Clip of tambourine dance

6 Days and Counting

Hi! We just celebrated Amanda's 12th birthday on Saturday. She had all of her classmates over for several hours(nine girls in all.) They had fun playing animal tag and just being together. Earlier in the day we made a trip to the clinic where Trish volunteers. They had a small Christmas Party for kids there. Lauren at that time was at a birthday party. On Sunday we as a church celebrated our second week of advent. It really is enjoyable to slow down and think about the Holiday. In the last few weeks four people had prayed with Pastor Dima, repenting of their sins and deciding to answer Jesus' call to to each of them to "come follow me."
Trish wound up her semester cpr class this week. Hopefully the students, if need be, will have the skills to save some one's life in an emergency. The highlight of the class was last week when Med-Em sent the ambulance to the school and Misha, a felsher (physician's assistant) came and spoke to the students. He had some great stories.

Zach and Lauren are both excitedly counting down the days to Christmas!! Below is a clip from zach's bday.

4th Birthdays

Zach celebrated his 4th birthday on Nov 27th. He was so excited he was jumping up and down with joy for the full week before his birthday. We don't remember our kids being quite so excited before. On his actual day we had cake and then on the weekend we had a few children his own age come over to play.

Our church also celebrated its 4th birthday yesterday amid lots of laughter, joy and some tears. Over 50 people gathered to celebrate with about ten first time visitors. Attached is a clip of Rachel and Amanda doing a tambourine dance with the youth group. We had a group of Jewish folk dancers come and particpate as well. One special guest who attended was Katya. She and her mom are from Volgograd and they are here to have medical treatment. Over a year ago Katya was brutally attacked by her ex husband and as a result has lost most of her sight. She is only in her early 20s. Her mom Irina became a Christian several months ago and they are praying that Katya would be healed. Yesterday was the first time, from what we understand, that Katya has been to church. Several gals in our church have done an excellent job reaching out to Katya, visiting her in the hospital and encouraging her. Please pray for her. She should have an operation free of charge.. but here money greases the wheels if you know what I mean.

We had a pretty busy week. Rach and Manda went to a Christmas Dance at the American Consulate. (see attached picture) After school a bunch of their classmates came to hang out until it was time to go. They are a great group of kids! When they came home they were still dancing!!! >
Alan fell on the ice the other day and is still hurting a bit. Please pray that he will feel better. We got some snow yesterday and the temperature has dropped a bit.

4th birthday of The Great Commission Church

Thanksgiving and Beyond

Hi ! Hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We celebrated with two families, our teammates the Friesens and another American couple, the Bogotts. In the second picture is our kids with Perry. We had a fun and busy weekend. On Friday the girls had a choir practice and then in the evening we had our couple's small group followed by our church's half night of prayer. We had ten people pray for about four hours. It was great! On Saturday morning we got up and put up our Christmas tree and then got to celebrate Thanksgiving a second time with our friends the Gerigs! On Sunday our whole family went to the center of town for a Christmas bazaar put on by the International Women's Club. Their profits all go to help area orphanages.
It was interesting being in the city center yesterday. The main square was totally blocked off by police and riot police. Buses and dump trucks lined the road effectively blocking off the square. The political opposition party here wanted to hold a protest which the city did not allow (from what I understand.) I thought to myself; boy I do not know if I would want to be a protester surrounded by all of those police. So this Thanksgiving day appreciate your freedoms and do not take them for granted.

Zach turns four tomorrow! We are looking forward to his big day. By the way the picture at the top was taken at 9 this morning. Not quite bright out is it?

Harvest Festival

Hi- Last week our kids attended their school's fall festival. Lauren participated in a limbo competition and was the limbo winner for her age group. Included are some pics. Zach got to pretend to be a ninja in one game area. Rach was a doctor, Amanda was a cowboy, Zach a policeman and Lauren a skunk.
The kids are finally over their illnesses. Zach ended up on a steroid for four days as his croup got pretty bad. Today was the first day he got to go out and play in freshly fallen snow. We met Vladmir on our way out. Vladimir cleans the areas in front of our buildings every day and he got a kick out of Zach shoveling with his little shovel. Zach did not always throw the snow where it was supposed to go.
Tonight we have our couple's group. Rach is sleeping over at a friend's house and Manda is having a friend over to spend the night.

Rachel's Ramblings

Hey to all you wonderful folks out there, & welcome to Rachel's Ramblings the interesting posts made by me - Rachel. So, what are my ramblings today... it's amazing how early it gets dark these days. Today it started at approximately 4:30... I miss the sun! This is the time of year that I don't like the weather too much. It's FREEZING COLD, no leaves on the trees, no sun, only sleet, no snow yet... but dark and dreary... oh well...

Today at school, while I was in Advanced Band - the power went out. You see, the power in our school building goes off briefly now and then but this time... we were in the middle of playing "Christmas Carol March" and - BLACKOUT! Everything turned pitch black because the windows weren't open and to open them requires electricity! What was funny was this: the Clarinets - Isaac, Agape and I - kept playing! ^_^ But of course, we can't read the music in the dark so we ended class early. We had to put our stands, music and instruments away in the dark! It was so fun! That was the last class of the day fortunately, so no one else had to be in the dark.

Um... ya. In my space of our blog these are the types of things I'll be including - the weather, gossip, things going on in general and in my personal life, etc.
And I like to do stuff that includes typing, like chatting. Usually when we call someone on Skype, I won't be talking, I'll be chatting and expressing my emotions and thoughts through icons... ya it's the COOL thing to do! ^_^ So, that means I'll post a lot... make sure to check for updates often.

If you want me to add something you wanna know about, drop in a comment because I like it when people comment... ^_^

Till I decide to post again (which I guarantee will be soon) so long,
RJ

Snow is Here

We arrived back from our retreat in Anapa to find minus temperatures(Celsius) and last night we received our first dusting of snow. We had a good time in Anapa though only the first day was warm and sunny. We got to see many of our friends and co-workers and our girls had a great time with their friends. Two teams came from Colorado and Pennsylvania to minister to our team. Our kids were able to go swimming a lot. While we were there Lauren strained a leg muscle so Dad had to carry her around(too much swimming we think) for a day. She is all better but now she and Zach have coughs. Manda has had a cough for several weeks and is now taking antibiotics.

While we were gone one young man in the church decided to become a Christian after visiting with our pastor and his wife. His name is Oleg. Just today we had an old neighbor stop by to say hello. She and her husband had visited our church a bit last year but have been busy with life and jobs. Pray for Ira and Ateel that in the busyness of life they don't forget what is most important.

Prayer Requests
On October 4th a decree was signed by the Russian Prime Minister that presents serious challenges to the immigration status of most of our team here. The decree is designed to limit the ability of foreign citizens to live in Russia year after year on the basis of one year visas. This step is in keeping with the way that most European nations handle immigration issues. However, the accompanying opportunity that most of those governments provide for foreigners to pursue residency status, without undue difficulty, is currently lacking in Russia. Our team will need to work hard in the next few months to find solutions to this dilemma. Please pray for our staff, the Field Leadership Team and for the Field Director who will work with lawyers, our partner churches and representatives of other organizations to seek solutions.

In the video Rachel is participating in a game where no two people can be doing the same thing at the same time IE sitting, standing, laying, bending over-while acting out their roles. It is funny!

Dolphins and such

The girls had a week of vacation from school so we visited the city's dolphinarium with a few other families. This time though we got front row tickets and thought we would share some pictures with you. You can see Alan, Zach, Rach and Manda in the video. It is pretty amazing what the trainers can do with the dolphins...riding on them and having them sing. Alan is better but not totally better yet. One lab test showed that he needed to take some additional medication. The weather has gotten noticeably cooler. Manda has a cough we are hoping she can conquer herself. Rachel has been traveling around town on the metro, sometimes alone and sometimes with Manda. It has already started seeming a bit dark outside in the late afternoon. We are descending into the darkness :( We have had some sunny days though for which we are thankful. The girls had a potential new piano teacher come over for the first time. His name is Sebastian and seems like he will be a good teacher and FUN! Included is a picture of Lauren with some of her friends and a picture of the sun that she drew recently.

Down but not Out

Alan got to visit the clinic/hospital where Trish volunteers, teaching English to some of the medical staff there. Unfortunately this was not the kind of visit he was hoping for. After a busy evening hosting our cell group on Friday, Alan set off with two of our friends, Yanna and Vadim to go to a half night of prayer(around 11 pm) By the time they arrived he was not feeling well and after a few minutes became pretty violently ill(throwing up etc) Trish got a call from him around 12:30 and she can honestly say she was really worried about him. He sounded half dead and ready to pass out. When she found out that the prayer meeting was a block away from Med Em she told him to go see a doctor there. Vadim, Yanna and our pastor took him to the clinic where he had to wait a half an hour and then he was seen by a doctor. The ironic thing is that he was seen by the same doc who was on call when Lauren went to hospital with appendicitis. They admitted Alan and put him on an iv and iv antibiotics. Turns out that earlier in the evening he had a piece of cake that must have gone bad. He stayed the night and Trish brought him home the next day in the afternoon. He felt well enough to go to church today but still is a little weak. Manda had fun making Alan's hospital bed go up and down.:)
We hope that we will not have any more unexpected visits to the hospital and that we will get some rest in the next few days. Thanks for keeping in touch!

Youth Group

We have had a fun but busy weekend. On Thursday we had an American couple over who Trish met not long ago. The kids had a blast with them. Yesterday the girls survived their long, cold day of treasure-hunting. Alan did too as he was a chaperon for Rachel's group. They spent a good four hours running around the center of the city looking for clues. Alas neither of our girls' teams won but overall they had a good time. Lauren had a birthday party to go to on Saturday and then in the evening we, Alan and I, went bowling with a Russian couple we are getting to know. Alan did as well as ever and Trish had a few brilliant throws amidst the more-than-usual gutters.

Today at youth group we had ten kids attend (ages 11-14). Ira led a discussion on fear and it was interesting to hear what fears we all have. We had a craft time and then several of the girls stayed to practice a performance that they'll be doing at our church's 4th birthday party in a few weeks.

At church today we had a brief worship service and then a members meeting. Actually, we are asking people to become members officially, which is a first for this young church. Each person signed a membership commitment. Then we did something interesting. Dima introduced a chain with just two links, representing himself and his wife, four years ago. We and the Friesens then were added to the chain to represent our arrival 3 years ago. As people signed the membership commitment sheet, they took a loose link and joined it to the others representing their membership into the church.
We hope that you have a great week!

October Reflections

Rachel is now wearing braces, at least on the top teeth, and is adjusting to her new somewhat limited diet. She and Amanda will be participating in a city wide treasure hunt that their school is doing this weekend. We will try and get some pics of their adventures. Lauren is busy studying her spelling words every night.
Today I talked to a friend who is Ukrainian. She just today had a small change purse stolen from her purse while on transport. She was holding her purse quite carefully and still did not notice it happening. What upset her even more was that a young couple saw it happen and did nothing to alert her to what was going on. In fact after it happened they were laughing about it. She couldn't believe that they would just ignore it. After living in a big city, I am more and more convinced that while we think sin is doing something wrong it is also choosing not to do something good.

Zach now calls out any and every number he sees when riding in the car. You will hear him call out 92 ! or 34! and he now can tell us the time when it is at the top of an hour. He has a new set of glasses and loves to play a new game he has learned....Trouble!

Our couples group is going well. Please pray as we all have issues to work on and one couple we know is really struggling with years of conflict and misunderstandings. The group is made up of five couples. Two of them are newly weds. In church on Sunday another couple announced that they are officially dating. This is a tradition in some churches here in Russia. So maybe we will be hearing more wedding bells in the air soon.

Enjoy the fall weather!!

We have finally entered the 21st century and now have our own blog spot so we can keep in touch with you!!
Fall has come to Saint Petersburg and the city briefly turned on the heat for the city's apartments. Of course the heat was still off in Sept when it was almost nippy outside and it was turned on briefly this week when the weather finally turned unseasonably warm. The girls are busy with school and homework. We hear the piano, flute and/or clarinet being played at home.
Trish is teaching a health class weekly and Manda and Rachel are both in the class. Alan has been busy with ministry and life in general. We celebrated our 17th anniversary a week ago by taking a nice long walk in a park and eating at a favorite restaurant.
The days are quickly becoming shorter and shorter. We will be in touch! Thanks for visiting our blog!

Eggs in Russia