OUR FIRST RUSSIAN GUESTS!

The mountain dew bottles even look like booze here!


The view from our kitchen window.



The food our neighbor brought over, which put our egg salad and homemade brownies to shame. It is a swedish roll with raisins, nuts, cinnamon, etc. - french cream danishes with fruit on top, and Russian bread with a fruity middle! Tasty! Tasty! :)


Our neighbors from the 1st floor!

We just wanted to say thanks to all of you who prayed for our time with our neighbors tonight. We had a good time together and were able to communicate enough to make it through the evening. We will continue to try to build a close relationship with this family in the next few weeks.

Language classes are consuming almost all of our time here. I am sure we are learning LOTS each day, but it seems so slow when you want to be able to talk to other people. Deana is enjoying her teacher, Elvira. I am in class at the university with 3 other men. 1 from Spain, 1 from Italy, and 1 from Korea. As you can imagine, our class can get very interesting.

Some of you have asked for our mailing address. If you will send us an email requesting it, we will send it to you. It took a letter mailed from the states exactly 3 weeks to get here. Please continue praying.

HERE AND READY!

We made it to Moscow smoothly and have spent most of our time so far just getting settled in our apartment and unpacked. We have also been trying to figure out what is close by to our apartment. We praise the Lord for a smooth trip here with no problems or delays. All of our bags arrived with us and our apartment seems to be in a great location. We are near a metro and Deana is very close to her tram stop to get to language lessons. Shopping for groceries is close by and Kellan's school is just a bus ride away.

We thank you all for your prayers and support! We also thank our team we have joined helping us get into our apartment and get other things done. We also thank Lori, Drew, Mark, and Ben for driving us around and keeping the kids several needed times. All of you are GREAT!

Please pray for us as we begin language study next Monday. We will be in full-time language for at least 1 year. I will be taking language at a local institute every day from 10-3. Deana will be taking lessons from a Russian language 1-on-1 from 12-3 each day. We know that this is going to be very hard and take lots of time and commitment on our part. We also know that this will be key in the effectiveness of our ministry!

Please pray for the kids as they stay with their aunt and cousins during our language for a couple of weeks and then will have a Russian nanny named Olga! Pray for this transition especially for Ella. She will be with Olga for the next year. Kellan will begin school in mid-August. Hope you enjoy some of these pictures. We will try to update again soon.

Please pray!

Proverbs 3:5-6 - "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct thy paths."

We are trusting the Lord as we leave today and asking our prayer warriors to rally behind us as we travel today. We will be leaving this morning about 10:30 from the house and our plane leaves at 2:00. We haved to make a quick stop at Game Stop for Kellan to spend some birthday money! We should arrive in Moscow around 2:45am est.

Please pray for safety, ease and patience through check-in and security, a smooth transition in DC, and passage through Russian customs without delay or problems. Pray for strength for all of us ,but especially for the kids as there schedules get completely interrupted with the time difference.

Several have asked about our email and it will stay the same for now. We will be sending an address for letters and snail mail after we arrive and try to post some pictures of our new apartment.

There have been many "so longs" and "goodbyes" said. Thanks to everyone who has made a special effort to encourage us. We thank God every time we think of you and we know that our ministry will not be successful in Moscow without all of you praying for us!

We will be in touch! If you know others who would like to be on the prayer partner list, please let us know and if at anytime you wish to be removed from the email updates, please let us know.