Happy Thanksgiving!!!

First, here is an update on a few things that have been going on recently:

Last Wednesday night we had our last Cooking Club.  We made green bean casserole (in honor of Thanksgiving coming up) and homemade Reese’s peanut butter cups.  Once again this was a great time of fellowship.  We had some new women come this week.  Throughout the evening, Eileen was able to share about why we celebrate Thanksgiving and why she and Chris felt led to come to Ufa.  I feel like God used this night to speak to a couple of the ladies. 

Shannon, Kelly, and I were asked to teach 2 English classes at a linguistics school last Thursday night.  We were asked to teach about Thanksgiving.  Shannon and I were together and Kelly taught the other class by herself.  Kelly’s class had older students, but mine and Shannon’s class had 16 kids probably around 10 years old.  Oh my! It was SO much fun.  We explained a little bit about Thanksgiving, and then spent the rest of the time answering all of their questions about everything you can imagine.  …what is your favorite color, do we like fast food, do we have pets, do we have brothers and sisters, who are our favorite actors … etc.  At one point they sang a popular Russian song to us and we sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer to them (there aren’t really any Thanksgiving songs, so we skipped to Christmas lol) Shannon and I could not have enjoyed this evening more.  The kids were so precious.  After the kids had left, we had some tea and a small dinner with the other teachers.  This was a lot of fun, and Shannon and I were able to try some more Bashkir foods (they were quite tasty J )   

Side note: We had our first Taxi experience in Russia this night haha  it was interesting

God definitely used this experience to bring me great encouragement and joy.  After this evening, I felt so much joy and peacefulness.  I can’t even begin to explain in words how much I needed that experience. 

Weather Update: The darkness of winter has settled in here.  Much like in Alaska, there are very few daylight hours here right now.  It doesn’t even get bright enough for the streetlights to turn off until at least 10 AM and it is completely dark again by 5:30 or so.  This is making it incredibly difficult to get up in the mornings!  During the day, it is also pretty cloudy all the time, so we rarely get to see the sun.  However, we are very much so enjoying all the beautiful snow!!! Right now we probably have at least a foot of snow built up in most places.  Temps are dropping as well.  For Thanksgiving, the high is supposed to be below 0 degrees Fahrenheit.  Maybe we should have a snowball fight with all the Carr Kids to celebrate such cold temperatures! J  

Speaking of Thanksgiving... as I have said previously, we will have had 3 different Thanksgiving meals by the end of this week.  We had our first Thanksgiving last night.  Shannon, Kelly, and I cooked a traditional Thanksgiving meal (or as close as we could get it with our lack of skills and with what ingredients we could find here) for our classmates last night.  It was so much fun!  I think everyone really enjoyed it!  We were able to have a turkey (I actually carved the turkey!) green bean casserole, rolls, corn, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, a pumpkin roll, and a Russian version of an apple pie.  It was such a wonderful experience to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends of 7 different nationalities! (American, Chinese, Vietnamese, Serbian, Turkish, Peruvian, and Korean)  Overall it was a great night.  We had great food and great friends. We spent the evening talking, playing some songs on guitar, sharing about what we are thankful for.  What a blessing this night was.

At this moment, I am sitting in the Carr’s apartment enjoying Thanksgiving Day with my adopted family here in Russia.  I absolutely love this family and feel so blessed to be able to spend the day with them.  Right now, I can smell a delicious turkey and am watching some of my adopted little brothers play some games on Wii.  If I have to be away from my family for the holiday, this is the best way I can think of to spend the day!

Tomorrow we will be having a joint Men’s and Women’s club to celebrate a traditional American Thanksgiving with the Russians who usually attend the Men’s Club and Women’s Club each month. 

It is hard to believe that we only have 2 and a half weeks left here.  I am very much so ready to see my friends and family again (and sleep in my own bed! lol), but I know that I will miss the people here so much as well.  I know these last weeks will go by so fast.  I am trying to make the most of what time we have left here.

I have had to start trying to plan for what I will do when I get back.  I am thoroughly enjoying planning the fun stuff like seeing everyone, giving everybody their gifts, and going to all of my favorite restaurants and coffee shops, doing all sorts of crafty stuff with my favorite sister and such.  But trying to plan what to do with my life after Christmas is proving to be a bit difficult.  I would greatly appreciate it if you would pray for guidance in this area!

Answered Prayers

·         Our cooking club last week went so well! 

·         Teaching an English class was an absolutely amazing experience! 

·         Thanksgiving with our class went extremely well

Prayer Requests:

·         Pray that the men’s and women’s club Thanksgiving celebration will be a great time of fellowship and that we will be able to share about the Gospel through explaining why and how we celebrate Thanksgiving.  Please pray that this will be a joyful time and that Shannon and I will not be missing our families too badly.

·         On Dec. 7^th, our university will be putting on a presentation with some of the language students and all of the international students.  The international students from each different country will be sharing about how their country celebrates New Year’s or Christmas.  Shannon, Kelly, and I are the only Americans so we have decided to share about how we celebrate Christmas.  We are in the planning stage right now, but so far we have decided that we will be singing “The 12 Days of Christmas” and “Mary Did You Know?” and bringing cookies (because you have to leave cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve! J).  We will be able to share about our Christmas traditions.  Please pray that we will be able to follow God’s guidance on how to go about sharing the true reason for Christmas. 

·         As you can see, we are going to be incredibly busy in our last weeks here.  This is a good thing.  I definitely want to make the most of what little time I have left here.  But I would also like to ask that you pray for plenty of rest and limited stress for Shannon and I.  With so much going on, it could be rather easy for us to get worn out and make these last 2 and a half weeks very difficult for us.