Planning a holiday for the kids on the farm

 The work continues . Every one has been working hard to stay ahead of the weeds ,  and it shows .

The old shed is coming down now.  They are taking it apart carefully so that we can reclaim the bricks and hope to sell them.  Then this space we will extend the top floor of the barn all the way to the house.  This will make a good drive shed as well as some summer stalls for the cows under cover 

Our new friend Michele that is visiting the farm this summer is working hard as well .  It's great for her to be able to spend time with the kids.

It finally stopped raining for a couple days, so they are back at the green house trying to get as much of the wall up as they can before the rain starts again.  The first green house has the walls up and the furnice and pump room have their walls up, now just one more wall on the second green house.   

Marat has the funding in for his surgery now.  He is so thankful that not only will he not go blind in a couple months, but he will be able to see better then he ever has.  This is such an incredible life changing gift for him.  Thank you for those who stepped up to help him.

Emma has been doing great with the goats milk soap and is now ready to start selling it .  For now we will focus on developing a market for it in Kyrgyzstan.   Soap is always a great gift there , even just a regular bar of soap makes a great door prize at gathererings .  If anyone would like to purchase some, we would gladly give it to the seniors home or the orphanages on your behalf .. it would make a great treat for them, and would be something in demand that they could use .  So for every twenty dollars donated , 10 bars of soap will be delivered to those in need .

Very soon the full harvest will be under way at the farm.  Also, we have a few new workers there now, so we think it is good timing for them to go on a little holiday to Issyk Kul.   Jengishes brothers have opened a camp ground there , and provide everything that is needed right down to the yurts.  

Monday morning we will try to send about  15 people at a cost of $10 each .. they will take a train right from Tokmok to Balykchy on the west bank of the lake, then be shuttled out to the camp from there.   Should be a great adventure for them all.

Planing a holiday for the kids on the farm

 The work continues . Every one has been working hard to stay ahead of the weeds ,  and it shows .

The old shed is coming down now.  They are taking it apart caefully so that we can reclaim the bricks and hope to sell them.  Then this space we will extend the top floor of the barn all the way to the house.  this will make a good drive shed as well as some summer stalls for the cows under cover 

Our new friend Michelle that is visiting the farm this summer is working hard as well .   Its great for her to be able to spend time with the kids.

It finaly stoped raining for a couple days, so they are back at the green house trying to get as much of the wall up as they can before the rain starts again.  The first green house has the walls up and the furnise and pump room have their walls up, now just one more wall on the second grean house.   

Marat has the funding in for his surgery now.  He is so thankful that not only will he not go bling in a couple months, but he will be able to see better then he ever has.  This is such an incredible life changing gift for him.  Thank you for those who steped up to help him.

Emma has been doing great with the goats milk soap and is now ready to start selling it .  For now we will focus on developing a market for it in Kyrgyzstan.   Soap is always a great gift there , even just a regular bar of soap makes a great door prise at gatererings .  If anyone would like to purchas some, we would gladly give it to the seniors home or the orphanages on your behalf .. it would make a great treet for them, and would be something in demand that they could use .  so for every twenty dollars donated , 10 bars of soap will be delivered to those in need .

Very soon the full harvest will be under way at the farm.  Also we have a few new workers there now, so we think it is good timing for them to go on a little holiday to Issy-kool.   Jengishes brothers have opened a camp ground there , and provide everything that is needed right down to the yurts.  

Monday morning we will try to send about  15 people at a cost of $10 each .. they will take a train right from Tokmok to Balachee on the west bank of the lake, then be shuttled out to the camp from there.   Should be a great adventure for them all.

New ways to support

For all our Canadian friends, I just got this email from Canada Helps , our on line donation link..

"Donors can now transfer stocks and mutual funds to your charity taking advantage of better tax-credits. We facilitate the sale, issue the tax receipt and disburse the proceeds to your charity.   Canada Helps "

Not really sure what the means, but it might be of interest to some of you ...

Needs being met

Jengish and Ulukbek checking the cucumbers 

The trip to the mountains with the bees ran into a bit of a sang when the river was to deep and the banks too steep to drive across, so they had to carry the hives on their back 

We got the patio finished at house 5 .  It's great that they won't have to deal with mud from all the rain 

They have started eating the romaine lettuce .. romaine is new there so most people have only seen need lettuce so the large  romaine is pretty special

The leaf and head lettuce is doing well and should be ready any day now 

Now for some great news.   Marat has had donations come in for his operation so we will go ahead and schedule the operations.   For now he will have corrective glasses and special medication to prepare him, then in a couple weeks they will begin.  He will need 2 separate operations on each eye.  

We are so blessed by the out pouring of support for the kids.  We knew that they were going to need a lot of different medical and dental work but had no idea how much .  I think once we get everyone cared for it will be easier to keep up as new kids arrive .  Thank you to our generous sponsors for making it possible  for us to help.

Build it and they will come !

We have been trying to get all the kids in our care the medical and dental care that they need .  Coming from an orphanage,  they have not had the attention that they may have had if they had been in a family.  I had shared that the dentist alone at very reasonable rates and discounts for our kids included will still be in the thousands of dollars to get them the care that they need .  
  Next up was some vision tests.  One of our boys we had taken to the Optometrist a couple weeks ago and we were told that his vision was so bad that he needs to go to a specialist.  Yesterday he went to that specialist .. The diagnosis was not good . 

We were told that right now his vision was -7 but was rapidly getting worse.  He has a condition were his retina's are collapsing, and in a short time it is expected that he will be totally blind.   Where would he be if God had not brought him to us ? 

There is an operation to fix this, Basically it is the same as a cataract operation where they take out his lenses and put in new lenses that are stronger and will hold the shape.  The cost of this operation will be over $1000 US.   right away we have reassured him that we WILL help him with this and we will find a sponsor that will help to not only give him back his sight, but keep it.   

We saw this condition with a girl back in 2008 , we had taken her to get glasses and when the result cam back with this condition, she heard the price and went into full despair and just curled up in the fetel position and wept.. We asked what was wrong and she said that she would be blind.. only after we pressed did we find out that there was an operation, but for her it was impossible to think that someone could help pay that much so she just thought it would mean that she would be blind in a few months.  Well she had the operation, and she is fine .. But we understand what might be going through our boys head right now, so we have reassured him that we will be moving ahead and having the operations. 

That said , we have take the burden from him, but now we take that burden on.  We did have a large donation come in for the dental work and some glasses, but who could have been expecting this.  I guess what I need to do now that we have taken this burden from him, is to very quickly give it over to God.  

I find it amazing how even though the answer may not come right away, God has a way of showing us his provision .. Let me tell you a little story that is taking place right now.  

Last summer we tried our hands at Bees .. Our hives were literally overflowing with honey all summer .

We did so well, that when the opportunity came up to purchase some new bee boxes , we jumped at the chance.    These boxes were newly built and delivered to the farm today, and as soon as the river got a little smaller we would bring them to the mountain farm with the bees.  Then over the next couple months we would start purchasing the bees as we could afford them .  

Well no sooner had the boxes been dropped off, hives of bees, totally on their own, came to the boxes and have moved in 

right away Jengish went to a neighbour who has bees and he came over to see them .. he is certain that they are not from his hives.. Next we called Talbek our bee keeper and he came to the farm to check them out and make sure that they were good honey bees and then prepare them for the journey to the mountains and across the river . 

Once again the the truck was put to use to bring the hives to the mountain.  

How amazing is that .. we were soon going to be looking for some way to purchase more bees, but God appears to have something else in mind .. and the need is being met.   

But it got me thinking about something else .  As we are facing this huge need for Marat and his vision, we are praying that God would speak to someone to direct them to help Marat to not go blind.  Now if God can show us today that at his word he can direct between 50 000 & 100 000 bees, each with their own mind,  to spontaneously move in,  under their own free will ..   touching the hearts of one or two donors for Marat should not be something that we should worry about 

Marat will were corrective lenses for a few weeks while waiting for the operation .. check out the style he chose 

Learning to cook

 One of the main things we work on with the kids on the farm is life skills training.   It is tempting to stay with in the usual stario types when it comes to training and chores, and cooking is mostly a female chore, especially in Central Asia ..  We put all that aside, and everyone experiences everything.  Every now and then we are surprised when one of the kids excels in an area that we are not expecting it necessarily .  Mike is on kitchen duty this week, and he is having a blast.  Not only does he love it, he is great at it.  So rewarding for them when they find things that they are good at.  Last night he made supper.. Ploff served with fresh bread .. Sorry I did not get to have some, but it sure looks good ..

Bread fresh out of the oven 

yummm 

Good Job Mike !

The harvest is starting

The harvest has started .. and today's fresh salad on the farm includes Dill .. as long as they get it all eaten before I get back there I guess that's OK. 

We finally had a few days with out rain and were able to get the first cut of hay in .  It  was much better then we had expected.  the wind rows were good and thick .

They are still keeping up with all the weeding , but with the dry weather it is harder to keep up with the spot watering, so Today they stated watering from the irrigation canals .  They will do this one or two times a week , then in the off days use the hose from the tanks . 

bringing the water into the corn field 

 the next up after the corn was the peas and the carrots 

The cucumbers that they planted in the hanging pots are doing well 

In the apple orchard, we are still cutting the grass rather then pulling it , we are working on building up a strong root base so that we will be able to use this area to graze the chickens and the ducks soon 

The tomatoes are starting to form nicely.. maybe in a few weeks we will be picking them as well 

We have several other fruit trees besides the apples we just planted , like the pear trees

and a few other large mature apple trees 

and the  cherry trees are almost ready to pick 

The  first cabbages are just about ready now, but we will let them get a little bigger before we start picking them 

the romaine lettuce is ready to start picking now as well ,  and the broccoli in the back ground will likely start forming heads in a couple weeks