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.