What a joy it is!

The absolute best part of this great week was the time we spent with Mahana and the G’kids on Google video chat. We had not seen them for a while and Mahana is recovering from surgery so we were very glad to catch up ‘face to face’. That was the first time we have used Google video chat and it worked quite well. The kids are growing up fast so we are very glad for modern technology and that we are in a country with mostly stable electricity and internet.

We also Skyped with our good friends, E/S Reese, serving in Georgia (the country) so that we could go over some details of our trip to Istanbul, Turkey. We came out on this mission together and we enjoy learning from them and their experiences. The Europe East Area in sponsoring a conference for all the Humanitarian missions in the Area. We leave for Istanbul tomorrow and return home on Friday. It should be quite an adventure!

Another great part of the week was our two trips to visit projects. Any time we can be with the people we are trying to serve, especially when they are disabled children, it is a wonderful blessing in our lives. We always feel the love of God for them and they make all our other worries or concerns fade away.

The first trip was to a celebration for the beginning of the new school year for disabled children at a school that the Church has donated educational toys, tools, and machinery. This school teaches deaf students vocational skills so that they can grow up to be more self-reliant. The Church also paid for 10 teachers to go to special Montessori training and then donated the Montessori educational toys for the children who have other handicaps. Some of the children put on a ‘concert’ for their parents, another sponsor of the school, and us. There was singing, dancing, poetry recitation, puppet show, and a speech or two at the end by the adults (I kept mine to 2 minutes). They then treated us to a tasty luncheon of the traditional Kazakh dish besbarmak (locally known as 5 finger meal because you eat with your hands). You can see it in the middle of our table. It is made of wide, flat noodles with a wonderful, thin gravy that is made from the meat – which is traditionally horse and sheep meat. After the meal they drove us to the house they are renovating to become a kindergarten for handicapped children. The Church donated the outdoor play equipment. This was the first time the parents and kids had seen the new facility and they were VERY excited. It was so fun to watch them playing and interacting with their Moms. One little girl cried all the way home because she did not want to leave.

Later in the week we went to visit the temporary place of the photography school for handicapped young adults. The Church donated their start-up equipment and the first class will have 5 students. The main instructor of the class has a child that is deaf and is ‘giving back’ for all the help they receive by teaching these students. We are very glad that the place is temporary because it was in a basement that will have no heat in the winter and in the summer is full of mosquitoes! Viviane and others had a nice, almost choreographed, dance going to try and keep from being bitten. The picture on the left is of the instructor (top w/stripes) and 3 of the students. The picture on the right is some of the equipment they will use that was donated.

We will close out our week by taking one of our new members and her son to his favorite pizza place. Fellowshipping among the members is fairly rare here since there are so few and all are new to the Gospel. It should be a fun evening and we hope the pizza is better than the usual Kazakh pizza!

If you want to learn a bit about traditional Kazakh food, you could check out this web site http://aboutkazakhstan.com/about-kazakhstan-food