What a Month!...or is that 7 weeks?

Tristyn and Daegan at Victory Park

Daegan and Nana inside the Kremlin

Nana and Papa with the kids on Red Square in front of St. Basil's Cathedral

Nana and Papa with the kids at Victory Park

Nana and Papa with Valentina (and Doyle)

Daegan shopping for a souvenir at the zoo

Falyn and Nana at the baseball park

The whole gang at Sparrow Hills (overlook of the city)

I guess this title could be the title of all our posts since that's about how long it is between writing each one. Thank you for being patient and understanding. You are being patient and understanding, aren't you?

Do you read many blogs? Doesn't it seem like that's a problem with a lot of people? They always start with an apology because it has been a while since they have updated. Of course, this wasn't a problem just a few years ago. Everyone would be thrilled to get a letter every month or two from their friends on the other side of the world. But now all we want to know is why someone hasn't posted on their blog in a month?

...or emailed in a week?

...or faxed since yesterday?

...or instant messaged since lunch?

...or text messaged since they went into the bathroom?

My mom will surely love that. I can hear her now: "Those stupid computers. They are just ruining people and making them just fly through life without enjoying it!"

...or something like that.

She will also add something about the seminaries ruining all the good preachers too.

Hi Mama! I love you!

By the way, my sister prints these posts out and carries them over to her, so she can read them. I didn't want you to think my mom pulled our blog up on her iPhone while she was at Starbucks.

Well, I was motivated to put everything (and I do mean everything!) aside for a few minutes to post for a couple of reasons. First of all, I have been asking Karen to do it for a few weeks now and she always acts like she is so busy. She mumbles something about homeschooling the kids, studying Russian, grading the kids papers, feeding all of us, blah, blah, blah...

: )

Secondly, I received an email from Lee Rushing today and his email prompted me to finally post. Thanks Lee!

Lee is a friend of mine. I love saying that. Lee Rushing is a friend of mine. Why? Well, he is an awesome evangelist who also attends our home church in Texas. He has a ministry called "Backpack Evangelism," and he just returned from what sounds like an awesome trip to Peru. When he tells me he spent many nights sleeping in a mosquito net hammock on a cargo boat on the river and he dug a water well by hand in another jungle village of about 100 people, I'm thinking my 5 mile walk to Bible study last night was a piece of cake. It's all relative isn't it?

I met Lee years ago at the homeschool convention, but he didn't remember that meeting. I guess I was behaving pretty well that day. I certainly remembered him. Anyway, several years later, here we are...best friends! Well, maybe not yet. But for now, I am proud to call this author my friend. That's right! I said author! Check out his site: http://www.backpackevangelism.com/ and order his book! I didn't ask Lee if I could say all of that. I hope it's okay?

Anyway, Lee emailed and began by expressing his regret for not having written in a few months. As I read that, I'm thinking to myself...me too bro.! Lee has been unbelievably busy! And when I think about how busy Karen and I are just trying to simply live here, we understand completely how things can be for all of you. Everyone is way too busy it seems! I am searching now to gather myself and check my priorities, and I encourage you to do that as well. We all have 24 hours in a day. No more and no less. What we do with that time is really the issue. Isn't it?

That was time well spent in Peru, Lee!!!

Please know that we talk about church and all of our family and friends everyday. Sincerely we do, and many of you by name. We pray for each of you in different ways as you share your needs and joys with us, and we know you are praying for us. And that is time well spent!

So let's all reprioritize! Are you ready?...

GO!

Okay, now that we got that done. Let's move on!

Anyway, we really do have a good excuse for the long delay in posting this time! -haha- Karen's parents were here for 3 weeks! They came just in time (and left just in time! - just kidding!) Wow, we had fun seeing them! Seeing them was fun for many reasons, but let me just say that Karen's mom made a cherry pie right away, and we ate it all right away! And Karen's dad and I had fun beating Karen and her mom at Dominoes every night. They will deny that, but the Lord knows.

We didn't get to watch a movie with them because if they sat still for 20 seconds, they fell asleep. No kidding! We would sit and watch them. 1, 2, 3, 4, ...18, 19, 20...and out! It was kind of weird! And loud. Jet lag took its toll on them for sure.

We were able to attend our friend Genady's church, the Russian church planter that was featured at the SBC this year, as well as see many of the historical things here in Moscow with them. The Kremlin, Red Square, St. Basil's, some historical museums, Victory Park, and of course their favorite...riding the Moscow Metro!

They also had some time to meet and visit with our language teacher. Valentina loved them! A few times, we would look over and see Karen's parents and Valentina talking to each other. That was funny! Of course, you should know that Valentina doesn't speak English, and Karen's parents do not speak Russian. They would "speak" to each other and then just start laughing and laughing! We didn't want to ruin those moments by actually translating for them.

We are enjoying our new area as we are making friends and inviting them over. We are anxious to see what God will do with our family in this new area. We are also working with a Bible study group, and we are looking to go to the next level with this small group. Pray for that work. We also have opened up our home for a once a month meeting of several different Russian groups to plan and work together as we all work to develop more groups that will prayerfully lead to new churches.

We are also still enjoying playing baseball in the park on Wednesday nights with about 15 - 20 Russian kids. We are particularly excited about one relationship that we have established here. As we continue to develop that relationship, please pray for Sasha and his mother Natalya. We are becoming more aware of how difficult it is here to simply become friends with someone. Natalya opened up to Karen this past week about the status of her marital relationship. We have invited their family over for dinner or at least for Natalya and Sasha to come play with the boys. She called today to say that she asked her husband, and she will not be able to come visit us. Please pray for this family as we seek to know how the Lord can use us in their lives.

Two of our team members, had a 3 person group from their church in New Mexico visit us for a week. It is always so much fun to share our testimonies with new friends and hear about the different churches as well. We always seem to be incessantly thanking each other. They are thanking us for serving, and we are thanking them for supporting us through giving and by coming. This is missions in action!

We also want to let you all know that we have discovered what we think is a new service at the post office. It appears that you can now mail an envelope to anywhere in the world for $11 as long as it doesn't weigh more than 4 pounds. Also, you can mail a box to anywhere in the world that weighs up to 20 pounds for $37. They have special envelopes and boxes at the post office for this and it's called Flat Rate Envelopes or Boxes. I know this is still quite expensive, and please know that we do not "need" anything. We are doing fine. All of our "needs" are really only "wants"...if you know what I mean. Some folks have expressed an interest in mailing us "little pieces of America" occasionally, and so this might be helpful to you. Also, we are now safely and relatively quickly receiving mail at our new physical address. Our new address is in the email we sent out today.

By the way, my mother said she had a sweet little girl run up to her at church and give her a few packages of Kool Aid that she wanted to "send to the missionaries in Russia". My mother sent them to us and, we had another "Christmas." When we received that Kool Aid the kids were laughing and yelling and tripping over each other to get to the kitchen to get it started! Because of that little girl, Daegan had a Kool Aid mustache for 2 weeks! I hope she received our thank you note. To make it seem even more like Christmas, there was also a pair of socks in there for me. Thanks, Mama!

Life is hard for all of us, isn't it? What makes ours enjoyable is that it's a "good tired" at the end of the day. You know what I mean? We didn't just spin our time away on meaningless efforts. Well, sometimes...but we try not to do that. We are truly excited about what God is going to do with our family and we are working toward that end.

Also, the kids are working so hard at homeschooling in less than "ideal" conditions and they have great attitudes about it! You all would be so proud of them. At the end of the day they are "good -n- tired". At the end of your day, do you experience a "good tired"? Or are you just "tired" as you dread the next day's labor?! Think about it and perhaps a reprioritization is due. After all, it's been 5 minutes since the last one!!!

We are so thankful for all of you and your prayers!

As you all know, our home church takes such good care of us in so many ways. When our camera got stolen right out of Karen's purse, they sent us a new one right away. WOW! It is a great camera and we wanted to share a few pictures with you from our visit with Karen's parents.

As soon as we can get the apartment "put together," we will share some pictures of our new home and our homeschool!