Category: Family

Posts regarding our family

English in Our Flat

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Olga has been teaching English on Monday nights for quite a while. And now Valerie is helping!

The young man is Kostya Protasov. He was a heroin addict who lived as a thief and extortionist before becoming a pagan who sacrificed to the gods of the forest; as a result of his drug use he contracted HIV and Hepatitis C. He ended up at a Christian rehab center but got sick of it. This is what happened as he fled the center, waiting for a train to go to the city:

As I waited, the pictures of my empty past and dreary future filled my mind, and I heard a voice in my heart saying: “Go back to the center lest you die!” Going back to the center was 8 kilometers through the forest and my bag that I had to carry [was heavy], but somehow I made a decision to go back.

I went through the forest and felt the presence of God! His mercy, His tremendous love overwhelmed me! I thought of many of my friends who in their “search of truth” and trying different things in life did not reach the most important – Jesus and His Word that really sets free.

One of the center workers told me: when a man takes one step towards God, God takes ten steps towards him! The hunger to know Jesus burnt in my heart, the desire to live in fellowship with Him. He met me in so many ways and the things that were impossible for me before became possible! I once was lost in sin, but Jesus took me in and set me free from the chains of addictions!”

You can read his full story here, (scroll down the page a little).

A Postcard from Russia (and Estonia)

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God has blessed us in many, many ways. Valerie has been with us just over a month and is doing great. She’s happy and healthy, talking more and is quite smart. Olga is doing great as a new mom, though there are challenges. And I am so thankful to have a daughter who runs to me when I come home. These are sweet days.

I’ve just returned to Russia from a trip to Estonia and will go back again in a few days. I’m on the road quite a bit just now.

In Estonia, we’ve made great progress on our plans to build a center for disabled children. Later this month the city council will vote on giving us a piece of land; the mayor has already pledged it to us, so we’re quite sure we’ll get the lot. This week we plan to register an Estonian charity that will own the land and run the center. I’ll be a founding board member. The architect continues to work on the design. An English charity just donated $3000 to help with start-up expenses.

It is all very good. And we are VERY thankful.

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Here are three recent short videos.

First, today we went to Tavrichesky Park, the park across the street from our flat. Valerie loves to go down the slide and sled down hills. She’s pretty tough and fearless. This video was made at noon; notice how low the sun is in the sky.


Here Olga and Valerie walk through the park.

A few days ago we went shopping. Valerie enjoyed running back to mama.

Breakthrough!

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The lights were off in our foyer when I returned home from work. As I as setting my things down, Valerie stood at the other end of the hall looking to see who was in the darkness. I could see that she was looking at me but didn’t know it was me.

I said ‘privet’ (hi), and she ran down the hall and gave me a big hug! This is first time she’s done that. Later in the day I started rough-housing with her (picking her up by her legs, tickling her, etc), and though she didn’t know what to make of it at first she started really enjoying it.

And then this:

Olga picked up her phone and took this picture after Valerie brought a book (in English) for me to read to her.  This has been a dream of mine — for Valerie to sit on my lap while I read to her.

I am very thankful.

Snapshots from Russia

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This is a pretty standard view of our city streets these days —

One of my joys in being part of an international family is introducing Olga (and now Valerie) to my home culture; today (sleepy) Valerie had her first bacon and egg breakfast. This is probably the first time she’s eaten bacon, and she really took to it.

Sergei Tovstpyat and I went to Charlie Chastain’s garage to start his van and put on winter tires (the Chastains return from the US next week and need to have their van at the ready).

It’s common here to rent a garage in an area where there are many garages. This is what it looked like today.

Each little building is a one-car garage. The garage owners rent their plot from a company that owns the land. As you can see, some people have a pile of snow up to the roof because their neighbors shoveled the snow from in front of their garage. Like so many things here, it’s not convenient. It took us a long time just to drive to the garage and then clear the snow from in front of the door.

So, for those of you in the US who wonder why it it can take so long to get things done here in Russia, this is one example of how a simple project can eat up more than half a day.

An Update from Russia — About Valerie

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Many of you have by now heard our big news: we are guardians of a three year old orphan named Valerie. She came to live with us last Tuesday evening. She’s doing great as she gets settled in to her new life with us.

We have just entered a brand new phase of our lives, and it will take time for all three of us to adjust and settle into our ‘new normal’. It still feels a little unreal, like we are in a dream, we are having a crash course in parenting. Please, pray for us to go through this transition smoothly.

This update will fill in some of the blanks about Valerie, her mother, and our relationship to them.

First, Valerie is a ‘social orphan’. That is, she has a living mother but her mother is in prison and is losing her parental rights. Her mother used to live with us.

In 2003, we became guardians of a teenage orphan named Oksana (left, in front with Olga, Olga’s sister and mom, and our then-new cat Miki; July 2003). Olga had met Oksana in a summer camp several years before and was like a big sister to her and became like a mother.

Oksana lived with us for about 18 months, until her 18th birthday. She then decided to leave our home and pursue her own direction.

Oksana started living a destructive lifestyle. As the years passed, she was distant from us though we tried several times in many ways to help her. She would contact us once in a while, and then fall out of the radar again. She had several live-in boy friends and got involved in dealing and taking drugs. As a result, she contracted HIV and Hepatitis C. Continue reading →

Christmas Day on January 1?

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We celebrated Christmas on New Year’s Day because Valerie wasn’t with us on the 25th. She’d never celebrated Christmas like this (or maybe ever), and I don’t think she’s ever opened a Christmas gift. It was great fun to watch her learn what it is to open a Christmas gift. There was a sled waiting for her under the tree.

We read the Christmas story from the Bible and later Olga’s mother and some friends came to visit. We cooked a turkey and had a good meal together as a family. And the two grandmothers got to talk on Skype.

We start with Valerie opening a gift from her American Babushka:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjzoJbpGxCk?rel=0&showinfo=0

Valerie – Day 2

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Well, I said yesterday that I wouldn’t post pictures of Valerie every day, but some folks have asked to see more.

We’ll celebrate Christmas on New Year’s Day, since Valerie wasn’t with us on the 25th. We have a tree with presents under it waiting for Saturday morning!

We start with a video of Valerie meeting babushka (grandmom) Cantrell over Skype:

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