SIBERIAN SUMMER

YEA!  You might remember our last update showed SNOW in May; gratefully, we now have our wonderful sunny days and much warmer temperatures! (It's been in the 80's already...of course it fell back to the 60's and lower, however, we're back to a normal summer again.)

View from our window in June.

The first week of this month, we were re-united with fellow workers returning from their time of refreshing and 'recharging' stateside. They were also greeted by their older son and Grandma! (She turned 72!) We're glad to have everyone back and eager to work together once again!

 FOOD

       







                         GAMES






ALWAYS fun when you have these combinations  and of course great friends!

Story time with beautiful flannel pictures....
During our last stay in the States, we were blessed with a huge flannel graph kit to teach stories during our time with the kids on Sundays.  WOW....do they LOVE to get involved in the stories. This past week, we learned how to be 'fishers of men', as found in Matthew 4, and how to follow HIM. After our story time, we played a game where the kids could 'fish' with a magnet and get 'fish' with special verses for each of them to read. The time went so quickly, we were surprised when the parents came back to see what WE were doing, not the other way around :)

Sorry so fuzzy..Laura took this one :) 

Сурхарбан - pronounced Surharban is a Buryat holiday that celebrates the end of winter and greets summer with food, dancing, and singing traditional songs. However the emphasis is with the contests in wrestling, archery and horseback races. These sports are extremely important to the Buryat people, so they take the competitions quite serious. We would wager to say these sports rank alongside soccer (football) in this region. Unfortunately for us, we were only able to see one of the three contests because of different locations....enjoy the pictures!

Singing Buryat traditional songs; our video did not capture the
beautiful sounds this year....

Buryat National Dances

Wrestling is a Buryat National Sport

This gentleman was honored for serving in WWII;
he is 90 years old!

The celebration began at 10 in the morning and lasted until around 11PM when it was dark enough for some fireworks! Great way to end a beautiful summer day. We had a full moon to add to the festivities as well....

Making bread....we have talked about doing this for years; why make bread when you can buy a fresh loaf every day for around 75 cents?! This past year, we've begun to change our diet and although going gluten free in Russia is all but impossible, we've heard that sour dough bread is on the OK list. Not wanting to totally give up one of our favorite food items, we decided to give it a try....WOW...Kevin has outdone himself this time. He is already a fantastic cook, now he can add baker to his resume!

Not to be outdone by her 'Uncle Kevin', our little 'munchkin' decided to help Laura make biscuits from scratch this week. Her mom just got a job and we're helping out for a few weeks. Not bad for a seven year old!.....they were delicious!!!  None left to take a picture of.....

With summer being so short for this part of the world, the next few months will go quickly with a lot being done in a short amount of time. We pray this year's harvest will be abundant - in food and in new lives that will follow Him.

    Blessings,  Kevin & Laura

"Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it."             Blaise Pascal