Thoughts

When you mention a mission trip people want to know what your are going to do or what you did.  When I tell them about Kyrgyzstan my standard answer is "Love on people"  The looks I get are confusion and frowns.  As a society we are so set on physical goals.  People want to hear "we built a barn", "we painted a house", "we put in a fence"  "I did dentistry"  They don't understand we loved on people.

But isn't that what Jesus did?  I don't remember stories of him building houses or other physical property. (and he was even a carpenter)  You read that he had meals with people and met their needs.  

That is what we are doing here.  Twice a day we are having meals with those that need to be loved on.  We play with the orphans, we play with the men.  Today we will give hand massages to the seniors at the senior center and deliver food to people living in the garbage dump picking through it daily to find enough to live on.

The love they receive causes them to question why.  "Why did these Americans travel across the ocean to bring us food, or to play with us?"  This allows the nationals to explain the gospel to them.  It allows the nationals to bring them to Christ.  

The physical work can be done cheaply here.  The DAILY wage paid to the workers on the barn will be $10.  Yes I said $10 per DAY.  (and that is the high end of what workers make)  Our time building relationships is more valuable than that. Feeling the love of Christ and getting to know more about him is way more valuable then us physically working.

Tuesday

Bridgette arrived at breakfast this morning from Canada.  She is one of the Kyrgyz 65 mom's  After trying to adopt two different kids from Kyrgyzstan over the last 6 years she is here for court for her third potential daughter.  Cool story about her daughter is that she was born in Russia after Russia shut down to international adoptions.  But because she was from a Kyrgyz mom Russia sent her to back to Kyrgyzstan and now can be adopted internationally.

 

We then headed to the Men's home where AP sponsored the floor rennovations.  It was nice to see the rennovations that have continued to take place since we were there in 2011.  Julie Wrights prayer was answered ... she wanted to know how the men there felt about Logan.  Shortly after she vocalized it one of the men came up to her and told her how happy he was to see Logan.  For me it was awesome to reconnect with Larissa and her daughter Tanya.  I was greeted with lots of hugs.  She is such a wonderful person and works so hard for the Men at that home.

We then headed back to the apartment to pick Nadia up who had stayed behind feeling ill. Then it was off to the farm with the Men. Logan and then men had a blast together.  They hit the beach ball back and forth for an hour.  I'm not sure what the rest of the team was up to because we were having too much fun playing ball. 

We headed into the farm house for another amazing lunch.  It was awesome to see the men take Logan under their wing and totally take care of feeding him lunch.  We had plov and duck shashleek.   John then surprised Mason and Charlotte with birthday cakes and the men sang to each.

We headed back outside and Logan set up his train track and entertained the men.  The men were as excited as Logan to watch the trains crash.

Then it was off to the fish pond to take the men fishing. Such joy and excitement for everyone.  We then headed back up the farm to cook and eat the fish. 

We played for a couple more hours. I had so many good conversations with the men and they loved on Logan.  They understand and are living what his future would have been.  They loved watching the videos of all the opportunities he has in my phone. 

Next we headed back to John and Julie's to prepare gift bags for the party for the nationals support staff.

The dinner part was so nice for all of the national workers.  There was a huge feast, great entertainment by Anya's dance group and gifts for all of the nationals.  We were then all blessed with a bottle of honey by Vlady.

Wow what a day!!  It's now 10pm and we are already to crash  because we are back at it tomorrow morning at 8am.  :)  I apologize this post was more about the Men, Logan and I and less about the team.  This is a very special group to me.  Larissa and I have a strong connection through some work we have helped her with and time spent together when we were here before.   The reality is all of these men are what Logan would have become had he stayed in Ukraine so they are dear to me.

Monday

We started the morning with pancakes, eggs and sausage followed by devotions.   At 9am we headed out for the day.   First stop was Bekuit orphanage.  This is a small house orphanage of about 12 ranging in age from 6-15.  They performed several dances and songs for us.   Laura even stepped up and danced with them.

We then piled in the vehicles and headed to the farm.  We were supposed to paint but were having so much fun with each other and the animals that we skipped painting and kept playing.  Vlady prepared a wonderful lunch lunch for us and we had a meal together on the floor of the farm house.

We then headed to the hot springs.  After a slippery hike up the mountain kids enjoyed a swim.  Mason was a definite hit with the older boys allowing them to climb on him and throwing them across the pool.

Mason stepped up and pretended to be Tina's husband in order to get some guy to stop following Tina.  According to John the guy did not care until Mason stood up next to him in the pool and then the guys mouth dropped open and he left.

After drying off and a slippery hike down the mountain we sent the Bakuit kids back to the orphanage and we headed to Baran.  On the way some of us detoured to the fishing pond and netted some fish for dinner.

Tonight for dinner Acel brought her prayer group.  Three college girls joined the women on this trip of dinner and then testamonies.  What a powerful evening.  I am not sure their was a dry eye in the room.  The boys returned as we finished up with some much needed food therapy in the form of ice cream.  After a little more socializing we all headed back to our sleeping places.  It was a 12 hour day of total going but an amazing day emotionally.  John and Julie had the insight to forewarn us that their will be times on our journey that the spirit will just move in and overwhelm your emotions and we saw that several times today.

Time for bed.

Another site with more pictures

For those wanting more details, another perspective and other pictures... John and Julie Wright blog daily.

http://actofkindness.blogspot.com

Feel free to check it out also

Sunday Afternoon

So after lunch we were off to the mountain.   First stop was a little house church to pick up the pastor and staff that were in charge.  This pastor once could use his building as an actual church building.  With the changing times he can no longer safely do that.  So he has cut a whole in a wall connecting a large room to his house.  He has had to remove all religious signs and pictures but still can hold meetings.  Weekly the people come to his home and they worship and study.  

Then we continued up the mountain.  At one point it was a popular winter destination.  Today it is a deserted remote location with giant concrete buildings that are crumbling.  One wall of a large four story building was at about a 45 degree tipping point.

Through the snow and mud we entered your typical soviet building. (Flashbacks of Laura's orphanage)  The room on the second floor contained many mothers, grandmother's and their children bundled and waiting.  Pastor and staff have a presentation and then we presented the boxes. These boxes will be cherished for years and very few would open them there. They were eager to return to their homes to open them where the contents could be kept.

After distributing the gifts we headed down the mountain to the church for tea and snacks.  While there we held a powerful healing prayer service. 

Now we are back in our apartments for some brief down time that was approved by Dawsyn (John was sensitive to Dawsyn's complaint that our last trip elsewhere had too much down time and he wanted to make sure she was good taking a break) 

Sunday Morning

We started our morning with breakfast and devotions.  We were reminded that we are here to be the face of Jesus.   It is our job to plant ourselves as a seed in those we interact with so that God can do the work and move in the people.

We then headed out to church.  I love it when they sing songs you know in another language.   Today's song was Shout to the Lord. 

After church we headed to the Bazaar.  I went with Logan and girls to the animal Bazaar while Mason went with the rest to the food side.  We got to see a lot of chicken and roosters. Logan got a lot of double looks. 

We headed back to John and Julie's for lunch and are about to head out to the mountains