Happy Birthday Silas Jack Wiley!!!

on october 9, 2007, silas jack wiley took his first breath at 3:25pm. he weighed in at 7 pounds 15 ounces and is 20.5 inches long. one week late, i went into labor at 8:30am and a few hours later silas was in our arms. i (ally) am feeling great, and tim and i are just soaking up this time as best we know how. silas is beautiful, and teaching us so much already. he is truly amazing. from the moment he was born, he was and has continued to be so alert and attentive, paying such close attention to the details of the faces and noises around him. we are so grateful that we get to be a part of this miracle and have the opportunity to be a part of his life.

we have gotten to enjoy a few picnics in the park and in mom and dad's garden already...beautiful tulsa autumn! silas' first outing was a walk, and then a tasty meal at tin star because i wanted fish tacos!

what a miracle...where will these feet take him?

any day now

we are excitedly awaiting silas jack's grand entrance to the world! for all of our faithful friends out there who are wondering what the latest status is, we are doing great, silas is doing wonderful and kicking like a soccer player, just not born yet. tim and i are loving this time together and are so grateful that we can be here in tulsa in this beautiful fall season (tulsa falls are the best!) with family and friends as we wait for silas. and we just got a new digital camera (thanks mom and dad for the early Christmas!) so there will be many pics to come! by the way, happy bday carrie sue! love you!

Worship

I've been able to be involved with the student worship team at Hinkson, and it has been such a cool experience thus far. Before joining the worship team, I had the fifteen students write a brief paragraph defining worship and explaining why they wanted to lead. Here are a few really cool ideas on worship:

"Perhaps worship is the abandoning of saying, 'here I am. I am broken, I am nothing and I come to lift you up because I know, I feel deep within me that this is what I was made to do.'"

"I believe I am called to worship. When I praise and worship God I feel like I am doing what He has called me to do. When I praise Him, I feel like I am pleasing Him."

"I love to worship God. I love when God hears my prayers and shows His presence... One of the most fascinating facts about my name is that it means, 'Praise Jesus.' Now, looking at my name, I always think that the ability to praise God was one of the greatest gifts I have received from God."

september

tim will fly to tulsa on september 13 and we are counting down the days! we have been so grateful during this time apart for the technology that we have at our disposal - phone, email, skype - that has been wonderful!

and we've both kept busy while we've been apart. hinkson is in full swing, and tim just wrapped up a wonderfully exhausting week there which included the first chapel, a full "leadership day" for students at hinkson, not to mention the planning and meetings and time with students that are a part of the everyday life there. tim is loving it and is feeling joyful as the details of his job are worked out and his ideas and dreams for the position are put into practice! he has gotten to spend some great time with some students in the last few days.
being with the students is a great reminder of why we are there! since all the students have come back to moscow after being away for the summer, tim has been busy!
i am doing great in tulsa and we just have a few more weeks until we meet silas face to face! i am feeling well and i have had a wonderfully rich time being with friends and family - if you are near tulsa and i haven't seen you yet, call me because i would love to see you! i imagine getting together will be easier on this side of silas' arrival than the other.

friends

with our focus on the students here, we've discovered that something that is so important for our hearts and our ministry are the friendships we've formed here. it's great to have people walking through this with you who are literally walking on the same streets and experiencing the same weather and the same metro, who you can share a meal with and just walk through this with.
chris and liz and jane and james are in the picture to the right, and these are some friends who have been such a blessing to us here. chris and liz are here working with students on college campuses throughout moscow. we met in language school and they are some amazing and dear friends. jane and james are living and working in southern russia and we are really enjoying getting know them.

tim and i were also involved in a house church this last year. we met every sunday at our apartment and had a really rich expereince doing that. for our last gathering of the year before they all went back to the states,
we met at a park early one sunday morning and had a picnic and worshipped in nature. pictured here is josh, tim, daniel, adri, christiana, me and sarah. none of us were ready for this picture, but we thought, that's life, and this is a fun picture!

astypalea, greece

the last week of june and a few days into july, tim and i had the opportunity to take a much needed and greatly enjoyed vacation in greece. it was a combination vacation/russian visa renewal trip and it was so good for our hearts. russian law requires that we leave russia once a year and get new visas at the consulate of our choosing, so hot greece was where we landed. we got to spend almost a week on an island called astypalea and refresh and relax before a new and exciting season of life starts for us. with our baby arriving this fall, and tim's chaplaincy role at hinkson swinging into high gear, we have a lot on the horizon and we are hopeful and excited about all that is coming.

astypalea is a small, butterfly shaped island in the agean sea that once was a haven to pirates. the locals who lived on the island lived in and around the castle pictured here, which was on the highest point of the island.

at our favorite restaurant on our favorite beach!!!

the castle at night ~ beautiful!

tim on top of the world

this is hora, the biggest settlement on the island, where most business and activity takes place. we would eat honey and bread at a little cafe many days here, which is pretty much the highest point on the island.

that's the small port village behind us

me and our boy on top of the castle over looking the agean sea. i hope he doesn't hold any resentment for all the places he got to travel to, but didn't get to experience!

beautiful beach!!!


a cairn is a pile of stone or rock that is arranged with a purposeful intent. most times you'll see these on backpacking or hiking trails to mark the way. those who place them are thinking of those who will come after and those who find them are trusting those who went before that this is the way to go. in the Bible in joshua 4, the Lord enabled the israelites to cross the jordan river and then He had people collect stones and make a cairn, or memorial to what the Lord had done there. God had people construct these cairns many other times in the Bible to mark what He had done. so tim and i made our own cairn on the beach of astypalea on the edge of the agean sea, to mark the end of this first year in russia, the beginning of our new life with our son and just to celebrate all that the Lord has done in this season.

on our way back to moscow, we flew through athens and had some time to hike up to the acropolis. the acropolis is visible from almost everywhere in athens and there is so much history there. it was over 100 degrees this day, so tim hiked all the way up and i waited a little below, under a shade tree with a frozen lemonade.

2nd Lt. Crump U.S.A.F.

It was such a cool thing for our friend Ted Crump to come visit us in Russia. Ted just graduated from the Air Force Academy where he played football and learned a bunch of hard core, really cool military stuff. He also learned how to speak Chinese there which is so cool to see in action. Ted stayed with us for a week as we tooled around Moscow and St.Petersburg. He's such a good dude and so much fun to be around. Not only did he keep us laughing the whole time, but we got to learn more about how great of a man he really is. I'm glad men like him are serving our Country in the Military.

Good stuff at this "Uzbeck" resturaunt called Kish Mish

Not a fan of horses

Classic

Tavern in St.Pete's

Goodness

Oh, the comfort
the inexpressible comfort
of feeling safe with another person.
Having neither to weigh thoughts
nor measure words,
but pouring them all right out
just as they are,
chaff and grain together-
Certain that a faithful hand
will take and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping
and with a breath of kindness
blow the rest away.

~Craik

Summer in the City

Well, it's peaking somewhere in the low 90's farenheit here in Moscow, which is quite a contrast from the -18 we experienced 3 months ago. The sun is shining, the grass is green and most everyone is much happier now than in the Winter. The face of the city changes as the people get to thaw out as Spring progresses.

We're busyier now than ever, hanging with students and spending time at the school as much as we can. We're also trying to get out to some of the parks and see Moscow's summer beauty.

Ally's growing and looking amazing, as well as handling the heat like a trooper. Little Silas Jack is kicking like a little tornado and is already showing signs that he has his parents' sense of adventure. Right now he's 22 weeks along (in layman's terms that's a bit over 5 months)and is doing really well. We can't wait to mee him in Oct!

Victory Day

Today Russia celebrates the 62nd anniversary of the Nazi's surrender to the Allies during World War II, or as Russians call it, "The Great Patriotic War." This holiday is monumentous for Russians and the entire city of Moscow shuts down for the celebration. Veteran soldiers don their uniforms and are celebrated as the greatest generation, much as they are in the States.

During World War II, over 25 million Russians were killed, military and civillian combined. Although this day is sweet for many, I'm sure it brings back the pain and loss of war for some. The Nazi's burned much of St. Petersburg and invaded Moscow as well, but did not advance into the heart of the city.

May 9th marks the first day of peace after the Nazi Party surrendered to the Allies on May 8th 1945.

language school, retreat, baby

it's hard for us to believe, but a year of intense language school ends this week! we have been blessed this year to focus on learning the russian language to prepare for life here and working with contacts we'll be making through the chaplain program and it's hard to believe that the year is almost over. our teacher, tamara leoneedovna, is a wonderful woman without whom, we don't believe this year of studying language would have been as full and Christ-centered as learning language can be.

last weekend, tim and i had the incredible experience of leading the sophomore class at hinkson on a retreat. they approached us last fall, with the knowledge that junior year at hinkson is a tough one (lots of fundraising for various things, organizing school wide events, on top of a tough school load) and they wanted us to lead a weekend for their class (18 sophomores) of team building and bonding and getting more solidified as a class. the Grace of God made this weekend go better than we could have asked for or expected. tim and i, along with another girl leader at hinkson, led low ropes course initiatives, team building exercises, facilitated personality assessments and evaluations and guided the students as they developed their class mission statement. we had rich debriefing times after the initiatives, applying what happened in the activity to life, our relationship with God and our relationships with others. we used the lion-otter-beaver-golden retriever personality assessment to identify different personality types in the class and the students commented that they loved using this tool to learn more about themselves and each other, and how different personality types can work together effectively to accomplish a goal. not only were they bonded, but we bonded with them and established relationships that will last...that is why we are here.

we stayed in a primitive "dacha" (like a summer home or lake house without the lake) 2 hours outside of moscow in the country. here are some of the students in the lovely outhouse at the dacha.



feet on the "totem pole shuffle" initiative on the retreat.








i am continuing to feel great, and the pregnancy is going wonderful! and we found out a few days ago that we are having a boy! we are so honored and feel so blessed to be walking through this time and getting ready to welcome a new life. please continue to pray for health for him!

random pic of ally in front of saint basil's cathedral, red square.

Cristos Vascrescenia

God sent His son, they called Him Jesus
He came to love, heal, and forgive.
He lived and died to buy my pardon,
An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives.

How sweet to hold a newborn baby,
And feel the pride and joy he gives.
But greater still the calm assurance,
This child can face uncertain days because He lives.

And then one day I'll cross the river,
I'll fight life's final war with pain.
And then as death gives way to victory,
I'll see the lights of glory and I'll know He lives.

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives, All fear is gone!
Because I know He holds the future
And life is worth the living just because He lives!

~Gaither ~

Spring in Moscow!

as I write this, it is 59 degrees fahrenheit, the sky is blue-ish yellow and the sun is setting. we are so grateful for the spring in moscow. city workers are re-painting the yellow curbs and all the short green fences that border gardens all over the city. they have also taken down the heavy glass swinging doors that lead you down into the metro, which is the true sign that spring has come to moscow. we're loving it.

it's been a while since i updated this - sorry. it's always on my list to be better about that. we have only 5 weeks left of language school and we are working hard along with our teacher to cram as much in in this time as we can. it keeps us busy, but we are so grateful for the opportunity to do language here. we feel better equipped, in even just the everyday things of trying to buy groceries and get around the city. when we first got here, people would often stop us on the street asking for directions, and we would always stutter out something like "sorry, we don't speak russian" in our best russian of course. now, when people stop us, we can actually direct them to where they want to go! it's a really great sense of accomplishment to be able to communicate with people here.

i am feeling really great as far as the pregnancy goes, and i am so grateful for that! i am starting my 13 week and fortunately i never had to deal much with morning sickness. we had a great doctors appointment last tuesday and we got to see the baby just kicking it's legs and punching it's arms and doing what looked like headstands! it made me laugh so hard, and that made my whole body shake, and it would move around even more then. this is a pretty incredible thing to be walking through. we have a great doctor (she is israeli and has practiced medicine in israel and moscow) and she has been wonderful for us in this process. at my appointment last tuesday she did tell me that she wants me to rest more than i am, so i'm making sure that i make room for that. otherwise, everything is going great, the baby is healthy and growing very fast!

in the last month, tim and i got the opportunity to travel a little bit which was wonderful. hinkson had their winter break (a 3 day weekend) so we booked a quick trip to istanbul for the weekend with some friends just to rest and explore there.

this is the view of the blue mosque from the haggia sophia in istanbul.

three days after we got back from istanbul, it was our language school's spring break, so we met some dear friends, logan and heather, in rome. logan and heather are living and working in kuwait right now, so it was wonderful to meet friends so close to heart, so far from our homes.

here is me and tim on top of the dome of saint peter's basilica in vatican city overlooking all of rome.


the colosseum, which was spectacular, but actually smaller than i expected. my only context before this was "gladiator."



gelato in the sun in the famous plaza in vatican city outside of saint peter's basilica.

it was nice to be out of moscow for a short time and when we returned we felt refreshed and rested and ready to finish language school strong. it is very cheap to travel to so many different places from here, so we felt grateful to take a break from moscow and see some different horizons.

the break also allowed great time for brain storming about the chaplaincy that tim will be starting this fall (realistically this summer, and even now) at hinkson. we're really excited about that upcoming adventure and the Lord is just preparing our hearts more and more everyday.

New Life

Today my life changed as I saw and heard for the first time, the beating heart of our child who is at this point 7 weeks and three days into the process of life.

Allyson and I are honored and excited to bring another life into this world and eagerly await the meeting of our first child. Today we had our second doctors appointment which went extremely well and are continuing to prepare our hearts for this new life journey. We find ourselves somewhat speechless in this moment due to the flood of hope-filled feelings that we're encountering. Man, is this cool or what?

Ally's doing well, but is beginning to encounter the whole first trimester sickness thing, which doesn't seem to be much fun, but she's handling it like a trooper. She's glowing, which is so cool and becomes more beautiful each day.

Please pray with us that this child will be healthy and that the Lord's hand will be on his or her life. Thanks for being with us in this journey!

our friend pavel

pavel was a the highlight of our trip over here in august. we met him on the plane from paris to moscow, and our friendship has developed over the last months into something that we really treasure. pavel is a student in moscow and also works for a company here as a mining engineer, which requires that he travel to mines in northern siberia often. pavel is engaged to elle, who is also a gem, and we have gotten some great time to be together and get to know eachother better. pavel and elle both speak english, but they happily tolerate us practicing our russian on them, too! this picture was taken at lunch just today.

-12 degrees celcius/10 degrees fahrenheit

well the weather in moscow is finally beginning to act like the weather moscow is famous for! we have been experiencing records highs for this time of year for the last few months but a week ago, winter (zima) arrived! it's been snowing pretty much non stop for the last week, and we have a good few inches of ice under the snow now, which makes for some fun walks!

things are going really well for tim and i right now. we had our small groups wednesday morning with the students that tim and i meet with at hinkson, and we both had really exceptional times with the students. tonight we have the coffee shop that we help out with at hinkson for the students - that is always a good time. language is going really well, and we are both having small successes out and about most days, and we are finding those small successes are really important and really encourage us. it was fun yesterday for me (ally) to overhear some russians near us at a restaurant talking about us, and when one turned to the other and asked, "do you think they are from america?" i turned to them and said "da" (yes). their faces were priceless, and so we got to practice some more language with them as we sat there.

we also had a very encouraging meeting with the director of hinkson on tuesday about our formal positions at the school starting this fall. we are working hard to design the chaplaincy at hinkson to be the best it can be, and just be the Lord's. there are also some exciting possibilities for my job (besides working with tim in the chaplaincy), so we'll go into that more as we work those details out.


on a language study break earlier today, tim and i took kai to an enclosed basketball court near our apartment and threw the frisbee around. a good, and chilly time was had by all. :o)

by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

this is from one of yevgeny's works...

"Why is it that in folk songs of all nations and all ages people express the desire to become birds? Because birds know no borders. People are mortally envious of animals for their freedom, and probably that is why we try to deprive them of it by forcing borders on them- be they the barriers of zoo, the bars of a circus cage, or the transparent but still prison-like walls of an aquarium. People insult their one God-given planet with impassable fences (which Robert Frost described with such a bitter irony)- with barbed wire, with iron or newspaper curtain. The division, the separation of the earth's surface, turns into mutual verbal and physical cannibalism. Our lack of knowledge of each other is like that of a blind sculptor, dangerous in his aggressive naiveté, who creates figures of so-called enemies." (from Divided Twins, 1988)

we saw this rainbow a few days after thanksgiving and this picture was taken from our kitchen window.

christmas, new year, poetry, and ease at the airport

merry Christmas, happy new year and we hope this latest entry finds you all well! it's been a little while since we've posted, so we do have some updating to do. tim and i had a wonderfully rich time home in tulsa with family and some friends. it was a short time but so rich and we are grateful that we got to be home to celebrate Christmas with our families. we were there about 2 weeks and both tim and i came away from that time feeling like we had gotten to take a deep breath, ready to move forward to this next semester of language school, planning our jobs for the upcoming year and deepening relationships we've started and starting new ones. so the time was good for our hearts, really beyond words.
an update on the status of the apartment after the great flood right before we left...the apartment is in great shape (thanks in large part to the very dry air here that didn't allow mold to form - that we know of yet) except for some electrical issues - which is bound to happen when water is pouring out of electrical sockets and light switches.

on the way back to moscow, we met yevgeny yevtushenko, a famous russian poet and a professor at tu and at queens college in new york. he took us and another russian couple who we also happened to meet to lunch and over hamburgers and wine in an airport transit lounge, he taught us how to make real russian toasts (that are no less than 15 minutes), he recited his poetry and told us stories. it was quite a unique experience and a sweet encounter after just having said goodbye to our families.
i wanted to write about the experience we had once we got to the airport in moscow, because it was so unique. my writing about it period should signify what a unique experience it was because it is after all the airport in moscow. we got off the plane and proceeded to passport control and stood in line there less than 5 minutes...this often times takes at least an hour. we had no problems there and so we went to baggage claim, found all of our pieces of luggage immediately (and none of them had been driven over this time), and proceeded through customs without being stopped...our ride was already at the airport waiting for us. this was a good experience at the airport.
so all in all, our time we feel was just blessed and it was really sweet for our hearts. to all of you we got to see, we are grateful for the time we had with you. to those of you we didn't get to see, we'll hopefully see your face the next time around. so much love, ally and tim

the great flood

As we were watching a D.V.D. of The Office with some friends at our apartment, we heard splashing water. To our suprise, Kai wasn't drinking out of the toilet again, but rather, water was gushing out of the ceiling, wallpaper, electrical sockets and light switches. The apartment above us had some sort of leak and it went through the cement and even under our wood floors. It's an interesting sound when you step on a wood floor and hear "squish" under your feet. Luckily our friends were there to help us sop up water as I tried to communicate with the neighbors, building supervisor and our landlady. Fun times in flood zones! The whole combination of water and electric sockets doesn't give one a warm, fuzzy feeling, but we were safe, protected and all is well.

The Boys

Allyson and I both lead small groups at Hinkson and this is a picture of my group. All these guys are freshmen at Hinkson and really solid dudes. We meet once a month at Hinkson during school and try to hang out often outside of school. In this picture we had grabbed some pizza, played PS2 and watched a movie at our apartment. The Lord has blessed me so much through my friendships with middle and high school guys in the past and it keeps going. Good things.

advice from a tree

my mom recently introduced me to this poem by Ilan Shamir called "Advice from a Tree" that i really like.

stand tall and proud
sink your roots deeply into the earth
reflect the light of a greater source
think long term
go out on a limb
remeber your place among all living beings
embrace with joy the changing seasons
for each yeilds its own abundance
the energy and birth of spring
the growth and contentment of summer
the wisdom to let go of leaves in the fall
the rest and quiet renewal of winter
feel the wind and the sun
and delight in their presence
look up at the moon that shines down up you
and the mystery of the stars at night.
seek nourishment from the good things in life
simple pleasures
earth, fresh air, light
be content with your natural beauty
drink plenty of water
let your limbs sway and dance in the breezes
be flexible
remeber your roots
enjoy the veiw!

tim took this picture while on a run one day. this is the forrest near the konkovo metro stop.

the honey festival

a few months ago, tim and i got the opportunity to go to the annual moscow honey festival, a huge gathering where honey farmers from all over the russian countryside come to moscow to sell their honey and honey products. you get to walk around and test taste anything you want, and be amazed by all the different kinds of honey that there are! there are kinds of honey that aren't even sweet but bitter instead. that was a great time. this picture was taken at the festival. pictured here is a great group of friends that the Lord has blessed us with, who also work at hinkson.

one of my favorite quotes by author s.j. hill...
"deep is forever calling to deep. it's a continuous unfolding process, but you must respond. you must persist in your yearning for Him, knowing that in due time the longing of your heart will be satisfied beyond anything you could ever imagine."