Fun in the Snow!!!!!!!!!!!

 It snowed today so we decided to play in the snow. We had so much fun. We had a snowball fight and we also made a snowman.

This is the snow we had.

Here we are making our snowman.

And here is the final Snowman.

 And we have also been celebrating a holiday. Here I am in my holiday outfit:

I am all ready for guests!! :)

As you can see the table setting is very pretty during this holiday.

We are enjoying the food before any guests arrive!

One of my friends did this henna on me while I was at her house.

As you can see I have had a lot of fun during this holiday! I am doing really well still and am really blessed to be able to here. God has been so good to me, I love what I am doing and all the people I am with. Thank you all for your prayers and support. God bless you all. I can't wait to see you all in December.

Cowboys!!!!

I was blessed last night(my time) to be able to play with some kids. They found a cowboy hat and gun and had a ball acting out for me.

These two boys are brothers.

I could tell that they had watched some movies becaus they knew exactly how to get into postion.

This beautiful little girl is the sister or cousin of the two boys. She LOVED having pictures taken of her.

AW!!! :)

When I return to America anytime that someone says, “Aw!” I will want to reply, “Aw mayhoren?” …………………

 

On Friday I went on a visit into one of the villages where some of my friends live. We had a great time together, we laughed and did some talking. In total I spent about six hours with them. I have really enjoyed getting to know the people here, they have very loving hearts of generosity and friendship. They make you feel very welcome.

 

Well, while I was there at their house one of the women decided that she REALLY liked my cheeks……so she pinched them! I said, “Aw!!!” Her reply was, “Aw mayhoren?” Which means, “You want water?” She found it so funny that she kept pinching my cheeks so that I would say “Aw” and then she would once again ask me, “Aw mayhoren?”  At last I decided not to say anything when she pinched me, until she finally gave up.

 

When you go to visit someone, they make a really good meal for you. They prepare a salad, some kind of fruit, a dish called Pollow, which is made with rice, raisins, shredded carrots and beef. It is SO good! They also serve tea (choi), and make sure you drink it.J I have come to really like tea since I have been here. I have drank more tea then water while I have been here.

 

Someone asked me to write about the shopping here. All the shopping happens at the bazaar. There are many little shops where families sell their fruit, vegetables and any other goods that they grow. We buy our food from them. Actually, our day guard goes to the bazaar to buy our food. But the clothing is in a different part of the bazaar. It is an underground ‘mall’ sort of thing. There are many, many different shops, some with already made clothes and others with just cloth to make outfits. I have mostly shopped at just the cloth stores. Men are the only ones who work in the shops, which I find kind of strange.

 

I am doing really well, I have really loved being here. God has been really gracious to me and has given me favor with the people. I love teaching the kids and being with the foreign families. They have been a blessing to me.

 

I start my teaching at 8 o’clock and finish around 11 o’clock most of the time. Then I either go visiting someone are write in my journal, read my Bible or rest. 

 

I learned that I am going to return home for Christmas!!!!!!!! I am soooooooooooooooo happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! God is SO good! He gives so many good gifts to His children. I was preparing myself for missing Christmas, and then He gives me my Christmas gift early! J

 

Well, thank you all again for all your support and prayers. I am so blessed to have such great friends! I am grateful to God for you. Please continue praying that I would be a blessing to the people here, and that I would bring honor to God in everything that I do. Thank you all!!!!!!!!!!

Things I Love Here

Here is a short update:

There are a few things that I really love about the place that I am living in. I have been blessed by having been placed into a place that I love.

I love the people, they are really friendly. I like to spend time with them and learn more about them and their culture.

I love the kids here. They are really cute!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love how they try to speak English to me when they see me walking by. I love being able to interact with them.

I also love all the kites that are flown here. At one time there will be about 15-20 kites in the sky. The kids here are amazing at flying kites. They make them from plastic bags that they find. They use sticks and string to build them. And they let them fly!!!! And the kite goes into the air 50-60ft. It is amazing to watch. I remember trying to fly kites back home, and finding it VERY hard. These kids make it seem really easy.

I also love the food. They eat a lot of bread, which they call 'nan'. It is round, and amazing!!! I know my brother Joe liked it when he was here. They also eat a lot of rice, it has raisins and meat. I really like the rice dish. And I get to eat it A LOT!!!!!

Well, I am off to bed now.

Kids and Pictures!! :)

I was blessed to be able to interact with some of the children that live here. The children are friends of the kids that I teach.

These boys found out that I had a camera, and they LOVED it!! They all wanted pictures taken of them, tothether and sepreately. I was really excited to be able to be with children. I love kids so much and so I was really happy when these kids decided to come over and have pictures taken of them.

Here are three of the boys. They were really happy to have pictures taken of them even if they are not smiling. It is a cultural thing not to smile for a picture.

They also wanted pictures taken of them one at a time.

 

I was so happy to be able to spend time with these kids. Hopefully in the near future I will have the great gift of going to the Children's Home here that was established by the Russians. I am really excited about that oppurtunity.



Sorry that I do not have more pictures put up. My internet is so slow, it would take too long to put any more on here. But I hope you enjoy the two that I did put on.


Please pray that I will be able to make some impact on the children that I come in contact with.

Happy and blessed,
Jaynie

Artwork

I have been able to spend some time drawing while I have been on this adventure. Here is just one of the pictures:

This is as best a copy of my own burqa as I can draw.

I have to confess that wearing a burqa is hard. You can't see very well and that makes it hard to walk. But there is a good thing about wearing a burqa and that is: you feel like a super hero, especially when the wind is blowing. The burqa flies and billows behind you like a big balloon. I feel like I could fly. And there is another good thing: there are less people who stare at you.  

As I learned to put the burqa on, I was very amusing to people around me. I found it hard to actually get it on. Native  women laughed when they saw me putting it on. Many of them tried to help me. Someone told me that I look like a French artist because my burqa was tilted off to the side. (That by the way was  not a native.) But the people love the fact that I wear a burqa.

I did finally learn how to wear a burqa. My next learning project is learning how to walk slowly like the natives here. The people know that I am a foreigner because I walk faster than they do. Plus, they can tell my  feet. Please pray that I will learn that quickly. :)



Jaynie

Overview

I am sorry that I have not written for so long. I have not had internet for many days now. I have been very busy going to weddings, having friends over, visiting and learning the language.

I had two of my friends over on Thursday. They stayed from 7:30a.m. - 4:00 p.m, so most of the day. We had a lot of fun. I taught them Cotten-Eyed Joe, they got the steps of the song but not the fact that they had to go with the beat. When we were dancing to their music they decided to try Cotton-Eyed Joe to their music and it worked!!

We also played piano. I taught them some and they also just played around on it. They love all kinds of instruments. They also loved playing the guitar. They tried to teach me how to play a drum that they have here, but I didn't get it. The drums are played by the women at any women's party.

I have had a great time teaching my students. This is our forth week and I still like it, which I think is a good sign. The students still like school, which is also a good sign.

I got some clothes made for myself. One is pink and the other one (everyone who knows me well will not be surprised) is purple. I really like the clothes that I get to wear here. They are really comfortable and very beautiful. I liked going shopping for the fabircs. It was fun to see all the different colors and patterns.

Here is one of my outfits:

This is my pink outfit. I have not yet taken a picture of the purple outfit.

This is how we get from place to place in the city. It is a motorcycle with a cart attached, where we sit.

This is my bedroom partner, I found him crawling on my bed:

His name is Scorpi. This is after he is dead, I didn't like him too much.

A week or so ago, we found a puppy. We took care of him for two days.We fed him and washed him and then returned him. It was only a month or two old, and extremely cute!

Here it is after I had given it a bath and warm milk:

Over all I am doing really well. I love living here and I love all the people. Thank you for all your prayers.                                           

Jaynie                                                                                                                                                          

Joys and Sorrows

The Sorrow:


My family is going to the North Shore this week and I have to confess that the thought of my family being at the North Shore without me is VERY hard!!! I have not missed this trip for ten years. It will be hard and yet I know this is what God wants for me at this point in my life. I am very happy where I am, because I know that God put me here. But please pray for me during this time as I miss my family and our family trip.

To my family:
 I will miss you all so much, and I will miss spending time with you at our favorite place. I love you all more than I can ever tell you!!!


But now for the Joy: (my students)


Well, I bet you have been wondering what my three students look like. Here are some pictures of them:

This is them when they are calm and laid back:)

This is them when they are acting like themselves!!!

 So as you can see my hands are full!!! I love these kids alot. They are awesome at learning plus they have great hearts. I am so blessed to have three really good students.

Jaynie

Adventures and Holidays

I have really enjoyed this holiday. During this holiday you go and visit your family and many of your friends. So for the last three days that is exactly what we did!

On Tuesday we visited two sets of people, one was my language teacher and all the women of the house. The women here are very friendly and generous. They prepare a feast for all their guests. The other was a friend who is very dear to the people who are here.

Then yesterday, which was Wednesday, we visited about 5 different families. I really enjoyed meeting all the people. They are really outgoing and love to talk. They love meeting new people and learning new things. During this time I have met some really amazing girls my age and I have loved spending time with them.

Then today we had visitors instead of being visitors, and I confess that I liked being the visitor rather than the one being visited. But many of the same girls that I met yesterday came today, which was fun. I was glad to see them once again. I was even able to talk to them a little today.

I am really excited to continue on with my language lesson, so that I on the next holiday which is in forty days I will be able to speak a bit more. My lessons start on Saturday, so please pray for me that I will be able to learn quickly and effectively.

Jaynie

A New Experience

As I am writing this post I am using only one hand because the other one is not available at this point and this why:

As we prepare for a holiday we have done a thing we call henna. It is a paint that you put on your hands and it stays there a long time. It is a way to celebrate the holiday. Women do very elaborate designs while men do a simple design.

These are not my hands but this is kind of what my hand look like, my lift hand is the only one that has henna on it. We had a lot of fun doing it, but it is very hard to survive while not getting henna over everything! Sadly, I did get some on my burqa and right by the face!:(

This is what henna looks like.

Other then that I am doing my usual stuff: teaching (which I love), resting (which I love also), learning the language, hanging out with the kids and parents, and cooking sometimes, cleaning other times, Skyping, e-mailing and reading, journaling and reading my Bible.

I have really enjoyed learning the language, my teacher is very patient with me when I don't learn something quickly. In this culture greetings are VERY important, so that is the first thing that I had to learn (and I am still learning them). There are so many things you have to say as the greeting.

The holiday begans tomorrow. During this holiday people go and visit all their friends and family. I am really excited about getting to experience a new part of this culture. Please pray that I will be able to learn the greetings well so that I can honor the people I come in contact with.

This picture is for my siblings:

SKITTLE!!!!!!

I love you guys and am so grateful to have you as siblings!!

Jaynie

Update

I was able to get Internet today, so I decided to update you all back home.

I have really enjoyed the adventures that I have had while I have been on this trip. There are so much new tastes, smells and sights. And I have been blessed by God in that I have had almost no problem with jetlag this trip, which is not a guarantee.

Some of my adventures have been like, sleeping on the roof of the house and getting to see the stars. I have also gotten to see camels. I know my mom was very excited about me seeing camels:) I will try to get a picture that is "blog worthy" because I don't have one right now.

One other adventure has been getting used to the clothes here. I think I could get used to them, they are not as bad as I thought, much better than some of the clothes we see in America. I have enjoyed getting to wear different styles from a different culture.

My dad and brother have left me to return to America. They stayed with me for 10 days which I consider a huge blessing to have been able to spend so much time with them. But I have to confess the good-byes were really hard to say. That is when the burqa could actually be helpfulJ I know that it is what God wants for me and that I actually want to be here right now. But it doesn’t make it any easier to say good-bye to your Daddy.

I did my first day of teaching today, and it went very well. The kids that I taught love to learn which makes it easier on me. I really love working with them, they have great understanding and love for what they are learning. I thought that it was a very productive day all-in-all. Tomorrow we will do one more day of school before the weekend.

I hope to start language lessons soon. I have some teachers in mind whom I have met and I like them a lot. So please pray for me as I try to learn a new language, working with people who know almost no English.

I would like to thank all of you for your prayers during this time in my life. I am so blessed to have so many amazing people in my life. I know that your prayers are making a difference in this trip. I consider it a great honor to have such great prayer partners.

Jaynie

Day 2

Today we traveled on an airplane for fourteen hours. It was very tiring but fun.  But before we started on the long flight we decided to have some sugar.....

Here my dad is pretending that he isn't eating any of the candy.

Here is my brother kindly sharing the Skittles that our sister packed for him.

After we were done having fun we decided to try and sleep. Thankfully, God gave us the grace of letting us be able to do so at least for part  of the time. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to sleep because on other international trips that I have taken I wasn't able to sleep. That was truly a gift from God.

Here Dad is trying to figure out why the neck pillow is not working right:)

When we arrived to our destination we were amazed by the beauty. It is so very different from home and it is such a gift for me to be able to see it. I have loved being able to see the cultural and the differences in our two countries.

On our drive to the hotel we got to see the tallest building  in the world. It was very beautiful.

Here is my brother relaxing with his slippers, fruit and water. So relaxing!!!!

We had a very luxurious hotel room. And our friend Elephant helped us feel comfortable.

Here is my brother hanging out with our friend Elephant.

Here is our room.

So overall we had fun and loved the new experience of being in a different country with a different culture.

Thank you all for your prayers and support.

Jaynie

Day 1

Today was my first day of travel and it has gone very well. I have loved traveling with my dad and older brother. They make the time we spend together fun and special.

The farewells were very hard. I have never been away from my family for longer than twelve days so it was difficult to say good-bye to them for such a long time. God once again showed me how truly important my family is to me and how blessed I am to have a family.

Here are my brother and I eating dinner at T.G.I  Fridays.

The Beginning

I've begun this blog to share my adventures. Tomorrow I begin my travels--with my dad and older brother--to a Central Asian country where I will be a homeschool teacher for two families who live there.

Jaynie