grocery shopping

this is a part of our everyday life here, that i thought you all might be interested in! we have to grocery shop every few days because you can only buy what you can carry, like any big city. so that is something that silas and i usually do during the day, therefore his stroller becomes the shopping cart! he's a good sport and really doesn't mind if i have to pack groceries in around him.

life these days

the team is back from uganda, i just haven't posted in a while! tim and the team had such a wonderful trip, and he is going to blog about that as soon as he gets back from turkey - a few days after he got back from uganda he left for turkey with the senior class at hinkson for their senior trip - what a life, right?!?! in the meantime i wanted to whet your palate with some fun pics from uganda and a few others from life here.

uganda...



so tall!!!

nice form!


thank you for my shirt uncle jesse!!! what does it mean anyway?

who will blink first?
more uganda pics and stories to come when tim gets back. and many more pics on picasa!

the team is in uganda!

the team to uganda left last saturday, and we had a really sweet send off time for them. parents of students going, and some random others were there to see them off well! i've heard from tim a few times since they left and all is well. ALL bags and boxes safely arrived with the team, which is huge in and of itself! the whole team is well and healthy and safe...this morning tim called and he was walking to breakfast holding hands with a little orphan boy named dan, who just got to new hope kasana about a week ago. for more info on new hope, there are a couple great videos on youtube...http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=BBrx7bCNQgg and http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=N6_azzq7Sac.
our students are getting to do various things all over the village/center, like construction, work in the baby house, do vbs, work in the gardens, work in the clinic and just help out wherever needed...the last few nights the students have been invited to be a part of the "family groups" where 8-10 orphans live in a family system in the village with "house parents." the students from hinkson spread out amongst the family groups, and tim said that when they came back together, everyone had really special stories about what happened in their time in the family group. lives change in times like these...


here are just a few of the crates that the team took to uganda...these are packed with things like diapers, playdough, clothes and black baby dolls!


a little bonding time before tim headed out...


and just for fun...here's tina, a student at hinkson who i am close with, feeding silas his corn cereal! this kid loves to eat!

happy easter!

we hope you all had a wonderful easter!!! easter has come to mark some milestones in mine and tim's life thus far, so in carrying on that tradition, silas started solid foods on easter! the results are in...he loved it.




we also celebrated easter with some great friends at their apartment...here are some pics from the festivities!

chris and si reading....

silas is happy to see someone more his size!

some of the crew...

"you know i started on solid food today...coffee is next, right?"

ready for the walk home!
more pictures on http://picasaweb.google.com/wileyrussia

spring is here

just hanging around...
spring is here! sort of...we're having some unseasonably warm weather these days (it's 34 faren. right now) and we're already noticing that the sun is coming up earlier and staying out later! yeah for vitamin d!
a few nights ago we had scott and stephanie longyear over for dinner. scott spoke at hinkson's chapel all last week for spiritual emphasis week. scott and stephanie came all the way from indiana and we all had a great time together.

here we are with stephanie...doesn't it look like kai is smiling?

"papa john's"
last year in language school, papa john's pizza was right next to the cold little church that we met with our teacher in, so on particularly difficult days in language class, or when it was really really cold (the church wasn't heated), tim and i would have a papa john's date after class - and that is always a good thing! so we took silas there for the first time a few days ago...he seemed to have a good time and was very entertained by the loud techno music that made the walls of the small restaurant shake with the beat.

here are some other fun pics of life lately...

kai, in her stylish boots showing off her mad frisbee skills...

silas and emil discussing the deeper things of life...

tim and the boys!
i'm putting more pics on our web album at http://picasaweb.google.com/wileyrussia so check it out!

expat mom's group

today silas and i got to go to an expats (short for expatriot, someone who is not living in their country of origin) mom's group near red square! this group of mom's all have kids younger than 18 months, and they get together once a week to just talk and hang out...it's a great place to hear about what clinics are the best, where good pediatricians are, what stores are baby friendly...there were about 10 mom's total, from uk, america, germany, and ireland. i went with my friend ophelia whose son is 3 weeks younger than silas and we had a great time...we took the boys in the baby bjorn front carriers, and got plenty of funny looks - you don't see those around here! also having the babies on the metro is something you don't see often, so we really stuck out as foreigners today. often babushkas (grandmothers of moscow) will let you know honestly :o) what they think about what you are doing with your child, how you have him dressed, etc, but the only comment i got from a babushka today (as she helped me bag my groceries at the store on the walk home) was how precious and smiley silas was! even the rain (yes rain...it's 37 degrees faren!) pouring down as we walked can't take that joy away!


this was the view yesterday from our kitchen window as the snow fell harder than i have ever seen it come down! and today it's 37 degrees faren...

strengths finder

recently tim and i had the opportunity to take the strengths finder 2.0 test, where you can discover your top "talents" or strengths and learn to function more out of those. based on Gallups 40 year study of human strengths, the writers and reasearchers who put this assesment together identified the 34 most common strengths. the idea that drives this assesment is that we are all aware of our weaknesses, and we typically work out of those, trying to be better in those areas, while neglecting our natural strengths. this assesment helps you identify your top 5 strengths and gives tips for how to develop more in those areas. tim and i really enjoyed learning about this and taking the assesment and so i wanted to share with all who read here! i think it's a really valuable tool, and somewhat like a secular love language test - if you know better what strengths you and those around you (your spouse, friends, coworkers, etc) naturally possess, you can potentially communicate with them better and know better where eachother are coming from. i think it's great and i highly recommend it!!! i'm not receiving commission here, i just think this is so valuable! my (ally) top 5 are: empathy, developer, adaptability, connectedness and learner. tim's top 5 are: empathy, individualization, restorative, positivity, and developer.

here are the guys, discussing deep things...

tulsa runner on red square!

check out this link...a friend of ours at tulsa runner put tim's picture in his tulsa runner shirt at red square on the front of their newsletter...we're never far from home! http://tulsarunner.com/index.htm

wiley family in moscow

last thursday, tim's mom, charlene, one of his sisters, cathey, and cathey's fiancee, jerry, came to visit us! we had such a sweet time! we packed it full so that they could get a good feel for moscow in just a few days. tim and cathey and jerry even took a night train to st petersburg...and charlene was on top of the world to stay here in moscow with me and just hold silas and watch him laugh!

ballina, the daughter of a woman who drove us to a few sites one day, was so happy to meet silas, and he always loves new people!

cathey and jerry trying to stay warm at ismaylovski park...it was below 0 degrees faren. on this day...


tulsa runner on red sqaure! tim got some funny looks when he started taking his coat off for this picture!

on the bridge over the moscow river.

starbucks is relatively new to moscow, so one night we all went for a little taste of america! it was also silas' first time on the metro.

9 foot tall snowmen and the coffee house

in preparation for the trip to uganda in march, the highschoolers who are going, tim and the other leaders are meeting regularly. they spend these meetings bonding as a team, and getting organized for their time with the orphans. they even have learned some lugandan (a language spoken in uganda)! the other night during their team building time, they built a 9 foot tall snowman! the team is bonding well and is counting down the days until they leave. tim's office is overflowing with dipaers, crayons, clothes, play dough, toys, medicine...all for the orphans they'll be working with for the week they are there.

happy birthday tim!!!

30 years ago today, the world was blessed with the arrival of tim!

a few dear friends came over last night to celebrate...we had a mediterranean feast, space ship party hats and sopapilla cheesecake! party!

on saturday silas went to the doctor for the first time here in moscow...it was time for his four month check up! here he is all ready to go...

we had a great doctor's visit. silas weighs 14 pounds and 14 ounces, and is in the 75th percentile as far as length goes...he's a tall boy!

habiba

today i (ally) had an experience that is one of those that i know i will cherish all my life. with tim's birthday coming up, i wanted to take some time and get a birthday gift for him so that is what i planned to do today. tim and silas were hanging out, and with my big coat and boots on, i took kai out to go to the bathroom before i left...

i always stop and talk to our dijornaya (pronounced dee-zjor-naya) when i go out. a dijornaya is a woman who keeps the indoor and outdoor entrances of the building clean and who sits in a room by the outside door of the building to watch who comes in and out. the room she sits in is about 6 feet by 4 feet, with a bed/bench, a hot water pot, and a tv. there is a tiny closet in there with a toilet. buildings that have dijornayas typically have 2, and they alternate shifts, a shift being two consecutive 24 hour periods. one of the dijornayas, habiba, and i have formed a really neat relationship. she wants to learn english and she is working hard on that, and even before i came back to moscow after silas was born, she asked tim if i would teach her english. so everyday when i am coming to or going from the building, habiba and i talk and work on her english and my russian, so through this we are getting to know eachother well.

habiba is from uzbekistan and she is muslim. she knows that we are christian. habiba, who is 32, and her husband live and work here in moscow, for the sole purpose of making money to send back to their family. their two children who are 11 and 13 years old live with habiba's mom in uzbekistan. habiba's husband is a street sweeper here in moscow (literally sweeping the street with a broom) and he makes $300a month and habiba makes $400 a month sitting in the room downstairs.

so habiba and i talked when i took kai out and i told her that i was going to go run some errands for tim's birthday. so when i went back down stairs after dropping kai off in our apartment, habiba was all dressed in her coat and hat and gloves...she smiled, and asked if she could go with me. so we spent a few hours walking arm in arm (as russian women do) looking for a birthday gift for tim, and buying some groceries. it was such a sweet time, that even as i write this i don't think words can do it justice. she has told her family in uzbekistan about me and tim, so she wanted us to take a picture that she can send to her family.


it's really neat to be aware of the fact that God is working in ways every moment that we may not be aware of. ministry opportunites are everywhere. even though i am not in a formal position at hinkson this year, besides being with silas and meeting with highschool girls, i have this incredible opportunity to form this realtionship with habiba and hopefully point her to the Truth. please pray with us for habiba and her family.

i took this picture a few minutes ago from our kitchen window...i'm not sure if this picture conveys how hard this snow is falling. it's really coming down.


and here's a pic of silas just because i can't resist!

silas' new friend

we are so blessed to have some wonderful friends here in moscow. our friends, marat and ophelia, had their son, emil, just three weeks after silas was born. here, the boys are getting to know eachother. silas is so happy to have a new friend!!!