Blessings all around.

Today we had the opportunity to spend some time with our new friends Kyle and Kristy... they are the two humanitarian aid workers that we met up with at the capital city baby house . They have some friends here for the next couple of weeks from Crosspath Ministries in the US that are here to fit Kids for wheel chairs.. Any ways , we had them all out to the town area to give them a tour of some of the projects that we are working on. No Tour could be complete with out a tour of the village orphanage.. They were very impressed with all the work that has been done, but most impressed about how the kids there are all part of a big family. We had brought them there so they could get some ideas from the kindergarten that has just opened there, but instead it was us that were blessed... I say us because when you bless these kids, you bless us...... This is a photo of Kyle and Kristie's friends Joanne donating money to buy the kids new mattresses and sheets for about 20 of the beds.... This has been a concern for the directors for some time. ... and yes... she got the happy dance..... Lorne tried to stay out of the photo's , maybe because he has been up for 48 hours, but we assured him that surrounded by these kids... anyone looks great.

Of course as anyone that has been there can attest to the orphanage is a big black hole of time . and sucked up the rest of the day away from us , so the rest of the projects will have to wait for another day. One of the reasons that we want to give them a good idea of what we have been doing here in hopes that they will be able to help each other out in the future.....Hopefully I can bring awareness and support to some of their work, and they will be able to cover off in some areas for us when we go..... WE GO..........Two words that are starting to make "noses hurt" all over the Valley !

The Boys are back in Town !

Today it was the older Boys turn to come for a visit to town... We had already set president, so the day began with a trip to the Bazaar... They all got their 200 som and were of on a shopping spree.... anything they wanted... just not over the 200 som... we have been rather strict about this or it could get out of hand. it is so tempting to give them that little extra to get them that special something, but we have refrained... Well today the wheels fell off. The group I had , there were two of the brothers from the house we are helping set up for the family of 5... Torat the oldest and Beksoltan the younger, kept looking at things, but would not buy anything... you could see the excitement peek, then slowly dissipate from the faces as they found something of interest.... I watched , and the items that they declined were in some cases only 20 or 30 som.. then after about 45 min, we worked our way through the market to were the food was... and there eyes lit up... not for candy... not for cookies, not even for chips, pop, cakes, fruits, .....but for clear plastic bags of bulk pasta...rice...flour...and a real treat....1/2 litre of cooking oil...this is what they wanted to spend there windfall on.....

Have you ever noticed that just before you are going to cry, the middle of your nose starts to hurt..... maybe I am just starting to get raw to this.... Why can't a kid be a kid... Why even when we get them away from life's troubles, can't they just experience something fun and exciting without worrying about tomorrow...... I tried to tell him that the money was for him to buy something fun and I would make sure he had food to bring home.... But try as we might, we could not entice them with anything.... so finely I decided that if we bought the food he could relax and enjoy himself. Well we stood there and he began to place his order and we had two people kept busy filling it... Pasta , rice, barley, flour, peas, ... there were about 10 or 12 bags that filled a big sack..... I started to think where is he going to stop now that I am standing here with my wallet out.... well then suddenly his shopping spree was over... the lady totaled everything up and turned the calculator toward me.... 198 som...with that he pulled out his 200 and handed it to her..... I could not believe how he had that all worked out in his head, and how he had no intention of me paying more for it... then my nose started to hurt again.....Well I insisted , and I am bigger so I payed and gave him the 200 some back..... he was ok with this though... because he wanted some medicated cream from the pharmacy for his bad leg and now he had money for that. ...

I am doing to much writing now... maybe I will start showing you some photos....

A Quiet Day

Last night, we left Emma and Bekah at the Orphanage for a few days..and will gather them and another group of the kids up on Friday morning for another action packed day..... Boy was everyone excited... This left us with a quiet day for today...

Julie stayed home and read, listened to music, did laundry, ate Honey Nut Cheerios and made earrings. She loved her day home alone..... I decided to go into the capital city with David and Jayne and catch up on a little business. Our first stop was at the Cancer hospital to check up on Pastor Elana... that story I will tell you ...maybe tomorrow... it deserves a few blogs of it's own.... then I payed the deposit for the yurt camp that we are going to when the youth team comes, Any way from there we went over to the Baby house. One of our readers had sent a donation and had asked for it to go to a need at the Baby house ... I am not sure if that is in town or the capital city, I am waiting to hear. I had a meeting with the new director there. I delivered more Vitamins and some other medication along with some beautiful clothes that were donated as promised on our last visit. I was picking his brain to see what kinds of items he wanted next ( if this indeed was going to be the recipient of the donation) He told me that what he really wanted was a baby ventilator ...... The thought stopped me in my tracks....In My little mind I place this as a need ... Not a want . I told him to give me the information on this and where it can be purchased, and I WILL get it for him.... OK so I stepped out and committed $400 and have a delivery date for him.... I sure hope this turns out to be the intended destination for the donation, but how can you deny a child breath...... Then the director shared a bit more... He would like to have the older kids to have an opportunity to experience more then just the four walls of the orphanage .... he would like to have on opportunity for them to go out to some parks or other outings... ...We were so thrilled to see the concern he had for the kids, not just physical, but the emotional development.. As we were leaving the office we ran into two incredible people that are already forging a relationship there. They stop in a few times a week to do massage therapy with the kids. They also help and support families that are trying to keep there kids at home but because of financialhardship might have to give them up. They also have a dream of one day being able to bring these kids on outings....Hmmm..... We met with them for lunch and had a great visit... It turns out that they have worked in other Central Asian Countries, and know many of the same people we do. I so wish we had crossed paths with them a lot sooner . The Dream that they have and the desire that they have to serve is one that I recognise..... I will do a post introducing them in a few weeks when we have had the opportunity to talk a little more. They seem to be good soil.... I look forward to planting with them , and I know some of you will as well. Oh I forgot to tell you about Altynai's graduation last night.... OK I will share a quick photo, and tell you more another day.

ChickenPox

So the kids at the town orphange have a dose of the Chicken Pox ... if that was not bad enough, every dot has to be covered in the green mystery paint. So we had a few less with us when we went swimming with them todayThis is Anya... she is new here last week

This is my little buddy from the market. He pushes the cart for me , and is always watching for me when I am at the market.. we usually pay him way too much, and buy him a bag of fresh fruit. He was happy to see us at the watering hole, and had a turn on the raft .these two spent a little to long in the water and needed time to warm up!

... This was going to be our last week for supper with them, but now they will not get to go to Camp because they don't want to contaminate the rest of the kids. It was a treat for us because they did the cooking... We had Fried zucchini with cheese and the kids favourite...Monty.... The day was full of traditional Central Asian feasts.... we were invited to lunch today at the home of our Taxi driver... Kazbec and his family. They live on a pension of 1700 sum.. that's $61 a month. This is his compensation for being shot in the hip while he was a captain in the army in Central Asias... He now rents a car and drives taxi to help support there family... They are a very nice couple and I am sure we will use him more in the future. It turns out that her brother lives in Toronto... we will bring some things home for him. Kazbec is hoping to get work in Moscow for a couple years, so they can afford to come back to Central Asia and adopt a boy from the orphanage. Unlike international Adoption, this can be done for free... they just would like to make sure that they can provide the basic necessities .

It's a start !

At supper tonight, it was obvious that these children come with a lot of trauma issues.... Valera sat beside me at the table tonight, and no matter how much he wanted the food put before him, he could not relax with us there... At one point Bekah was swishing away some flies and he flinched. The girls were having a much better time and were excited to see all the Crayola stuff we brought to them. The other girl living here now is Auxana. Auxana was living with her grandfather in town, he is very sick and she was not being looked after . She walked for two days to the village to find Larisa. We realized that it would be much more fun for the kids to go shopping without us, so we gave Larisa $50 for each of them to get them some clothes. We also told her that We will find sponsors for these kids as soon as I get home, but in the mean time we have left her the equivalent of two months sponsorship.... We asked her how she had planned to support the kids... she said that she had no idea, but new someone had to do something. Larisa shared with us how excited they were to pray before there meal... they could not imagine having food to eat. Every night when they go to bed. they pat the sheets with there hands and comment on how beautiful the bed is with white sheets.... the little things that we take for granted... These kids are going to take a lot of work and on going support but both Larisa and PI are in this for the long haul. Over the next couple of weeks, Larisa will start working on getting them to the Dr and the dentist as provisions comes in ....... As we have said for a few years now.... one day the dump will be empty.... One day they will all have a home...a special thank you to all of you who have joined with us to set these beautiful kids on the right track...... This last photo is uploaded at full size if you would like to print it off and put it on your fridge.... They need all the prayer support they can get.
Oh Ya I forgot to tell you about some of the other projects Larisa is working on .... one cost us another $100.... money well spent...... wait until you here this story....maybe tomorrow...

New poster paint ....

A time to Sow... A time to Dream !

This morning we went to Larisa's church... she had her new family there... all morning they were excited that they would be seeing us at church today.... a far cry from a few weeks ago when they were at the dump.... trying so hard not to be seen... we will be having supper with them tomorrow night, and will be watching closely to see what we can do to bless the socks off them which won't be hard since they probably only have one pair .... If you want to be a part of

this.... we are open to suggestions ... here's how...

step 1) leave us a comment telling us how you would like bless them .....

step 2) Go to the Canada helps link at the top of the page and leave the appropriate donation

step 3) I will try to post the followup photo's in the next week...

in fact just in case, I will set aside 3 hours to go to the bazaar before we go see them... and will post the follow up tomorrow....

I have come to learn that any support that we can give Larisa and her endeavors is good soil... so lets do some planting.... ...

Now is your turn to dream .....

AWESOME

As hard as we try, it is easy to overlook some of the kids in the orphanage... the older kids are closer to Emma and Bekah's age, so they are eager to interact, and the younger ones are just so starved for attention that they are on you like glue the whole time... The group of girls in the middle are all shy... well except for Sibera. They are always happy to see us and have a little interaction, but are quickly over powered by the presence of the louder more out going kids... Today we had such a fun day with that middle group... This morning we left here at 8, dropped 6 new matresses of for Igoolo's family... went and checked on the new play ground ,which is doing great... a couple of days and the fences will be up and the ground all leveled. By 9:00 we were at the Orphanage were seven beautiful young girls were waiting with excitement... Our first stop when we got to town was to go to the Bazaar... I went and changed some money into small bills , then cam out and gave everyone 200 sum ( $5.60) translators , Julie, Emma and Bekah.... even some lady that worked her way into the middle of the group to see what was going on.... As we excitedly headed into the bazaar, the lady still stood there with a funny grin on her face wondering what just happened.... They had a good idea of the things that they wanted... mostly shoes.... the killer is when the sales person won't budge 5 sum to get the shoes down to 200... all that is in you wants to just hand over another 5, but you can't do that for 1..... But in no time you find a better pair, and have enough left for sunglasses...or in Sibera's case.... a whole outfit...

From there we came back to the apartment for sandwiches and to make some jewelry... man they love that stuff. Try to get them to stop at one!!!.... At three o'clock Isar picked us up and we went to the border river and went swimming it was so much fun to see them splashing and having such a fun time.... everyone got in on it... even some that were not expecting to go swimming... we were there for over 2 hours and they were in the water the whole time... After the swim, we got packed up to go home, but not without first going out for supper at one of the better restaurants in town... they were all so well behaved, and had a great time. buy the end of the day... I am running out of words like excited and great and all those other words that may not usually be in their vocabulary.... I guess if I was to settle on just one, I would have to say AWESOME.... Oh Ya... I forgot to tell you what we did last night when someone else got blessed .....Boy I am going to have a lot to catch up on one of these days....

More Good-byes

Today we said good-bye to more then just Eds team..... We said good bye to some of our new friends that have been here for the last month while adopting their new babies... It has been great to get to know them and we have had a lot of fun over the last month... They have been with us to the mountains, visited the orphanage, and they even helped us with the crafts when we had a sleep over for the older girls... All in all we have had a lot of fun...I'm sure Grandpa Vlady will be missed as much as I am sure he will miss them....
They had an opportunity to get to Know Asel and her husband Talent... It was so nice when just hours before they were to leave, Talent prayed a prayer of blessing on these kids.... I almost did not post this, but there are so many adopting families out there that follow this blog, that I am sure would love to have this prayer extend to their children as well. He is praying that they would be strong... healthy... that they would have an easy transition into their new life... He is praying that they would grow up to be Honorable citizens , and that they would be shining examples and ambassadors for there Birth country... and most of all he is praying that they would be strong in their faith and lead a life that would be uplifting to God.......I think that is a prayer that every parent prays at some point..... listen and be blessed. ....Claim it for your own!

5 seconds of fame

Ed is desperate for his "five seconds of Fame" If you know Ed , you

know how much of a joke that is.... But I just wanted to say how much of a blessing it is for us ANY time that we can be in the company of he and Natasha .. This week we had the added bonus of a visit from their friends Ted and Gloria . These 4 are leaving a trail of blessing and encouragement as the travel through Central Asia and the Ukraine.... I know we were blessed

Oh Ya Ed.... Make it 6 and the van....lol

More photos from the village

This Fun day did not just happen... it was because of the generous support of many of our readers that we were able to bring such joy to these kids.... The shoes and snacks money was donate by our long time friends and supporters at Millbrook Christian Assembly.... Over the years they have made an incredible and lasting impact in Central Asia.... and the Ukraine...... They understand The James 1:27 call ( to help the helpless in their need) and continue to live that call in Canada and around the world.... We had a bag of treats for the kids to choose from.... this was an accumulation of all kinds of treats brought by families that have visited us here in Central Asia..... all who have taken the time to find just the right thing to make a kid smile... and put their trust in us to make it happen..... Thank you so much for that opportunity. .... Another incredibly generous donation was for the shirts and shorts for the kids... 150 full sets of the most current fashion trend sports outfits.... This donation did not come from someone that we have worked with for years, but it came from our NEW friends at HEART OF MERCY . I wish I could adequately express the impact that this has made. When we sat with the director, we discussed the need for shoes, but when she gave us the list of shoe sizes, the top of the page included the clothing sizes.... and looking around we recognised the need for new cloths as well..... You know we serve a great big God... a God of abundance.... I just love it when he gives us the opportunity to push things over the top... ask for shoes and get a whole outfit.... ask for a place to stay the night and get given a house......ask for water and get.....Oh I better stop..... just let these photos speak for them selves. dress shoes or sandals... how does one decide ?
Just when he got the last pair broken in. check out the new pair he chose got his new shoes.... now lets get some cloths on him
Ed.... your supposed to drop the bat BEFORE you run !
So that how dental floss works !
Wow the mixed nuts were a hit.
We could not find a pool noodle, so a strip of wet sponge

did the trick!

Picking up the pace !

So today started like any other.... We got up ....That's when we realised that this was not a day like any other, but maybe it was more like 3 or 4 days in One.... We Packed quickly and met up with Sergei and Anya and headed out to the village.... One of our families of five + mom , is living in their new home now.... The problem is that they have only 3 single beds and three blankets... So our first stop was to visit them.. We dropped off 6 brand new comforters, 6 sets of sheets and 6 brand new pillows...

( Mom is out... probably milking the cows at the orphanage, and the other little boy is a cousin)

and let them know that we have ordered 3 more mattresses for them.... The kids were so excited... I think we even heard a little squeal out of one of the more reserved kids... We left Bekah and Emma there for a visit, and headed over to bring some clothes to Vera, and check to see how the playground was coming along.... The fence is now up, and they have began pouring the last section of the border.... From there , we met up with the man we are buying the house from, and completed the deal... Here is the exchange of keys, and here is the exchange of Money.... ... We are going to put two homeless families in here.. One in each building.... More on that to follow..... we just did not have time to show the house to them today, so maybe Friday.... we will keep you posted on this one..... We bought this house with many of the furnishings... we figured that who ever was in there would be starting with nothing, so anything would be a start..... well maybe they don't need these glasses.... After closing the house deal, we went over to the Orphanage where we were meeting up with the girls... We got there in time to give out photo's.... Many of the kids in orphanages never get to see themselves in photos, and to be handed a few of photos of them over the last few months..... well it was so moving...I watched as some of the kids would pull away from the group and just sit with there photos by themselves... I went over to them and lay down beside them so we would be at the same level, and they all took turns showing me and telling me all about who was there and when the photo was taken.... Julie and the girls had the same little discussions going on..... The video is a little long, but watch it and put yourself into their place if just for a few minutes.

From there we gathered up quickly and headed back to town where we did a little shopping and then went by the Bible College.... what was happening next required re enforcements... All hands on deck.... We took about 15 students, Ed and Natasha, Pastors Ted and Gloria, David and Jayne and Natalya , along with Sergey and Anya, Vlady and Christina oh Ya..and our buddy from the market and his Son. 1 Bus and 3 cars, and headed to the village where we new we could have as many as 150 kids waiting for us.... Fortunately 1/2 of them are at camp right now so it was a little more manageable..( the disappointing thing is that our little buddy Amir was not there... they say he is at camp....something to look into ) We divided the kids into 5 groups and set up 5 stations, then rotated the kids through each station.... We had Baseball , Soccer, Water games... great on a hot day, and a snack station where they all got a CAN of Pop and a cup full of trail mix... along with a prize.... just like McDonald's.... All this was meant to distract them and get them into small enough groups so that our friends from the market had time to fit each child with a soccer Jersey and shorts, and let the kids choose a pair of shoes from the wide selection there... in each size, there were a choice of sandals, dress shoes, or running shoes.... Probably the first time many of these kids have had a choice.... The men from the market were amazing... smiled the whole time and so patient with the kids....3 1/2 hours later we were on our way... only two more stops, ..... but I will tell you about them another time...

Oh shoot... I forgot to tell you about the amazing night we had last night with the kids at the town orphanage.... well maybe Jayne will fill you in over at their blog... if not I will try to play catch up tomorrow.