meetings and celebrations

Monday we went to get our visa for Kyrgyzstan. We had already submitted our application and stood in line at the bank to pay the fee. This was supposed to be a short trip to the Consulate to get the actual Visa ... 2 hours later we finally got it. So we will be off to Kyrgyzstan on June 26 to participate in the Church sponsored (we are the project leaders for this one and the one that will be held in Kazakhstan in July) Neonatal Resuscitation Training for doctors, nurses, and midwives. Travel to Kyrgyzstan is a bit brutal but at least it is not by donkey! The last Senior Couple that went there were within 2 hours of being stuck at a closed border due to a government overthrow! This should be exciting!!!

Tuesday we had a meeting with the head of the Сommittee for Religious Affairs of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Kazakhstan! He was very interested in what we were doing and why we needed so many missionaries. We showed him our humanitarian portfolio made up of projects done in this country since 2002 and he asked a lot of tricky questions to see if we were staying within the law. We passed with flying colors!!! Attending with us was a member who is from Almaty and she is very experienced in government issues. She is a returned missionary who also helps with some translating and humanitarian projects but mainly focuses on helping with the complicated visa bureaucracy. By the end on the meeting he had received a Book of Mormon and some other literature from the Church and an invitation to attend church with us. Viviane and I had prayed that his heart would be softened and the Lord answered our prayer. When we left he had read the title page of the Book of Mormon and asked if someone would translate for him if he came to church (he thought our services we in English) and we assured him that the meetings are in Russian and the we are the ones that need translation.

June 1 is Children's Day here and we were invited by the Director of the Orphanage for Mentally and Physically Disabled Children to attend their celebration. The Church has donated items to this orphange in the past and we currently have a project with them to supply a milling and joining machine for training 14 -17 year old young men on how to make furniture. It is always a lot of fun to be around these children. They want to hug you and shake your hand. If they see you have a camera they are adamant about getting their photo taken. We sat in front of some boys that were hilarious. They were very animated until I took their picture and then they would go stone faced - as you can see.

The event was filled with singing and dancing and games put on by the children and their aides. There were a lot of balloons and plastic flowers as props. They had a display of some of the crafts and art work created by the kids and all of it was very well done. A couple of them really caught my eye and I have included them here (if you click on the pictures you can see the materials they used).

It was a joy to be there and especially to be reminded by the Spirit how much Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love these innocent children.