Eggs in Russia

Rachel Eggleton

2010-07-28T00:53:00.000-07:00

Fly Away Home

If I had a flying house, all of my own, I would fly home. Now, you must understand my meaning. I have heard the phrase “home is where the heart is” many times. If this statement is true, then I have just confirmed my meaning.
I live in a big city called Saint Petersburg in Russia. It is my home. However, by nationality, I am American. My passport says so. In America, I live in a small town called Fulton. It is in the state of New York. It too is my home. I have lived in America for seven years of my life. I have lived in Russia for nine years of my life. I am a TCK or third culture kid. My home is supposed to be where my heart is. Well, what if my heart is split in two? Then where is home? Therefore, if I had a flying house, I would make my torn heart whole again.
I can see it. I could essentially live in two places, making the combination of two places my one home. How amazing would that be? On weekends and on school breaks I could travel to the other half of me to visit. I could see the people I miss so badly. I could be with those I love. I could be there for them and not miss precious moments in their lives.
Imagine never needing to say goodbye. With my flying house, I could go visit anyone, anywhere, practically anytime. Goodbyes have always killed me inside. They are always so hard. Sometimes, the good-bye’s said can mean never seeing that person again. With my flying house, things would be much different.
My family is currently living in Russia, so I would live here more often (with school and all). However, whenever the chance would arise, I would take off into the vast cloudy sky above my city. Saint Petersburg is one of the most beautiful cities you could ever see. It is historic, complex, and breathtaking.
I would fly over the great Atlantic like I have so many times before. This time, though, I am not in an airplane. My flying house has the speed of a winged horse, so it would not take long to get there. When I see the land of my birth, the place my passport says is my home, I would find the town I live in. It might be somewhat hard to find, for it is rather small. However, if I were able to locate the large stadium in Syracuse, New York, getting there would be a cinch. This town, though I was not born there, is my home because most of my relatives call it their home plus most of my friends as well. It is a struggling town, but nevertheless beautiful in the way small towns are. This town is called Fulton.
Once landed, I would find a place to stay (I would definitely not stay in my flying house). I would probably stay with my grandparents. I would then spend whatever time I had to hang out with my friends and family, trek around my town, eat out, whatever. I would simply live. I would be home after all.
That is what I would do with my flying house. I do not need to see the world (I pretty much already do that anyway without my flying house). I would just want to make my two worlds one. Though each half is radically different that the other, both of the make up the image of what my home is. I see my flying house as the doorway between the two. I cannot be in both rooms at once so I must step through the doorway to get to the other. My flying house would make it easy and just make things better overall.
Now I open my eyes and see that life is as it has always been. There is no flying house for me. However, I smile inwardly, dwelling on memories, dreams, and experiences yet to come. I am happy. I am ready to live life, every moment, to the fullest. For, I cannot rely on my flying house to make things happen. I will live my life in thankfulness, seizing every opportunity to make each half of me whole in the place that I am.

Dog days of summer

2010-07-28T00:43:00.000-07:00

Dear Family and Friends,

THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER
It's been a great two months since we last wrote. Most recently, St. Pete is having an incredibly long "beautiful weather" spell. We can't believe the number of warm and sunny days we've had. Now, to many of you 85 - 90 F (30-33 C) is not all that hot. But for Peterburgers, it is sweltering, especially in light of the high humidity. Few cars and even fewer apartments have air conditioning so staying cool is hard to do. Add to this the fear of cross-ventilation (drafts) and many people are in fact overwhelmed by the heat. Don't get us wrong, they love these rare days of sunshine. Fans have been sold out for weeks and one friend who timed it just right told us it took about 5 minutes for 50 fans to be sold out when the shipment arrived. He bought two of them.

Our family enjoyed a wonderful vacation in New York in June and now we're back in action here. For Alan it ended up being a bit of a medical holiday as he had unexpected triple hernia repair. The great irony is that his surgeon was Russian :) In the four weeks we were in the States we:
- enjoyed seeing all 6 of Alan's brothers and sisters and almost all of their children
- loved seeing RJ get her driver's permit and drive any and every time she could. (She competed with Trish who also wanted to drive on the spacious roads and little traffic.)
-ate at a few favorite restaurants, including Olive Garden
-had each of the kids see many of their friends and also visit the school that they attended last year
-saw Toy Story 3 on the big screen on opening day
-threw rocks into Lake Ontario (see family picture taken there) and ate at the Loop
-had at least 23 doctor/dental visits
-got to spend lots of time with our parents - especially on Father's Day. Trish's mom and dad attended church with her :)

In our last letter, we mentioned that Alan's back was in bad shape. While in New York he was able to have it thoroughly examined and now he is on a regular regime to strengthen the problematic muscles and hopefully prevent a major muscle strain from happening again. Praise the Lord together with us for this help and also for his quick recovery from the hernia surgery.

LET'S PLAY BALL
Recently we held an English club event where we played kickball. 7 Russians came and our kids and the Friesen girls played as well. One of the Russian guys thought it sounded a little boring, but it was fun a few minutes later when he kicked a high ball to left field and a little girl (Lauren) promptly caught it. We had a great time followed by ice cream and fellowship in our new place. You can see the group in the attached picture.

Alan joined in a game of ultimate frisbee with a few others from the church and a bunch of their friends. After the event Andrei shared his faith with a young lady, Vika, who decided to ask God to forgive her for her sins and to live her life for Him. Please pray as we encourage her and help her experience new life.

As to our church, a wonderful event happened in May. Three young believers were baptized. You may recall that we mentioned Julia and Aleksei as they just became Christians in February through our English ministries and our church. The third was Pavla, a young girl in our church from a Christian family. Yasya, one of our most faithful attenders of English club, was also recently baptized at her church. Two pictures are attached.

OUT OF TOWN
Every summer the dacha phenomena happens in Russia. A dacha is a small plot of land usually outside of the city. It has a small house (or sometimes a nice home) where a family goes and lives for the weekend. Their purpose is to just relax and/or to work the land and garden at the dacha. Frequently in the spring and summer families leave the city to go out to their dachas. Some will even go every week if they have the time and others even live on the dachas for the summer. Seems like the city would be empty but there are still lots of people who have to work and lots of tourists arriving on a weekly basis. Many ex pats as well leave for the summer so in some ways the whole rhythm of life changes.

NEW NEWS IS GOOD NEWS
Our new teammates, the Hecocks (J.B., Iris, Gavin, Carter and Emmi) arrived safely in June and are getting nicely settled in. They're excited about helping us develop the Community Center. They are adding a whole new component for the center as their vision is to create a Coffee Cafe/ coffee roasting business. So, as a team, we are working through what we are doing next as we head into the fall. Some clear direction is to widen our offerings of English courses, continue our English club and make headway at opening a cafe. This cafe will ideally have enough space to allow other ministries and events to take place. Before it is up and running, we have decided to rent space and begin more of the ministries that an eventual Center will have. Please pray as we find a place to rent and begin just the right ministries that will help those in our community.

RACHELISM
Recently Rachel entered a competition for a scholarship. It was for ex-pat teens and we thought we would share her essay with you. Her thoughts about being an MK touch upon part of the mystery that we experience as international workers. Her essay, called "Fly Away Home", is attached.

APARTMENT SWEET APARTMENT

Our new apartment is terrific. It is larger and of much higher quality as our previous (where we lived for five years), and the price is the same. Best of all it is very close to the kids' school and to many of their friends. We are so thankful for it. Our team is now within 3 minutes walking time of each other. In the past it was 15-20 minutes one way by car to each other. This is a huge blessing! I've attached a picture of our neighborhood. You may be interested in knowing that this picture was taken at nearly 11:00 pm.

Kids want a blog!

2010-04-02T10:33:00.000-07:00

Zach has lately been asking for a little space on the net. So we will be having Zach and Lauren add some of their thoughts /life into our blog. This will hopefully help me to blog more often :)

Zach's Karate Corner
Zach is hoping to learn alot of karate moves and flips in the future. We will see if this happens :) Recently he was able to talk to his best buddy Isaiah who is now in America. They had a nice chat on skype.

Almost December

2009-11-29T11:32:00.001-08:00

Wow- where has the time gone? November was a blur. We celebrated Zach's 6th birthday with a nice party at our house. He had most of his classmates come as well as some other friends. Recently we just replaced our living room furniture that we had to throw out. Tomm we will put up our tree. All of our kids have an opinion as to where it should go... The weather here has been warmer this month after having snow in October.
Hopefully I will be able to get back to blogging a lot more frequently :)

Rain and more rain

2009-09-28T06:23:00.000-07:00

Today we had lots of rain... Alan went to take the kids to school and while waiting for our teammates to bring us their son-the car battery died. It wouldn't jump so our teammates drove our kids to school. Then Alan borrowed our pastor's extra battery which allowed us to pick the kids up and then get a new battery. Thanks Dima!! We had our house fumigated for a second time since coming back...Hopefully our bug problems are over.

At church we had quite a few people back from summer vacations as well as visitors. We pray that we can use the momentum to breathe some more life into the church overall.

Fall in St Pete

2009-09-14T20:58:00.000-07:00

Well, we did it. We managed to find tenants for our home in Fulton, New York and pack up all of our belongings. Then travel across the globe to our "other" home - St. Petersburg, Russia. The travel went well, all things considered. All of our luggage came through fine and none of our bags were opened for inspection as we arrived. So we flew through passport control and customs in spite of our weary bodies. It wasn't hard for the kids to adjust to the time difference. It was a little harder for mom and dad as we were generally tired for over a week. Thankfully we didn't have any episodes of staying up all night.

The best thing that happened on our trip came right at the very beginning. We were checking in with United Airlines at the Syracuse airport with 5 more suitcases than we were allowed. We were told twice over the phone that each extra bag would cost $121. Believe it or not, it is often $200, so we weren't going to complain. But when they started that part of the process, they told us $150 per bag. So we told them what we had been told and they didn't understand why we were told a lower number. In the meantime, we wanted to fill the silent moments while waiting for a decision and we told the two people that Lufthansa would actually allow us to take these extra bags for free if we were flying solely with them. "But since we start with a United flight to Washington D.C., we have to pay you this extra fee." Well, they talked to a few different people and in the end after looking at the paper we had saying we were international workers, the guy handed us all of our documents and said, (get ready:) "Just go on ahead to the plane. If Lufthansa would have given you the extra baggage allowance, so will we." And so we walked away from the desk not paying the $600 that we expected or the $750 that they were asking. Praise the Lord!!

FROM THE "WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?" CATEGORY - two Zachisms
Alan and Rachel were trying to understand each other in a conversation across the dinner table. They were having a tough time, as expected (since she IS a teen y'know!). Zach was off in his own little world at this point at the other end of the table. Finally Alan slowed his speech in order to clarify with Rachel, "What. . .do. . . you. . . want?" Zach promptly spoke up with slowed and clear articulation, "I. . . want. . . peach-es and. . .meat!"

CARS AND ZEBRAS
Alan mentioned to Trish about a man he met in America that has 16 children. Suddenly Zach chimes in from the back of the car, "Nobody can have 16 children!" Of course, we're trying to think of what would make a 5-year old say that. Does he understand the deep concepts of aging, financial responsibility, minimum of 9 months between having children?!?! I mean, he's still a little unclear on the difference between a week and a year. "So why can't a person have 16 children, Zach?" I finally asked. He proclaimed loud and clear: "Not enough seats in the car."

Speaking of a car - thanks to all who have given to our vehicle account. We purchased a 2003 Dodge Caravan. Its most important feature is that it is an automatic ("YIPPEEE" cheers Trish.) Cars here are so expensive- even used ones. The odometer was rolled back a bit but so far it looks like it is in good shape. In one day we witnessed two accidents as they happened. We were nearly hit as one occurred less than 3 feet from our car. So we always appreciate your prayers.

One of the biggest changes we have seen since returning is that most of the time, cars will stop and give pedestrians the right of way when they are crossing the road on the crosswalk (known to Russians as a zebra: ///////////. Of course the trick when walking is to make sure the cars are actually going to stop - and not assume. Why the change? There's now a steep fine for drivers.

PEOPLE UPDATES
We'd like to update you on some of the people that we've talked about in the past. While on tour, I frequently shared the testimony of a young lady named Alyona, who had lost her fiance and then her father during our last term. At the end of her testimony, she mentions that her plans to attend Bible College have been thwarted twice. Well, she's finally made it!!! She just moved to Krasnodar for a year of intense training and classes. Will you pray with us that God will use this time well in her life; that she will find lifelong friendships there and that she'll return more on fire for God than ever?

Masha visited us initially through an English club that we did at the Friesens home a couple of years ago. Then she visited our cell groups a few times and had many difficult questions in her soul. She was clearly seeking for truth and we tried to help her find it. By the time we left last year, however, she had pretty much disappeared. But God was still at work in her heart. During this past year she began attending our church more regularly and found her deepest questions answered in giving herself to the Lord. Just as we returned last month, she was baptized, as she desired to make a clear statement that she is now on the road to eternal life. Praise the Lord with us for her.

NEW SCHOOL
As our children begin their 5th year at the International Academy, the school moved in to the 4th building since our enrollment. On the positive side, each building change has been an improvement. The present location is not only very nice, but it will also help the school to move down the path to becoming licensed. It is expected that we'll stay in this place for many years. The kids have really enjoyed getting back into their friendships and to what they consider a "normal" pace of life. Unfortunately, the new place is a bit farther away from us than we'd hoped, but it's not horrible either.

SWEET, SWEET, SWEET
We also had another big family event last month. Rachel celebrated her Sweet 16 birthday. Amanda organized a big party for her before we left and then another with our friends here. Rachel is enjoying 10th grade.

One great encouragement has been some of our welcomes. One couple we knew screamed when we called and came to see us the next day even though it was an hour and a half drive. One lady in the apartment above us told us that great rejoicing echoed through the building as the word was spread that "Our Americans have returned!!" Another praise is that many of our colleagues here have gone way beyond the call of duty to help us out in numerous ways. We're glad that God has put us here and we hope that He will do some great things through us over the coming months and years.

Representing you in Russia,

Alan and Trish Eggleton, Rachel, Amanda,, Lauren and Zach

Is it already Spring??

2009-03-08T19:26:00.000-07:00

Hi -its 2009 and while we have been updating our cma site we have not been doing it here !!! Well Alan is on tour and we have survived an upstate New York winter. Actually it was much better sun wise than our winters in St Petersburg. Yesterday we celebrated my dad's 76th birthday. My brother Chris surprised us all by driving 7 hours to see us. Yippeee!

What have we been up to??

Rach and Manda had a great summer going to relatives in Ohio and New York
All of us girls went to see Michael W Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman
Trish just had bilateral inginual hernia repair (oh joy)

Week to week
piano lessons every week for Rach and Lauren
youth group two times a week for Manda and Rachel
Trish co-leads a pioneer club at our church once a week
zach goes to pre-school three times a week and loves it
Alan is in and out as he has been on tour in California, New York, Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

We are alrady starting to gear up for our return to Russia. Time just flies when you are having fun. We are so blessed to be here with our family and friends!

Wow

2008-08-17T15:06:00.002-07:00

4th of July

Picking up the girls at camp

Two months have flown by since our last post! We have been doing lots in our transition from Russia to the US. Here is a brief overview:

-hosted a fun 4th of July party at our apartment in Russia where about 30 people joined us.
-packed up and said our goodbyes in Russia on July 8th. We had a really long travel day on the 8th (30 hours)

-purchased a house in our home town of Fulton, New York. We are closing on it tomorrow!
-spent a week at Sodus Point (on Lake Ontario) with all of Alan's family

-Trish had an all day shopping trip with two of her friends

-celebrated Trisha's nephew Austin's graduation from high school (and had a mini Richards reunion that day)

-Trish took the 3 girls to a week of camp where they had a blast. On the way to camp they had a blow-out. We love the police in America who actually stopped and helped her get the rusted on spare out from underneath the van :)

-Saw our St Pete friends the O'Byrnes on this side of the ocean (see below)

-Alan and Trish took a one day trip to the Adirondacks with our church's senior citizen group and had a blast

-We ate out with our friends at Ichi Bon- thanks Candi and Brian! Zach was with us and loved the leaping fire!

What is up:
The girls will start school in early September. They will be going to public school so you can pray for them. We have met both Rachel's and Manda's guidance counselors. Please pray for their transitions.

We are preparing for tour. Alan will tour in the New York area for two months. Please pray that we can carve out time to put our last four years into words, pictures and convey what God has done in St. Pete.

Rach turned 15 last week and has had a great summer. She was privileged to attend a youth seminar that really impacted her life and allowed her to get to know the youth group here at Fulton.

Manda is getting a new retainer for her mouth as it looks like she will need braces like Rachel.

Zach is doing well but still asks how many days til he goes back to Petersburg Russia.

Blessings to you all!

WOW

2008-08-17T15:06:00.001-07:00

Transition Time

2008-06-14T01:38:00.000-07:00

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Whew! We have not written for over a month. Lots has been happening. Alan's two sisters came for a visit at the end of May and we had a great time. Pam and Sharon were troopers as they had flight delays both coming and returning to the US. On their way home they had some company :) Rach and Manda traveled with them and went to Ohio with Pam to visit her family and Trish's brother Chris and his family. They have had some great times.

Here we are surrounded by boxes and more boxes. We have already "sold" our van to our neighbor and have alot of our stuff packed. We are still doing the English club and class each week.
Pray for our church as we have had some good news. Two of our leaders will be going to Bible college in the fall. The church will miss them but we are excited for them as they are following God's leading. Our pastor's daughter Margarita had a bad fall over a week ago. Serious enough that they put off their vacation for two weeks. Thank the Lord she only had a concussion and not something even more serious.

Our new teammates, The Masons, will be coming in just over a week. Pray for us as we wind down here. Blessings!

Spring has finally sprung

2008-04-28T04:10:00.000-07:00

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Hey-it has been awhile since we have blogged. In early April we enjoyed a nice time at the Black Sea at our yearly field forum. While the weather was not the greatest the fellowship and the greenness all around us was excellent. The kids had a great time and Zach attended his last year of being with the "ladies" ie nannies who take care of the smaller kids. One of these nannies was our Vika who took care of Lauren and the girls when we first moved to Russia.(top left in green shirt-Zach is on the far right in red)

Life has picked up speed. Rachel is playing volleyball two times a week with the junior highers and high schoolers. The kids just had their spring concert as well as the school's huge yearly garage sale. We got rid of a vanful of toys and clothes. Lots of kids are entering and leaving the school.
We celebrated Lauren's 9th birthday by having some of her friends over.
.

We have also done some special dates with our oldest two daughters. For Manda we went to a special tea room at a downtown restaurant. For Rachel she had a mom and dad date at a local cafe.

Two times a week Trish and Alan are teaching an English class and discussion group at Med Em.

Visitors and Spring

2008-03-29T12:08:00.000-07:00

Girls greeting Tanya

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Alan celebrated his 43rd birthday this past week!!!
We have had snow flurries again this week. Three days were really bad and then today the sun came out and the temps got above freezing. Our friends Tanya and Olya have been with us the last week. We took them to the Zoological Museum (with Zach) and then to the Hermitage.
This next week we head South to our field's forum where hopefully it will be warm and sunny.

Olya with Zach and Lauren

Flurries

2008-03-10T05:54:00.000-07:00

Just about a week ago we had flurries of several different types. First the obvious, we actually had some snow flurries for several days. Secondly we have been in the midst of flurries of busyness. Our co-workers the Friesens left for home assignment just a week ago. Helping them pack and say our goodbyes was a reminder to us how time flies especially when you are concluding a term on the field. Yesterday the church celebrated Women's Day with a dessert time/games. The celebration was held at the girls' school building. Several non Christians were there and a good time was had by all.

Unfortunately there has also been a flurry of illness here. Pastor Dima's wife Valya who is pregnant has had a bad case of the flu. Please pray for their family and especially for Valya and baby. Zach at the moment has the sniffles and so does Amanda.

The kids did a short program at their school for Women's day on March 8th as well.

Excitement
In two weeks we will be having the girls' long time friend, Tanya, from Kropotkin, come for a week. She and our past nanny(Olya) will be coming for a visit. Tanya was the first of our Kropotkin neighbors to befriend our girls, and they have been good friends ever since. Also we we will be leaving to field forum the first week of April! It will hopefully be warm and sunny in Anapa.

Prayer Requests
Please pray for us and for some of our stateside friends. We have a dear friend who is struggling with alot of pain and a chronic illness.
Please pray for our kids as they start again the sometimes fun and yet painful process of transitioning. As Lauren noted, all of her friends, that she remembers are here and this is home for her.

Valentine's Day Bash

2008-02-19T05:47:00.000-08:00

Sasha and Ekaterina, Nastia, Trish and Alan

Our girls had a great time with some crowns that Mom Richards sent! Our couples small group hosted a Valentine's Day bash the day after Valentine's Day. Thirteen couples attended including our old next door neighbors. One couple has a sister who attends our church. After the evening they told her that they now understand why she likes to go to church.

Finally some sunshine!!!

2008-02-19T04:06:00.001-08:00

The Friesens and us

Trish overlooking the Dead Sea

The Jordan River-where Jesus was baptized Hi here are some pics from our recent trip.
Roman style acoustics

To Finland and Beyond

2008-02-04T05:02:00.000-08:00

Hi! We just got back last evening from a weekend out to Finland. We needed to leave Russia for our 180 day out so we decided to make it into a long weekend. We stayed at a wonderful cabin in Lapeenranta. It took us about 5 hours to go approximately 200 kilometers. The weather was quite snowy (not that we are complaining)but we managed to play in the snow, go sledding , go skating and eat at the girls' favorite restaraunt in Finland. Looking out the windows of the cabin all we could see was snow and trees...nice. We even had a fire in the fireplace there. Unfortunately the flue did not work so well so there was more smoke in our cabin then outside:)

Tommorrow Alan and I head out to Jordan so please pray for us and for the kids while we are gone!

Boxes of Love

2008-01-25T03:00:00.001-08:00

Two days ago Alan came home late from picking up the kids from School. Trish called him and he said he was in line at the post office. Well when he and the girls arrived home they were carrying six packages and lots of letters. An hour or so of glee followed as we opened boxes from Pineview Alliance , Masons, the Fites, Mom Richards and the Friedens. Thanks to all of you for the wonderful surprises!!!!!! Attached are some pics.
We received snow last night and it is not so quite overcast today. We have found out that TWO count them TWO couples in our church are expecting. Please pray for them as well as a young single gal who also is pregnant and in a bit of debt. She just recently came to church for the first time after praying with Pastor Dima.
Next weekend we head to the border and will be in Finland for the weekend. Please pray for safe travel.

Christmas/New Year and More

2008-01-10T09:57:00.000-08:00

DOUBLE DRIBBLE
Hi! We have lots of news. We again celebrated two Christmas days and two New Years. During the school holidays we had quite a few guests over and the girls just plain relaxed. We went ice skating indoors on New Year's Day at a local mall since there was no snow and the temps were above freezing. We stayed up late on New Years (til 330 am) and saw another great fireworks show as well as having tons of fireworks going off all around us. On New Year's Day when we pulled into the parking garage of the mall and got out of our car two ladies looked at us and exclaimed "Look..there are other people that are awake and sober! Above is a picture we took at the girls' Christmas concert. Trish attended Wheaton as did one or both of the parents of the Gerig and OByrne families.

BUMPER CARS
Speaking of drunks just before New Years a drunk drove through our parking area and collided with a parked car and then bounced off of the bumper of that car and just lightly bumped our van. He tried to run(drunkenly) from the scene but the owner of the vehicle he hit called down from his window and two men nearby grabbed the drunk so he could not leave. Well to make a long day short-they let the guy go(after they took his keys) with the understanding he would have to come back and pay about 1,000 dollars. He never came back and only later they called the police. Our neighbor waited outside for hours and hours. We were glad that no damage happened to our van. Turns out the car was stolen. Drunk driving here is a pretty serious offense. You lose your licence immediately and then may be sent to jail. The stolen car blocked the side street for most of the day. AUGH!!

FEAR NOT
Our church invited a professional mime group to perform on Russian Christmas Eve (January 6th) and we distributed a bunch of invitations. We were not sure what the turn out would be but over one hundred people filled up the hall we rented. Even better news was that Vika, one of the kids in the youth group prayed with her neighbors the Friesens, to accept Christ. This was a great moment in her life as she has lived in great fear of death. Four or five of our neighbors came as well. We pray that they will see a change in their lives. The group was excellent.
We were so glad that this Russian Christmas we made NO EMERGENCY trips to the hospital. Last year Lauren had an emergency appendectomy.
Russian Christmas Eve with the mimes

Putting on our traveling shoes
In two weeks our family will head to Finland for the weekend. Please pray that we will have a good time of rest and refreshment as we are somewhat tired and sun deprived. In early February we(Alan and I0 will be taking a trip to a nearby country to visit a community center there. We are thinking and praying about creating such a center here in Saint Petersburg. Pray for safety for us and our kids. This is the first time we have been away from all four of our children in years!!!

Manda with a friend

Clip of tambourine dance

2007-12-30T23:05:00.000-08:00

6 Days and Counting

2007-12-19T05:36:00.001-08:00

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

2007-12-02T23:14:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-25T22:14:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-16T03:14:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-14T11:05:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-07T23:35:00.000-08:00

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

2007-10-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-21T11:35:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-14T06:55:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-09T23:03:00.001-07:00

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!!

2007-10-03T01:52:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-26T06:43:00.000-07:00