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."

we are grateful

we've been busy since i (ally) last posted on here. we had a wonderful thanksgiving with friends from hinkson...we cooked a 14kg turkey (30.8lbs!) which in of itself was quite an adventure with our shoebox-sized oven! it turned out great and i am now not fearful to cook a turkey in the states with conviences that we don't have here like meat thermometers, reynolds turkey bags and the little thing that pops up on the turkey when it's done! we received our turkey, most likely the same day it was killed, so we learned how to de-feather it too! always an adventure! we had a wonderful time and a full house and it was definetly a great time of giving thanks. we have so much to be grateful for and we are reminded of that daily. we are grateful for the life we are given and for our family and friends, we are grateful for this call to russia and the kids at hinkson, and we are grateful for your prayers for us and the relationship we have with you. we are also grateful for our friend, jesse, who joined us here for a week over thanksgiving!
he is from colorado and him and tim met in the marine corps, so it was so fun to have him here and celebrate with him. we took jesse to all the "touristy" desitnations in moscow, including riding an 8 hour night train to saint petersburg and spending the day there. there is so much unique history here, we defiently felt limited by time but we are so grateful that we get the opportunity to be here. here we are waiting outside in line to get into the state hermitage in saint petersburg. it is an incredible palace from which tsars ruled russia for one and a half centuries and is now one of the world's greatest art museums

since most of our life here this year is spent studying language, a night train to saint petersburg was a wonderful break! the cathedral shown here is the church on spilled blood, also known as the church of the resurrection of Christ. it is on the griboedova canal and is built on the spot where alexander II was killed by a terrorist group in 1881.


at these tourist destinations tim and i had great opportunities to practice our language, which is going great. we both felt very encouraged by the conversations we were able to hold, however broken they may have been. we're finding those little successes are important when working on learning a new language! one great example of getting use our language...as tim and jesse and i were walking down the busy street in saint petersburg, a little boy who was maybe 3 years old was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, alone, just looking around. there was no adult around who looked like this was their child or who was paying attention to the little boy so tim and i stopped because we couldn't just walk on. tim knelt down and wanted to say "pa-boodt sa mnoy" which means "stay with me" so we could figure out what to do next, but in the moment what tim actually said was "boodt zdarove" which means "be healthy!" you can use this phrase as a toast or cheer and it's also what you say when someone sneezes, like "bless you." needless to say, the little boy just looked up at him in confusion, and quickly tim realized what he had said and we all laughed hard. another lady came up to us and asked us if it was our son and when we said no and that we didn't know whose he was, we all walked with him down the sidewalk a little way to the open and frantic arms of a woman who was in charge of a field trip of kids his age. great language practice around every corner!

1 Corinthians 10:31 "...whatever then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God..."

it's the great pumpkin...moscow

we bought a 25 pound pumpkin the other day at the fall festival that the junior class at hinkson put on. we stood out quite a bit carrying that back to our apartment! tim and i spent an evening carving, baking and puree-ing the pumpkin for pudding, soup, bread and whatever else we can come up with. in this picture, kai is more interested in the clementine in my hand than the fact that we are taking a picture.

i wanted to share a great quote that we read the other night from oswald chambers..."if God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; or even if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him." i think it's a good challenge, no matter what is going on with you. whatever cup you are drinking right now, sweet or bitter, you still have responsibility on your side, either to be full of grace or in communion with Him.

tim and i went to "bella notte" the other night, a fabulous musical review that the honors choir at hinkson puts on. it was incredible - the students who are involved in this work so hard on it and they are so talented and that really came through. our friend who is the music teacher wrote and directed the whole thing and others really came together to make it great. i'll post some pics from it as soon as i can.

it's snowing in moscow

as i type this, it is snowing outside. it's about 25 degrees farenheit right now. a few days ago we got about 5 inches of snow, but it all melted off. it has snowed a little the last several days, but we're gearing up for the big winter! this is a picture of what we woke up to the other morning. this is the view from our kitchen window into our courtyard and playground below. always an adventure in moscow!

tim and i helped out at the fall festival that the juniors at hinkson put on today. they held this festival for the first time this year, to raise money for the service projects they do and for their senior trip next year. when i say "helped out" i mean, the kids paid money to throw wet sponges at tim's face...so fun was had by all! the students organized tons of games and sold hinkson sweatshirts, thanksgiving turkeys and pumpkins. times like today are great opportunities for us to be with the students and deepen those relationships. i'm telling you, you just bond with someone when you allow them to throw a wet sponge at your face.

so things here are going great. we are deep in language study and now that our dog is here, we get opportunities everyday to talk with strangers who stop us to talk about her. yesterday, kai walked with us to the local producti (grocery store) and while i (ally) went in an got some groceries, tim talked with a russian man who struck up a conversation with him, sparked by his interest in kai. his name is anitoli, and despite the language barrier, they were able to talk for about 45 minutes. we get opportunities like this everyday, so everyday we are reminded that the Lord has plans for us, far beyond what we see at this time...

kai is worn out after her long walk to the producti...

zdrasvouite!

zdrasvouite, "hello" in russian...that's the best i can do without cyrillic lettering!

the color green...so the reason that we named this blog the color green...the words quoted above are from a rich mullins song, "the color green" a song tim and i love about all things glorifying God, His creativity displayed in the seasons and leaves and His love for these things, and how the whole earth is crying out to Him, even the green fields. if you don't know this song, you should find it - or ask us and we can hook you up with it. i think we should all get to know new parts of the Lord's character, like the part that created green so that the fields and trees are rejoicing. there is green in moscow...there are some really beautiful forrests throughout the city, in fact, at the major airport in north moscow, tall trees surround the whole thing and as you are getting ready to land, it looks like you could touch them. and outside of moscow there are some of the most beautiful sites i have ever seen. we took this picture of the volga river one morning, early, when we were on a retreat with the staff at hinkson about 3 hours outside of moscow. it's good to be reminded that the earth is praising Him.

so we have been in russia 10 weeks now - in this very short amount of time, we are just amazed at all that we have learned and experienced so far. we're figuring out how to get around by moscow public transport which can defienetly be an adventure! we're studying the language, which is an intense process, but we are loving it. basically, we feel like we are on a date getting to have the same schedule. we have a wonderful teacher, tamara leoneedavno, who is very tough, but compassionate, too. the first time we met her, she wouldn't speak english to us...instead she had some others there who spoke english interpret. she LOVES language and has actually taught us more about the english language than tim and i had ever known! we study about 30 hours a week and have been getting some great practice applying what we're learning since our dog, kai, arrived. she just got here last week after about a 30 hour trip, and more russians have started conversations with us because we have her here than ever before. russians love dogs, and we're seeing evidence of that. kai rode the metro with us last night to go to our friends house, and a man stepped over her only to step right on my foot! we're also figuring out what we like (and don't like) to eat. tim is a fan of sharmas, meat, lettuce, pickles, sour cream, ketchup and various other things depending on what kiosk you stop at, all wrapped up in a tortilla!

we've also gotten some wonderful time to be with students at hinkson, although we don't start our position with them formally until next fall. tim and i both lead small groups called caring community groups once a month at the school in the morning, and that is a great time to get to know the kids better and begin building those relationships with them. tim's caring community group went bowling, russian-style, a few days ago. the bowling lanes here are narrower and about two-thirds as long as in the states, so needless to say they all had fun and scored high! tim has also gotten to be involved in both the high school and middle school fall retreats, and i'm meeting with girls, spending time with them and getting to know them better. we feel so blessed to get this year to study the language and begin to form some solid relationships with students here before starting the chaplaincy program.

we hope that through this blog we can communicate even better with our friends and family, and share pictures, stories, prayer requests and give you a taste of life in russia!

more to come...