Embedded Reporter with Team Canada - First Report

I feel like an embedded reporter. My husband, David and I have been able to spend a lot of time with the awesome teens from Canada, talking with them, watching them, listening to them. This morning, as the team left for their lake trip, John asked me to report on the team's work on the blog. They will be without internet access for a couple of days.

As an outsider watching these teens, I have been so impressed with them - their unity, their willingness to work hard on dirty jobs, their support of each other. I have watched them interact with both kids and adults. You would be proud of them! John asked me to share pictures and stories from my days with them. I know these pictures tell the story....

Touching a Family Today - Changing the Course of Tomorrow
Many of you have read on this blog of the family known affectionately as "the farm family of five." You know the story of their lives at the orphanage and of the new home recently given to them. This family of five children and a mom have worked hard on their new farm home, but major work needed to be done. That's where TEAM CANADA stepped up to the plate.

Remodeling an old coal bin so it can be the new home for the cow that arrives on Sunday!

Getting ready for the outhouse. Bekah helps Sibiria with the final bucket loads of dirt before the structure is put in place.

Sibira stands at the bottom of the eight foot hole her older brothers dug out by hand. It took them weeks.

Building the outside facility, one nail at a time. A little instruction will go far with this industrious young man. He will retain what he learns.

For a few precious hours, these boys had "two dads" to teach them the things that dads do.

Just think what Dan and Kathy can add to their resumes - outhouse outfitters!

When the teams leaves, this will be one of the best dressed homes in the village!

Martin accepts the challenge for the watermelon seed spitting contest after all the work is done for the day. He lost to a girl!

A late lunch at the local yurt after a morning of hard work.

I hope these pictures give you some idea of the tremendous work that has gone on.

This is Jayne Schooler embedded with Team Canada reporting from Central Asia. Come back tomorrow to see part two of this report. If you think this is amazing, what until you see the "Living Water" celebration!

LATE NEWS: Kids arrived safely at the lake and are having a great time!

Wedding Day

It was such a great opportunity today for the team to be able to be a blessing to Kristina and Ruslan, but to have an opportunity to bless the entire church body.... If we have been a little light on the posting the last couple of days, you will see now what we have been up to... We clattered a wedding for over 200 people... and boy did we do it up right.... The team was absolutely incredible and there was certainly more then one in the church body that was moved to tears with the willingness of this team to serve..... N.P.C... they did you proud..... here are a few photo's of the day.

They even took the time to invite a few of the neighbourhood kids over the back fence for a few treats.....

Tomorrow morning at 8:30 its back to the village to start the projects until noon, then off to the park with the 15 smallest kids ... a little One on One time....

NPC youth first 2 days

Fun at the Park

One of the first stops today was to give out icecream at the park 400 cones.... OK so most had two....... Man the team was a big hit .

Team arives safe and sound !

The team arrived this morning safe and sound with no delays.... not only that, but they had all their baggage with them.... I will post more this afternoon.

The Human Factor .....

It is easy to get caught up with the task at hand and let the human factor get "lost in the translation" I have a very poor grasp of the Russian language, so I miss a lot and even conversing with the kids is sometimes neglected... I guess that is why God gave me a couple of wonderful daughters to complete the team... They new the impact we were having on this little guy... they new how excited he would be....
Ruslan his mom, Raheema, and his baby sister, Maleeka, found themselves on the street in the middle of one of the coldest winters on record here... The police new that they could count on our friends from Lepta Plus. Sergei and Anya brought her to the village orphanage where they have been trying to piece their lives back together. Today was a watershed moment for them... When we arrived at the orphanage to walk them over to their new home.... Ruslan Ran to me with more excitement and more Focus then I have ever seen before... he is aware of his surroundings... he knows what his family situation is.....I did not realise he was old enough to understand.....

I wonder what else he carries with him.... I hope and I pray that whatever hurts he is harbouring in the dark places of his being will be cast out by the light and the glory that he experienced this day... I pray that we will continue to impact not just his life but many more in the years to come.... And I pray that I pay a little more attention next time.........

On Their Way

The adventure begins

"And we can see that God you're moving. A mighty river through the nations."

The send off from the Norwood Pentecostal Church family was exciting. The team has worked hard to prepare, raise funds and pack bags full of children's vitamins and fever medication, baby creams, knitting, swing seats, marshmallows and various wonderful things for a Central Asia. What is more wonderful though is the people on their way for this adventure and the people that sent them.

Act's 5:15

"As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter's shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by." just writing this makes my nose hurt!
We are so far from considering ourselves in the same league as Peter, but we are getting a glimpse of what he may have faced. We have been here long enough now that we do not need to look for troubles. They know where we are and how to find us. I am so glad the team will be heading this way in a few hours..I feel as though things here have escelated far beyound our abilities ...At one point as we were trying to re adjust our schedule on the fly... for reasons I can not share at this time...... when in the middle of it all an old Babushka steps into the center of the circle asking if I am the one with the Bus.... she new that the red bus carried help... She began to cry and told us that she has no family and that she can not hear and needs a hearing aid but can not afford it...She is scared of the thoughts of loosing her hearing with no support.... I don't cope well with old crying babushka's ..... As all this is going on , I hear out of one ear that one of our older boys from the orphanage has began to cry.... Julie and Bekah quickly found someone to translate for them... He had been looking out of the bus window and saw one of the old lame men that frequents the dump each morning .... his nose was hurting ! I realise that life for him is so raw that the mere sight of others in need is crushing for him..... this poor child should not be able to relate on such a level with situations like this.....Later in the day we were in the village giving away a house when I sent Bekah to the store for pop. The owner of the store recognised Bekah as our Daughter and began to cry and ask Bekah for help...Bekah tried to get away, but the lady closed the store and followed Bekah back to us...so there's Bekah trying to make it back followed by this lady with a full file of documents balling and face full of snot ..... "could we please just listen to her story"..... we listened to the terrible circumstances that have befallen her family, and reviewed all the documents ..... So in the middle of celebrating the new tenants for the house, we began to pray .....The entire day was a juggling act ... these are only some of the ones I can share right now, ......... I am glad God can multi task better then us.... When we first got here I asked ... "where do you draw the line"? .... ... You all told me to ...erase the line...ignore the line.... or there is no line......We know where our strength comes from ..... . We NEED a clear direction from God on so many fronts..... If I have not come out and asked before, I am asking now...Please pray........ I can feel that the mountains have started to tremble... now we need to see them moved .

Now I know why people end up in full time missions..... It's easier to just stay!

The calm before the storm !

Today we took a drive up into the mountains for a little rest before the next team comes... It was so nice... The day was hosted by Vlady and his wife Tatiana, as well as Ishar and his family... our 5 along with Hank and Susan were the special guests.... We began the adventure driving up the valley, crossing streams...in our bus.... and then we took flight high up into the mountains... This brought us to a beautiful little oasis.... Then the prize.... Canadian Sweet corn... the first of the season... This is Ishar and his wife Auxanna with his son Ruslan... in this photo you can see Vlady and his nephew, Stas, .. and the old samovar chugging away on dried cow dung in the back ground... not Emma..


It was great to get to meet Hank and Susan... They have been an incredible blessing to families here in Central Asia... for eleven years they have been coming here, and they run a program where they assist kids with tuition for school both here and bringing them to the US to study.

Our girls went exploring and had a little fun with the camera....
It was great that Ishar was able to bring his family along.... We enjoyed seeing him interact with Ruslan
When the sun dipped behind the mountain we got chased out of the valley by the "draft" As we drove back into the apartment complex to drop off ours friends... we were once again hit by the harsh contrast of the day.

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.