The end result will be happier, healthier, people for the kingdom of God.

3) Pray for our English School

Our English school in Almaty was started by ADRA a number of years ago and turned over to local leadership. The school has gone through a number of changes but one thing that has always remained constant is its association with the English church where English students are invited to listen to spoken English and the word of God. Due to a number of factors our student enrollment has been dropping. The building we rent is used not only for the center during the week but is the meeting place for two different Adventist congregations on Sabbath. With less students paying for English lessons our center is struggling to pay rent. Please pray that God will bring students to our center, that our students will meet Jesus through our office staff and teachers, and that we will continue to have a place to meet.

4) Pray for the Beginners English Bible Study

When English students come to church they are invited to join a special English Sabbath School for beginners. That class is presently taught by me. I decided in the beginning to read through the gospels with the students, many of whom have little or no religious training. We will be finishing the gospel of Mark in just a few weeks and have between five and ten students attending each Sabbath, three of them have been with me from the beginning. The curriculum is very informal with simple reading and discussion. Some of the students have begun reading the Bible on their own time at home as a result of being exposed to it in our class. This is very encouraging but there is a lot of room for improvement. I am praying for wisdom to know how to continue to lead this group as it grows. Most weeks we have arguments break out and I am struggling to know how I can nurture the Biblical ideal of fellowship. Currently students do not feel free to share openly and honestly with one another. Please pray for our Beginners English Bible Study Group.

5) Pray that David and I learn Russian

Learning any new language is difficult and takes time. Russian is an incredibly complex language and very difficult for us. Please pray for us in this because our ability to communicate with the church members (many of whom do not speak English) directly affects our ability to work together with them. When Aiman asked how we are going to communicate about our health ministry if we can’t find someone willing to translate for us I joked that God would give me the gift of tongues. That would be wonderful, but God’s way is not often the easy way. The truth is, I need to learn Russian.

6) Pray that David and I will be led by the Spirit of God

Whether we are preaching in church, leading a Bible study, teaching a class, having a conversation with a student, trying to answer a difficult question, or making plans for the future. Please pray that we will be led by the Spirit of God and act according to His will.

7) Pray for long term sustainable ministry in Almaty

Finally, please pray for the future of the Seventh-day Adventist church in Almaty and in all of Central Asia. The church faces many challenges here including government restrictions, community prejudice, and lack of resources. Despite all these challenges, the Seventh-day Adventist church has so much to offer. I have a dream that someday the people of Almaty would associate the name Seventh-day Adventist with quality education, physical health, emotional freedom, and spiritual fulfillment. I have a dream that someday our center would grow to offer not only English classes but health lectures, family and relationship counseling, chaplain services, massage and water therapy, drug intervention services, Alcoholics Anonymous, stop smoking classes, cooking classes, nutrition classes, Bible classes, and a health food store stocked with nutritional yeast, tofu, natural foods, whole wheat bread, and good books. That’s my dream. Please pray that God would fulfill his dreams for his church here and provide ways for us to share the wonderful things he has given us with the hungry people of Almaty.

God's Covenant

Have you ever made a promise? I’m sure you have. We all have.

Maybe you promised someone you would do something for them. Or took a loan and promised to repay it. Or made a promise to yourself to eat better or exercise more.

Often promises are spoken. Sometimes we write them down, like an IOU scribbled on a piece of paper and handed to a friend. Sometimes they are very complicated and contain lots of big words, like legal contracts. Even paper money is a promise. The paper itself has no value but it represents a bank’s promise to recognize the value printed on it.

But it’s not just global economies that depend on promises. The kingdom of God is built on a promise too, a promise so serious that it has a special name: covenant

Have you ever made a covenant? We make many promises everyday, promises to quit a bad habit, take out the trash, or help somebody with a project but we will only make one or two covenants in our lives. Covenants are very serious business.

I keep a document in my computer that I run across from time to time when I am cleaning things up. It’s simply titled “Vow.” I like to open it and read it to remind myself of one of the covenants that I live under.

This is what it says:

“David

Recognizing that marriage is a sacred covenant ordained by God and that in its highest form it is a symbol of Christ’s relationship with his church

I vow to love you and in loving you I will demonstrate my love for Christ

With Christ as my example I will serve you, even as He washed his disciples feet.

I will seek your happiness and in doing so I will please my God and your God

I will walk beside you and cling to you through sorrow, drought, brokenness, persecution, and disappointment. I will laugh with you, cry with you, and seek the face of God together with you.

I will know only one husband as the church has only one Lord

I will remember this vow and keep it continually before me in my thoughts and my actions. I will speak of it when I go in and when I come out, when I lay down and when I get up. I will engrave it in my heart and write it on the doorposts of our house as long as brick and flesh remain.

May God deal with me if I should break this covenant I make before you and before Him this day.

God keep us faithful to one another and to Him

God grant that we are separated by nothing but death, that only for a short time, and that we awake together to meet our God.

Amen”

Marriage is an example of a covenant

Unlike promises which can be quickly fulfilled and may cost us very little. Covenants affect us for the rest of our lives. Once we step into a covenant there is no backing out. It’s for better or for worse, till death do us part.

Covenants, unlike promises, are never private matters. They are community matters. They change our self identity and our community identity

Why all this talk about marriage? We are moving from something familiar that we understand and deal with everyday to something less familiar.

God also has a covenant.

We can read about God’s solemn covenant with his people in Deuteronomy 5 and 6.

Deuteronomy 5 begins like this:

“1 And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them.

2 The LORD our God made a COVENANT with us in Horeb.

3 The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.

4 The LORD talked with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire,

5 saying,

The Ten Commandments follow

I am the LORD thy God, who rescued you from slavery in Egypt.

Do not have any other God’s before me.

Do not make any idols or worship them

Do not misuse my name

Remember that the seventh day is a holy day of rest

Respect your father and mother

Do not kill

Do not commit adultery

Do not steal

Do not speak falsely about your neighbor

Do not want what is not yours

Moses Reminds the people how awesome that covenant making day was when God spoke out of the fire on the mountain. How he had been sent by the people to speak to God because they were afraid and how God had said:

29 O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!

Can’t you hear the love and longing in God’s voice? Oh if only they would be faithful to this covenant. How wonderful that would be! How happy they would be! God’s covenant was not intended to be a burden. It was given as a blessing. We read in Deuteronomy 30

19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: 20 That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

“Love,” “Hang onto,” these are not the words of a legal contract but a relationship. These are words we use in marriage covenants. The relationship God wants with us in not a legal contract defined by rules but a covenantal relationship built on promise. The Ten Commandments are God’s wedding vows with us. They are a picture of what the world would look like if we all lived in covenantal loving relationship with God.

What is your picture of paradise? What kind of world would you choose to live in if you had the choice? Wouldn’t it be a place where God is, where God is worshiped? Where everybody, even the very poor, even servants and animals, have time for rest. Where parents love children, and children respect parents. A place full of happy families and friendly neighbors. Where nobody kills. Where people keep their promises and covenants with one another and every child has a mother and father. Where nobody steals. Where people tell the truth about one another. Where everybody is content with what they have and nobody is jealous of anybody else. Wouldn’t that be paradise?

That’s what God wanted for his people then. That’s still his plan for us now. That’s why He gave us His covenant and told us not to forget. How do we remember? Deut 6

4 ¶ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:

5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.

9 And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

God told Israel to take his covenant seriously. “Firstly, it should be written it on your hearts” He said. “Then, teach it diligently to your children. Then, talk about it with one another.” In a community of faith we should not forget to encourage and remind one another about the covenant of God. “Finally, tie it on your hands and between your eyes and write it on the walls of your house.”

But Gina, you may be saying, that covenant was broken and is void. We now live under the new covenant. The new covenant is grace, not law.

But there’s nothing new about Grace! Grace is as old as the law. And the law is a lot older than Sinai.

Don’t we read in Hebrews that Abraham was justified by faith and not works? Abraham lived under grace a long time before Jesus.

And don’t you remember how Joseph answered Potipher’s wife when she stood in her see-through silks beckoning him into the bedroom? He said, “How can I do this thing and sin against God?” Joseph lived before Sinai but he knew the law of God.

It’s true that Jeremiah mentions a new covenant and the writer of Hebrews expounds on it more. Does that mean that God’s original covenant wasn’t perfect? No. Let’s read

Heb 8:7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.

Heb 8:8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:

Heb 8:9 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.

The problem was not with the covenant but with the people. They did not keep it. They forgot about the covenant and broke it. They did not allow the law to be written on their hearts. They began to worship the Cannanite God’s of power, money, and sex. They forgot the covenant that begins “I am the LORD your God who brought you out of slavery in Egypt until they found themselves back in slavery in Babylon.

The book of James is not a very large book, but twice in that book the law of God is called “The Law of Liberty.” Why? Because the law brings freedom. Before the law there was Egypt and after the law was rejected and forgotten there was Babylon. Only when we have and remember the covenant of God can we be free.

Well why would God give a law to Israel, or to us, that we can’t keep? Wasn’t He setting them up for disaster? It was never his intention that either Israel or us keep the law by our own strength. Remember even Abraham was justified by faith.

After the Babylonian captivity some very devout Jews called the Pharisees began taking the law very seriously. They concluded that they had been punished in Babylon for not keeping the law. Their solution was to study the law carefully and try harder. They took it so seriously that they had the ten commandments written on small pieces of paper which were then rolled tightly, placed in small boxes, and literally tied to their right arm and forehead. They kept the literal words of God’s law perfectly but they missed the whole point.

.They had the law on the outside of their body but they forgot that God’s first command was that it be written on the heart. They turned the covenantal promise of God into a set of rules to be rigidly followed and the law of liberty became a law of bondage.

The following story is a good illustration of the Pharisees problem:

A husband and wife didn’t really love each other. The man was very demanding, so much so that he prepared a list of rules and regulations for his wife to follow. He insisted that she read them over every day and obey them to the letter. Among other things, his “do’s and don’ts” indicated such details as what time she had to get up in the morning, when his breakfast should be served, and how the housework should be done. Try as she might, the wife never seemed to complete the tasks perfectly and there was much bickering over her accomplishments at the end of the day.

After several long years, the husband died. As time passed, the woman fell in love with another man, one who dearly loved her. Soon they were married. This husband did everything he could to make his new wife happy, continually showering her with tokens of his appreciation. One day as she was cleaning house, she found tucked away in a drawer the list of commands her first husband had written for her. As she looked it over, she realized that even though her present husband hadn’t given her any kind of list, she was doing more for him than her first husband had ever required. She realized she was so devoted to this man that her deepest desire was to please him out of love, not obligation.

Trying to build a relationship by slavishly obeying a list of rules is impossible. It doesn’t work in marriage and it doesn’t work in religion either. God intended that his covenant with his people be motivated by love.

Covenant means promise and in the Bible it is always God, not man, who is making promises. If the pharisees had only read Isaiah they would have understood that the ten commandments are about what God does for us, not what we do for God.

Isa 26:12 LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.

David understood this when he wrote.

Ps 57:2 I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth all things for me.

You see, our modern Bibles are all translations of the original Hebrew. The covenant of God has been translated as ten commands to reflect the more recent Pharasaic understanding of the ten commandments as a set of rules to be followed. But there is an older meaning. The Hebrew verb has no command form. That means the original Hebrew text was written in simple present tense, not as commands, but statements. So if you read the ten commandments in Hebrew they sound like this.

6 Because I am the LORD thy God, who brought you out of slavery in Egypt. 7 You will know no other God than me. 8 You will not make idols or bow down to them:. You will speak my name in reverence 12 You will rest on my holy Sabbath day. And you will give rest to your animals and servants. Children will respect their parents and have long lives. You will not kill or hurt one another. You will be faithful to your husbands and wives. You will have no need to take what is not yours. You will only tell the truth about one another. Everyone will be satisfied with what they have and no one will want what is not theirs.

You see, they are ten promises. Of course they are promises! That’s why God calls it his covenant. Covenants are always built on promises. The ten commandments are really God’s ten promises to us. They are a picture of what he promises to do for his people, in his people, if they will only love him and remain in relationship with him. Our part of the covenant is to love the Lord our God will all our hearts, minds, and strength.

Joshua understood that the command of God was to love him when he address the children of Israel this way

Jos 22:5 But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the LORD charged you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him”

You see, That was God’s plan for Israel from the beginning and it’s His plan for us now. He wants a relationship. An eternal relationship defined by a covenant and characterized by love. His vows are already written and waiting for us to read.

What about you? Will you vow to love Him too? With your whole heart and mind and strength? Will you allow God to write his covenant with you in your heart? Will you teach it too your children? Will it be on the walls of your house? Will it be a community issue that changes your public as well as private identity?

The same covenant that God offered to Israel is now waiting there for us. God promises to do all the work in us. All we have to do is begin to walk in relationship with him. To love him with all our hearts and minds and strength.

The Fountain of Youth, Pristine Untouched Waterfalls, and Birds of ENORMOUS Size.

I'm really late "editing" this. Sorry.

These incredible pictures which David has posted are from our Sunday trip to Turgen with young pastors from all over the "-stans." Turgen is a mountainous area about an hours drive from Almaty by bus.









Our first stop was the spring called "The Fountain of Youth." How's that for marketing? Appearantly it's quite a tourist destination. Ancient legend claims that an old man and woman became young again after drinking water from this spring. Send me your credit card number and I'll ship you some.
Our second stop was the waterfall. After a climb that really separated our the trekkers from the city slickers we all enjoyed the water and posing for pictures.





Then it was on to the fish farm where you can catch your own fresh fish for $8/lb and have a picnic right there. We hiked away from the people to the back of the property and ate our lunch beside the river. We also took the opportunity to pose in some of the ancient monuments to transportation that were just sitting around.










Our last destination was an ostrich farm. It gets quite cold here and I really felt sorry for these African natives but they seem to have taken to their new environment just fine. I guess their eggs and meat bring in a good profit but charging tourists to see them is probably their biggest moneymaker. While we were there an ostrich laid an egg right in front of us. David and I took the opportunity to pose with the egg. Look mom! Our very first egg!



Finally, the very best part of the trip was spending time with our incredible brothers. On the bus trip back they began singing beautiful Russian hymns. They come from places like Uzbekistan and Tajikstan where all the believers in the whole country would not fill a small church and they live under constant threat of persecution. But there is religious freedom in Almaty, if they cared to sing about Jesus on a public bus they could, and they did. We English speakers could not help joining in when we knew the tune. It was a very blessed weekend.






















Hello Family and Friends. Gina will of course edit this in a few hours but for now I need to get the pictures from our latest journey onto the blog. Enjoy!!!