Are we crossing or using?

But I trust in Your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in Your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, for He has been good to me. Psalm 13:5-6

Sometimes, in the course of just living life, I think it’s hard to see how the LORD has been good to us. We look around us and see problems, but in reality, He has been working in us and around us to make each day possible. Sometimes, it’s a teacher who touches our child in a miraculous way, someone we may have prayed for who suddenly appears. Sometimes, it’s just taking a few days away to thank Him for His creation and for what He’s doing through other people. Sometimes, it’s looking at your children in a brand new light. And sometimes, it’s choosing to feel better even if your emotions don’t always agree. In our case, we have had all of these experiences, and each time it reminds us that the Father up above IS looking down in love, and He’s orchestrating things around us in ways that we cannot even comprehend, but can appreciate if we are purposeful about doing so.

I haven’t written since our retreat, but we had a marvelous time. Clean air and lots of trees (and snow) was exactly what the doctor ordered. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, had some marvelous Bible teaching in English, and laughed a whole lot. We love our team so much, and it was wonderful to have time to spend altogether. Thank you for praying that our time would be valuable—it certainly was.

We have enjoyed our time off of language school this week, but we are looking forward to seeing Irina again on Monday. She spent the week in Kiev with her parents. We only have class Monday-Wednesday, and then we have Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving. We are spending Thanksgiving with all of the IMB missionaries in Moscow, who are gathering at the Christian school to eat, play, watch some football, and laugh. It should be a wonderful time. Friday, we will put up our Christmas tree and S.B. and I might do some shopping. Pray that we will be able to find some good prices—everything here is very, very expensive. When we looked into replacing our Xbox with an Xbox 360 from here, it was around $600. That should give you a pretty good idea of what prices are here. Luckily, we were able to have a team bring some in last week when they came from Kentucky, so that helped. However, we’re still looking at the bulk of Christmas being from Moscow (did I mention it is the most expensive city in the world?).

Marc has just come in from a quick trip with the trash (Hannah’s job, but we don’t let her do it at night), and he has pronounced it very, very, very cold outside. I don’t want to hear anymore whining from our Florida friends, by the way. Sixty is not cold. It’s summer. :o)

We had a marvelous, wonderful day today. We went to the Starlite Café, which is an American diner (in an actual dining car) that serves American food at a not too terrible price. It wasn’t Country Cabin, but it was still pretty good. They were very, very excited to have an actual American family, and we were very, very excited to get a pancake with some maple syrup (they don’t have maple syrup here). It was pretty good stuff. We then went to the Russian equivalent of Best Buy and bought coffee filters (I haven’t been able to find them anywhere) and a hair dryer and Bugs Bunny cartoons in Russian. (I know how to say, “That’s all folks” now.) It was a pretty fabulous day. Of course, to end it we got on the wrong bus and spent an hour and a half touring beautiful Moscow. Hmmm…we were just glad to wind up where we could catch a different bus home!

The title of today’s blog is a quote of something Han says every time we go down into the Metro. On big streets with lots of traffic, they have parahautes, which are basically underground crosswalks. When we head to the steps leading down to the Metro, she always asks, “Are we crossing or using?” Now, Marc thinks I have to turn everything into some kind of analogy for Christ and how He’s at work in my life, and I’m sure if I worked hard enough I could make something pretty good out of this one. But I was out for 10 hours with three kids in Europe’s largest city, and I’m pretty worn. I just think it’s kind of cute.

I’ve also come up with another title for my book. If you’ll recall from previous blogs, the first title was Armpit farts at the breakfast table. The new title (also from an experience here in Moscow) is Dinosaurs in the bathtub. Or what about Plastic snakes in the freezer? I’m also considering Go straight to the dumpster and then turn right. Maybe I should make this a matter for an online poll. It makes me giggle just to think about the many odd things that have happened to me here.

Well, it’s late, and I can still hear John-John singing in their bedroom. I should go get them to sleep. I hope you have a wonderful, restful Sabbath. As you’re “freezing” in your sixty degree weather, just remember that the high here tomorrow is 20. Degrees. I’m not even kidding. By the way—another lesson learned: hairspray and a heavy downpour of snow are not a great combination. That’s just a free little tidbit for whoever of you might need to know that. Blessings to you and yours!

His,
Kellye