"Till the Cows come home..."

Maybe you knew this, but I didn't...Cows are pretty smart animals.  We live in an agrarian and herding community and twice I have witnessed big cows out walking by themselves.  The first one was a rather large heifer walking down the sidewalk of Main Street.  She hung a quick left at the corner market and continued heading home.  I was astonished, but everyone else just went on with their business.  The picture above shows my last experience with unsupervised cattle.  This time I was standing on our dirt road and I saw a mother and her calf coming towards me.  They took a left at our corner, headed down about 4 houses, stood at the gate and let out a deep MOO.  The gate opened and they walked in.  I couldn’t believe it.  I’ve been told that cows have very good sense of direction, but now I’ve witnessed it…weird.

Trip to the Capital....Take 2 (Amazing Race Style)

So we did it!  It took riding in scary vans, buses, metros, and taxis, but we finally made it to the capital on our own to pick up more of our packages.  Stephanie and I have watched the Amazing Race on CBS for the last couple of years, and every season we say, "we can do that."  Well, we got our audition today, and I really think we could do it.  


Our morning started at 5:00 after a short night of tossing and turning (guess who was in bed with us again last night).  We headed to the bus station and ended up taking a "private" conversion van (and when I say private, it had blacked out windows and curtains that swung back and forth with the potholes in the road). We were packed in with 18 other people (no joke), and the van kept pulling off to let people in and out.  It made me feel like we were heading for the border or something.  Anyway, a trip that normally takes our teammates almost 3 1/2 hours, only took us 2 hours!  


Once we got to the bus station in the capital, we had to find another bus to drop us off at the metro.  The metro experience was just like any of the ones at home except for purchasing your tickets.  There are no actual people to sell you a pass, everyone (meaning half a million people) all crowd around three automated kiosks to refill their passes.  Finally after being pushed to the side and almost giving up, an attendant came over and took us through the turnstiles with his ticket.  He was exactly the person that we had prayed for to help us through the day.  The metro was packed out, but every time we boarded someone would give their seats up for us.  The metro cars look like they were from an old movie during the soviet era.  We caught a couple connectors and made it to our destination station.  After wandering around the city for about an hour and asking a handful of polis that had no clue where the central post office was, we found it.  


We had a awesome lunch at a small park-side restaurant and then headed to the "post" for the next leg of our adventure.  Since I was there last week, I kind of had an idea of what to do, but now I was on my own.  When it was my turn (meaning I finally made it to the front of the glob of people) I stepped right up, pulled out my Google-translated dialog and let it rip.  How'd it go?....hmm, she just looked at me with disgust.  Now, I am sure this woman has a reputation with the locals too. She makes the people in our post office back home look like Mother Teresa.  After finally figuring out that I was asking her to get our packages, she threw a stack of receipts on the counter and motioned for me to go through them.  Guess what...our names were not on any of those pieces of paper...I'm thinking to myself "dadgumit, now I'm going to have to try something else."  When I told her there was nothing for us in the stack, she looked at me as if to say oh well, and started helping the next person.  I told her we already received a call, the tracking numbers showed they were here, and I'm not leaving here without my packages.  This seems pretty bold, but I was safe, it was all in English.  Finally, a familiar face from the previous week came out and helped us find our packages.  


We grabbed a taxi and headed towards the bus station.  On the way back the surujusu (driver) gave me a piece of his fruit.  Many of these people have very little, and they are constantly giving to others.  He got us back to the station, and helped us fight off other annoying drivers heckling us for our business.  We jumped on a slightly larger bus and headed home.


We asked for safe trip, people along the way to help us out, and the ability to accomplish what we set out to do, and all of our needs were met.  PTL!

Our Plans Changed to HIS Plans...

Today was a day to remember.   We received news the other day that our Christmas packages arrived in the capital.  This was a much-anticipated event for us, as well as those who sent them.  We have all been watching the tracking updates to see if and when they would arrive.  Once we knew they were here, Stephanie, Veta and I made plans to take a 3-hour bus ride into the capital.  From the bus station we would jump on another bus and take it to the metro and a couple of stops later we would be near the post office.  The trip home would be much of the same, but would include a taxi ride (Mario Andretti style).

For the second day in a row, the power was off for more than 8 hours.  This time the power went out at 6:00pm and didn’t come back on until 9:30 the next morning.  Our computers were dead and our cell phones were right behind them.  We decided that going to the big city and attempting all the various forms of transportation without any way to communicate with teammates was not a good idea.  So our plans changed…

Our disappointment did not last long.  Shortly after 9:30 AM we received a call from a teammate that lives in the capital.  She said that she wanted to deliver the packages to us and make a day trip out of it.  She wanted to take a trip to the mountains.  In retrospect, we can now see our plans changed to His plans.

After she arrived with our Christmas gifts, we enjoyed a tasty bowl of potato soup and left for the mountains.  This was our first trip to the snow covered mountains.  It was nice to get outside of our little town and into the country; it was so peaceful and simple out there.  It was rejuvenating to see the beauty His creation. 

After we left the mountains, we decided to take a 20-minute drive to the coast of the Caspian Sea.  We drove out onto the beach and rolled down the windows.  Hearing the sound of the waves crash on the beach and the smell of the water was calming.  Being far away from family during Christmas is hard, but something as simple as spending time witnessing His creation helped.  He knew that changing our plans was just what we needed.  For a moment in time, we allowed everything to slow down…way down.  We praised his name in prayer and remembered those around us that did not know Him.  It reminded me of the beginning of Psalm 19:1-4:

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.  They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”

Our Creator has left evidence of Himself.  I don’t think anyone can witness the beauty around us and not recognize there is a creator.  But it’s not simply about recognition.  His word tells us where salvation is found.  It is found through His Son, Jesus Christ.  And it is through the witness of all believers that His glory and story of forgiveness and redemption might be shared.

I’m glad that our plans changed...to His plans!

Not exactly Dasani quality

(This is a jug of water I filled up from the tap)

I hope our filters are working, because three years of ingesting rust like this and we're not going to be able to pass through the TSA metal detectors to get home.

The Feast

The last couple of days were LONG.  We were up late last night cleaning the house and preparing food for our lunch party today.  Many of you (I'm not actually sure who "you" is at this point....I'm starting to wonder if anyone reads our blogs:)) knew that we were having my language tutor's family over for lunch. This is the family that had us over a couple of weeks ago.  We really enjoyed our time with them, and wanted to continue to get to know them.

Our morning started at 10:00 with teammates coming over for Sunday fellowship and then we rolled right into final preparation before our guest arrived at 1:00.  The ladies did a wonderful job with all of the food choices and preparation.  The lunch started with Chai tea and some sweets (brownies, cookies, chocolate candies, and pumpkin muffins, and then the courses started.  The first course was similar to meatball soup, then the salads came out.  The first salad was a beet salad, where all of the beats are pureed and mixed with walnuts and garlic.  The next salad was similar to a potato salad with carrots, mayo, sour cream, egg, chicken, and walnuts.  Then the heavier dishes started to come out.  Baked chicken in a lemon and herb basting, a pot roast type dish, and then a chicken and rice dish.  Then another round of Chai, homemade apple pie, and fruit.  I thought they were going to have to roll me away from the table.  All in all, it was an awesome day of food, fellowship and sharing.  I plan on sharing more about today and our work in our next newsletter.  There are some exciting things happening here that we would like to keep you updated with and this isn't the best way to share them.  

PS....If you read our blog, join our group by using your gmail/Yahoo/Aim account or setting up a gmail blog account.  It is pretty easy and will notify you when people post on blogs that you follow.

The Stash

The Story:  Some of you might remember that I like to grow a beard in the winter...after all it keeps my face warm.  The problem here is that people with beards are either mourning the death of a relative or they are religious extremists (this is the PC way of saying this...get my drift).  I was hoping that since I don't look anything like them, I wouldn't be held to the same stereotypes.  I was wrong.  So while trying to shave off two and half months worth of beard with what felt like a piece of broken glass, I came up with this little number... What do you think?  Stephanie said I wasn't allowed to leave the house.

Bob's Baracades could make a ton of money here!

The picture is blurry, but you get the gist. When they resurface around here, they're always thinking ahead to alert the drivers of wet concrete.  Too bad this patch job is on a one lane road and hidden after a sharp curve.  I'll put money on it that at least five vehicles hit these.

Heat

We got our gas heater installed in the bedroom yesterday...wow what a difference.  Now we just need Veta to get the memo that we don't need her in the bed to keep us warm anymore.

We've made an addition to the list of burned up appliances

That 'ole girl has burned up the brand new mixer...she's been baking and cooking so much.  Homemade chocolate chip cookies tonight.  She had to make her own brown sugar and chocolate chips.

Now if we just had a tall glass of Milk (from the states, that is).  Milk here just isn't the same.  Not bad, but also not too good.