Women's Day

We found out that there are so many chicken photo booths because it is the year of the chicken.

The street fair was very fun. There were 'shashliknis' serving shashliks (kebabs) and plov (like rice pilaf). We sat down at one of the temporary outdoor cafes and ordered a plate. This is not a throw away society--our food came on actual ceramic plates even though it was an outdoor, one day only event. There was an old Russian woman at the back of the booth with a big pan of suds washing every dish. Seemingly everybody in Taraz got their shot at singing a song in the town square, karaoke-style. Some enterprising Kazakh had also brought a full-size air hockey table and set it up. The older kids had fun with that while the younger ones played on an inflatable bounce house. Sound familiar? Our driver warned us that it was OK to go to the fair during the day but to not go out at night because, as he said, the Kazakhs like to fight when they have had too much to drink. So we ate in the hotel last night (borscht!) and holed up in our room. The local police and military were having a grand time last night, cranking up their sirens and driving around the square for hours. For a while we thought there was a riot or something but they were just showing off their manpower.

Yesterday was overcast for the first time since we've been here. Today looks to be the same. The good thing is that makes the clothes we brought (wool sweaters, etc.) bearable. The bad thing is our laundry (washed in the bathtub, dried on the window ledge) doesn't dry nearly as quickly.

Alex gets stronger by the day. Yesterday we were doing push-ups with him to strengthen his tummy muscles. He has started to mimic us so I got down on the floor and pushed up and he would do the same. Then I would drop down and he would, too. We did that a few times and it was really funny. He has also started to support more weight on his legs and enjoys 'standing' with our help. When we first started visiting he wouldn't put any weight on his legs at all. Progress!

Forgot to write about the Super Bowl party. It was very fun. The Interlink office was there (American families and singles), a Peace Corp guy, some Kazakh families and the Petersons, who had arrived that morning from Denver to adopt a brother and sister who are 12 and 13. They have two biological daughters who are 10 and 11 and were shocked to see how small the new siblings were in comparison. The Petersons had brought the Super Bowl video and we sat down to some wonderful homemade pizzas, thanks to Sara, popcorn and nachos. Interlink has found people in the village who make tortillas so rest assured that Taco Bell will be in Kazakhstan soon. We had a great time meeting everybody and hope to get together with the Petersons soon for dinner and a walk around town. And also because they are in an apartment that has a clothes washer :)

Na Zdrovia!

Our translator warned us: "Oh, a Korean party? You will definitely eat and drink A LOT."

The anniversary party turned out to be a birthday party for another Korean fellow also named Slava (no relation to Natalia's uncle's cousin). It was the best party we've ever been to and we sat at the best table in the place. Part banquet, part disco, part circus, and part variety show, they left little undone from an entertainment perspective. The Russian MC could easily pass for a morning show DJ in the U.S. He joked, cajoled, and generally got everyone to loosen up. He opened with, "We're not going to make this a boring Korean party, are we??" and kept the festivities rolling. There were tons and tons of speeches. One guy in particular had a voice that could rival Sominex for its numbing power. They had everything: traditional national dances, a Cirque de Soleil type Chinese contortionist, dances with birds, a kid who won the Kazakh version of American idol (amazing voice), ballroom dances, and two professional singers belting out tunes full blast.

We sat with Ulia, her mother & father Slava, her uncle Marlin & his wife Natasha, and friends of theirs. The table was creaking under the weight of the food and they refused to see our plates empty. We enjoyed dish after dish of Korean, Russian, and Kazakh food. After about an hour, they told us the FIRST main course was about to come out. But, the real killer is the vodka. Raising our glasses in a toast every five minutes didn't seem to have much of an effect on us... initially. When Natasha started encouraging even more toasts, it caught up pretty quickly.

We were asked to get up in front of the guests to make a toast to the 'birthday boy' whom we'd met just minutes before. I said what I could in Russian but then switched to English with Ulia translating for me. Ours was by far the shortest speech of the evening. We also found out that it's customary for a man to sing or dance to show his appreciation/respect to the person whose birthday it is. So, before we knew it, the Russian MC was booming through the mike that now these two are gonna show us how
they dance in America. Thank God for our swing dancing lessons. Later they had people do skits, so I lip synched a duet in Russian with a Korean woman. Another fellow in our skit, a sweet older guy who could totally boogie, had been given a natty wig to cover his bald scalp so he could impersonate one of the current heartthrobs. Man, did he ever get down! Later in the evening, he twice gave me big bear hugs and proclaimed "You are my brother!" At these parties, everyone dances and there is no inhibition. You only look odd if you don't dance.

As it was getting late, we were ready to leave and Slava was happy to take us home whenever we were ready. However, we thought we wouldn't be able to leave, because at one point a woman joined our table and we found out she had been trying to leave but Natasha had made her stay. Additionally, we started scanning the house to figure out who we did not want driving us home. The Russian MC would have been a good candidate since he'd refused encouragements to drink since he had to drive. When we said we had to go the entire table came down with us to see us off. Slava hailed a cab, so he and Ulia could accompany us back to our hotel. It was approaching midnight, but Ulia asked us a few times: "Do you always go to bed so early??" (Everyone here, children included, tend to stay up til midnight or later and don't wake up until 7-8am.) Then they took the cab back to the party to pick up Ulia's mother.

All in all, it was a fantastic time. Natalia - your family is very, very sweet and considerate. And they're fire on the dance floor! Na Zdrovia!!

From left to right: Ulia, her father (Slava), her mother, birthday boy Slava and some strange Americanski.
The appetizers. After this there were two 'main' courses and then the cake.

More photos later--they take forever to upload at 26.4 kbps!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANNY!!!!!!

Party

We had a fantastic time at the birthday party last night and we have the photos and grogginess to prove it. I'm going to let Jim write eloquently about it later since he has that gift. I will just say here that it was a big party, about 120 people, that was equal parts banquet, circus, variety show and disco. The people we met were fantastic and we felt like part of the family. We hope to run into some of our new friends around town before we leave and have plans to get together with Slava and his family a few more times before we leave Taraz.

The town square is being scrubbed in prepartion for Women's Day and the street surrounding the square has been blocked off so we can actually cross it without taking our lives into our own hands. It is pretty quiet today as it is an official holiday. A few people have set up booths that I assume are for taking photos. They are very ornate and most of them feature a large yellow chicken (?) and they have little couches for mom and dad to sit on for the photo as well as ride-on vehicles, mainly motorcycles, for the kids. I'll take a photo soon and post it so you can see what I mean and I'm sure we'll have the booth owners take photos of us as well.

Saw Alex this morning and he is as cute and smiley as ever. We have figured out his cues for "I'm tired"--mainly he gets fairly vocal, and rubs his face in your chest. He likes us to rub his back as he looks over our shoulder and then you have to pick the exact moment to move him to the 'football hold' across the front and then he falls asleep. Very cute.

I'm at the internet cafe so can't post photos from here. I decided to get out while Jim took a little nap. Plus, it is fun to be among the locals. And at a dollar an hour for internet access you can't go wrong!

A Tour Of The Baby House

NOTE: Ran out of time before we could post all the photos...more coming soon. Now we're off to tonight's anniversary party!

Today we got to the baby house and were able to go up to Alex's room, which he currently shares with 4 other babies. Since it is Sunday the schedule is a bit relaxed and we got there as they were about to feed Alex. We got to wander around a bit and take photos of his area so I'll let those do the talking...


The large playroom where the babies have 'free time'. To the left of the mural on the back wall is the kitchen area for the babies and to the right is the bathroom.


The sleeping room. Alex's crib is to the right in this photo, behind the plant and below the a/c unit. There are ten cribs in the room but only five babies at this time.


Playpen--all the babies lie around and grab at toys strung on the ribbons. That's Alex on the left. We didn't recognize him at first due to his very feminine clothes!


This is Alex with one of his nannies.


And this is how they feed the babies--bowl under chin and shovel it in. The entire feeding took about 2 minutes. He didn't eat all of it but I don't think he was able to take a breath the entire time, they go that fast.

We got to see his medical chart and on 2/22, his 7 month check-up, he weighed 14 lbs. 4 oz. and was 25 3/4" tall.

We only had one visit today as it was Sunday and everyone takes it easy. We are fortunate to be able to visit on Sundays and have it count toward our 14 day bonding period as there are other baby houses that won't allow visits on Sundays. We are even more fortunate that the three-day Women's Day holiday won't affect our visitation schedule. Instead of our second visit, Vera and Medet took us on a tour of three mausoleums that are nearby. Very beautiful and the view of the mountains was wonderful. As usual, today was sunny and dry, very mild. The weather is great!

One week down, three to go!

How Do You Say "Social Butterfly" In Russian?

Alex becomes more vocal and communicative each time we visit. The first few times we saw him he tended to just look and smile and not make much noise. These past few days he babbles and coos much more and lets us know when he isn't happy. We got his schedule today--wake up, 'free time', eat, nap at two hour intervals all day and a bath in the evening before bedtime. Wake up time is 6 a.m. which is going to change once we get back to Texas! We usually get him right after feeding time and by the time we are done he is usually sleeping in our arms since nap time is the next thing on his schedule.





Did we mention that Alex is supremely ticklish? When you tickle him under his arms this is the face you get:



Tonight we got to meet the family of Natalia (our Russian friend in the U. S.) who live here in Taraz. Her uncle's cousin (Slava) and his two older daughters (Ulia, 21 and Karina, 18) met us at the hotel restaurant for a drink and conversation. They have invited us to a friend's 50th anniversary party tomorrow night and we are going to put on our 10 gallon hats and two-step til dawn! The family is very nice and the girls look like they stepped off the SMU campus. We didn't get to meet the mother and 7 year old sister but will probably do so tomorrow. Ulia, the eldest daughter, speaks wonderful English. During the conversation we were talking about holidays and the younger daughter asked us about Groundhog Day, which was funny because many adoptive couples eventually comment that being in Kazakhstan and visiting the baby house day after day tends to be like the movie "Groundhog Day" (which is apparently pretty popular here). Same routine each day--breakfast, visit baby, lunch, visit baby, dinner, sleep and the next day the same thing all over again. So we all had a good laugh about that.

We also met Sara today. She is with Interlink Resources, a humanitarian aid organization based in Muncie that has an outpost here. (Now that I'm looking at their website, that's Sara above the "Employees" tab). They do a lot of work with the orphanages for older children in the region. Sara speaks Kazakh, which is quite a feat. She brought us a packet with lots of info about Taraz--where to eat, shop, what to see and local customs. They also have a list of about 200 DVDs that they loan out to adoptive families--nice! Another family is coming later this week and they are bringing a VHS copy of the Superbowl so Interlink is going to have a Super Bowl party Monday night. Between that and the anniversary party our social calendar is full! And since the treats are so tasty here I realized that we won't miss the Thin Mints I stowed away so I gave them to Sara for the Interlink staffers. Sara knows a number of students at the University who are dying to practice their English so we are going to get set up with one of them to take us to the bazaar one afternoon.

The hotel staff seemed to be scrubbing up the place over the past few days--washing the stair runners, etc. We found out that the Minister of the Interior is going to be staying here for a bit. As we were walking back from lunch we witnessed his arrival--many police cars, a convoy of nicer vehicles, uniformed men and women milling about looking official. We were worried that they wouldn't let us in the door of the hotel as we had to walk past armed security people. But we must have looked tame because they didn't stop us or even check to see if we had a room key. I'm guessing they had our photos on file from our passports and knew by sight who belonged and who didn't.

Forgot to write the other day that when we got to the baby house for our visit we were invited to see an older group of children (3-4 years old) perform a music and dance program for the workers. I think it had something to do with Women's Day, which is on the 8th and it was mainly traditional songs and they also acted out the play of the Little Red Hen (she gets the wheat, grinds it, makes bread while the other animals play and when the bread is ready the other animals want to eat even though they did nothing to help). It was all very cute and I caught almost all of it on video. There were about 12 kids and they were all gorgeous, well-behaved and bright. There was a very spirited little boy, Kazakh, who had enough personality for the entire room. Our translator told us he was unadoptable because he has a mother. Apparently when life gets too rough or money is too tight a family might drop their child off at the baby house temporarily. This little boy didn't seem to mind, though! There was also a set of twin girls, also Kazakh, who seemed older (and much taller) than the other children. We found out that they had been brought to the baby house just about a month ago. Yesterday while we were visiting they were tranferred to Ulan, the house for older kids (5 years and up) because they were 5 1/2 years old. Medet (our driver) and Vera (translator) took them since Medet is kind of considered and unofficial taxi for the baby house. Vera said the girls were very upset and crying because they were afraid their grandmother wouldn't know where they were and wouldn't be able to find them to visit. It was all very sad but good to know that they do have family available and that this is a temporarly situation for the girls.

Photos!

Baby Alex!



Baby Alex sleeping. We have almost this exact photo of Sam sleeping--they look identical. Of course, Sam was only about a month old at the time. And yes, I know I look like I haven't slept in days!

Nursat Guy To The Rescue!

So we bought this icard (like a phone card but you use it to buy time on the internet) from Nursat (the telecom company of KZ) and we were having trouble getting Jim's computer to dial into the access number so we could go online from our hotel room. He had tried all kinds of combinations of country codes, dial-up numbers and other tricks but couldn't make it work. Having total confidence in his Russian skills, Jim called Nursat customer service to find out what we were doing wrong. Yes, you read it right--he called customer service in Kazakhstan. What follows is a factual and true account of what happened--no exaggerations and nothing made up.

Jim calls customer service and gets the one guy who speaks no English. He passes Jim off to a woman who speaks some English but it was slow going. She kept telling him to go to www.nursat.kz to get help, not understanding that we couldn't get on the internet in the first place. Once she understood the predicament she asked where we were, what hotel, etc. and said she was going to send a tech support guy to our hotel room the following morning at 9 a.m. Jim gets off the phone and tells me this and I immediately go into paranoia mode, to paraphrase: "So you just told a perfect stranger in a foreign country who we are, where we are staying and when we will be here and you really believe Nursat is going to send some guy here just to set up our internet connection?!?!" So we decided that in the morning we would tell the hotel front desk not to let anyone up to our room for any reason whatsoever for fear that they would just rob us blind.

About 1/2 hour later we are turning off the lights to go out to dinner and there is a knock on the door. Jokingly, I said "There's your Nursat guy" and opened the door....to the Nursat guy! Seriously, that was the first thing out out of his mouth--"Nursat." We were immediately comforted by the fact that he looked like that guy from the movie Office Space and he got straight to work on the computer without casing the room for valuables. He was here about 10 minutes setting up our internet connection, showing us that we had it right but hadn't put in a few commas that were needed to dial in correctly. He showed us how to enter the login and password that were on the icard and also told us we had won a prize (!) from some scratch-off thing on the icard. We don't know what the prize is or how to claim it but we were pretty excited. Then he was off to free the world of connectivity problems! Thanks, Nursat Guy!

By the way, yes it was totally free. Can you imagine your ISP sending a tech guy for free, within 1/2 hour, to help you connect to the internet? We didn't even have to go through the annoying "Turn your computer completely off and unplug the phone line. Now turn your computer on. Now attach the phone line. Now let me do an online diagnosis of your computer. It must be a software problem (if you call hardware people). It must be a hardware problem (if you call the software people). We can send someone out next Tuesday between 9 and 3 at a cost of $149." Kazakhstan is awesome!

Photos coming soon! Let me figure it out!

Baby Food

We fed Alex lunch yesterday. It consisted of some kind of potato/meat mash. Jim says it was like baked potato and brisket put through a blender. Very interesting. He liked it but wasn't crazy about it. We'd heard about babies who just inhale their food, eating faster than you can get the spoon to their mouths, but he ate slowly and pensively. We also gave him a bottle and he downed that in about 4 seconds flat. It had a huge hole in the nipple so rather than having to suck on the bottle most of the milk just goes right down the hatch--no work required on the baby's part.

He is a very smiley and happy baby overall. When he laughs it sounds like "kak kak kak" so half the time we think he is either choking or about to cry. He is also very ticklish, especially under his right arm, down his ribs.

I promise we will get photos going soon!!!

Meeting Baby Alex

We made it to Taraz before 6 a.m. yesterday and Vera (translator/coordinator) and Medet (driver) met us on the train and transported us to the Hotel Gazovik. We were pleasantly surprised...make that ecstatic...to see that the hotel is wonderful. A good-sized room with an armoire, desk and TV as well as a large bathroom. The ceilings have to be at least 12' so it seems even larger than it is. We got unpacked and took a little nap then went down for an awesome breakfast. At 11 Vera and Medet picked us up for our first trip to the baby house.

We arrived and met the orphanage director who was very nice. Her nickname among adopting families is "Dragon Lady" because she has a tendency to pull power trips but she seemed to like us. It helped that Jim greeted her with "Hello, how are you" in perfect Kazakh which was probably a first. The elicited a grin and a double-take. Then she said that she thought I looked like a young Kazakh woman and where had she seen me before...was I an actress? Then we talked a little bit about Dallas, that great TV show that is a conversation starter for any Texan travelling abroad. Then the doctor showed up with baby Alex and we were stunned!

He is SOOOOOO cute! Dark grey/blue eyes. He wasn't sure what to make of us at first and he had never been in the orphanage director's office so there was a lot to take in. But after he looked around a bit a checked us out he gave a big sigh (of relief?) and we knew this was our child. We went down the hall to the small visiting room they have and got to play with him for about an hour. He is so tiny! And he had three layers of clothing on--a thick fleece jacket over a sweatshirt over a (hot pink) flannel pajama top. On bottom he had thick fleece pants over pajama footy pants plus a pair of wool booties. And that room was hot! I was in short sleeves by this point. To say they overdress the babies is an understatement.

Alex is totally mesmerized by Jim. For the most part the babies in the baby houses have never seen a man and they tend to get upset around the adoptive fathers. Not Alex--Jim got him to smile and laugh within the first 10 minutes of our bonding. He is also very happy with the little rattle we brought for him. The first couple of times he bonked himself in the nose trying to get the rattle to his mouth. We have taken lots of photos but are waiting until Jim's computer is up and on the internet to post those. Right now we are at an internet cafe.

After our time with Alex we went to the grocery store. Nice, clean and lots to choose from. Fruit juices in every flavor imagineable and since they don't use additives (corn syrup, etc.) they taste like fruit straight from the tree. The yogurt is also in every possible flavor and wonderful--not as sweet or thick as in the US and so much tastier. We also bought cheese, sausage and bread for snacks in our room and some diapers and baby food to take to Alex. You will be pleased to know that we had a three man tag-team of security officers following us up and down every aisle of the supermarket. Not sure what that was all about but I imagined they were paparazzi following us as we made our mundane food choices, a la Britney Spears. Be sure to look for us in the next issue of People!

We went back to the hotel and were going to take a little nap before going out for dinner. When we woke up from our 'little nap' at midnight we realized we should have set an alarm. Oh, well. Thankfully we had our groceries to tide us over til breakfast.

We go back to the baby house every day from 10:30-noon and 2-4. Photos coming soon!

Clearing Customs

I didn't have time to write in the last post about our experience with customs at the Almaty airport. Remember all that cash I wrote about in an earlier post? Well, we had to declare all of it at customs. We'd heard horror stories from people who were really intimidated by the customs agent because you have to count out all the money in front of whoever is passing by and that there were big guys lurking around making you feel unsafe. Our customs experience went like this: there were two skinny Kazakh guys in a smallish room who look like they had recently graduated high school. We gave them our declaration forms and they started making small talk about where we were going while looking over our form. Then the boss came in--all 5'6" of him. He was a little older. He looked over our forms and started asking about Texas. Turns out he had been in McAllen for 'training' (?) last year. Anyway, he says, "So, should we count the money or not?" Jim told the boss he could count it if he wanted to, that we had been completely accurate (even down to the euros we had left after eating lunch in Frankfurt). The boss said that maybe we should give a little gift to the younger agents since they were new to the job. So, our first bribe! Right at that moment a man came in (German?) and had some watches to declare. He was in Almaty on business and had a few watches to give as gifts--the inexpensive kinds that companies give out with their logo on them. The boss was very interested in the watches and figured they were worth about $500 each. Real value, probably about $7 each. Anyway, he got really involved in the German watch guy and Jim and I played really dumb about the 'gift' and the young Kazakh agent started stamping our forms so we got out of there without having to count out our money or pay a bribe! It was the perfect bureaucratic storm. Whew!!

We Made It (Barely)!

Well, we finally got here. Our flights went well until we were on approach to Almaty. There was a thick fog and they wouldn't let us land so we had to circle the airport. Then we got word that conditions had improved so we started our approach...only to be told that we had to circle again because conditions had worsened. This went on a few times but on our third approach we finally got clearance to land. The fog didn't look so bad from up in the sky but it was actually very thick. I could barely see the tip of the plane wing from my seat. Taxiing into the airport had me on pins and needles since we had seen at least 4 other planes circling and I was convinced we were going to cross paths with a landing jet. We found out this morning that we were the last jet to land and the others that had been circling go rerouted to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Whew!

Ice and snow are on the ground. We stayed at the Hotel Almaty last night and it is all you would expect of a former Soviet Republic hotel. We were just happy to have the firm mattress on the bed and plenty of covers because we couldn't figure out the heating system. I think it has something to do with running the hot water because this morning when I got up to take a shower the hot water heater in the bathroom was freezing cold but once I started running hot water in the tub the bathroom's hot water heater warmed up. There is also a funny little door above the toilet that I thought would be some kind of medicine chest. I opened it to find a bunch of plumbing pipes and cut-off valves...and another door behind the pipes that was partially open so we had a great view of our neighbors' bathroom!

There is a HUGE 22 story condo development going up right next to the hotel. Very Western and interesting with all the amenities--pool, fitness center, etc. I'm sure it will give the highrises on Turtle Creek a run for their money.

Jim's Russian is impressing the locals although we had a hard time buying postcard stamps at the post office a few minutes ago.

We take the overnight train to Taraz tonight and go to the 'baby house' tomorrow! It might take us a while to figure out internet access once we are there. I hope to be able to post photos, too.

Thin Mints

We are only a couple of hours from departure! We packed everything last night and had plenty of room but thought the bags would be over our 70 lb. weight limit. So we put them up on the bathroom scale and found out we were 10 lbs. under limit on each bag! So I had to let Jim take the hardback copy of Michener's "Texas", which seems to weigh about 10 lbs.

I just sent Jim on a fool's errand to Target for some last minute stuff so I could secretly pack our remaining 2 boxes of Thin Mint cookies. Shhhhhhh...its a secret. I figure if we get in a bind in KZ we can either use them as a bribe or sell them to the highest bidder for extra cash.

Tellers with Tact

When you adopt a baby from Eastern Europe you have to take over a wad of cash to pay for the in-country orphanage fee, lodging, translators, drivers, train tickets, etc. The Kazakhs prefer their cash in US Dollars; $50s or $100s; crisp and clean, no marks, tears of creases. So I contacted our bank to go about getting the perfect cash for our trip. It was a harder job than I thought it would be.

I specifically told them that I needed new bills. Upon arriving at the bank on Friday I was informed that they can't get new bills, they generally 'recycle' what they get from their customers and would pick out the best bills for us. So I left the bank with a bunch of money, 80% of which would not pass Kazakh muster. Thankfully, our bank has lobby hours on Saturday mornings. I arrived at my usual branch at 9 and went to the teller who had given me the money the day before to see if he had any other newer bills to swap with me. He said he didn't and couldn't. I asked if they had any cash and he said they didn't. Yes, AT THE BANK! No cash. It was more a matter of unwillingness than inability. So I went on to Branch Number Two.

At Branch Number Two I explained to the teller that we were going to adopt, I had to carry major bucks in US cash and I wanted to exchange my 'subpar' bills for crisp new ones. This teller reluctantly riffled through the money in her cash drawer to pull out a few decent 50s and 100s. While we were doing this she asked why I had to carry so much on me so I explained a little bit about how it worked, paying the in-country adoption fee, etc. And Ms. Tact blurts out, "You're going to buy a baby with cash?!?!" Then CPS broke through the doors and carted me off. No, seriously, I realized this wasn't going to work.

At Branch Number Three I walked up to Jessica Aguilera's window and explained the situation. I was amazed when she not only started going through all her cash but also got the other two tellers on duty to do the same! She was able to set me up with about 1/2 the money we'll need and was so awesome to work with. I'll be going there this week to get the rest of the money. Woohooooo! Persistence pays off and you sometimes are able to find a diamond in the rough. Thanks, Jessica! Now I'll be able to buy a baby with cash :)

UPDATE: More brand new cash was located at Chase Bank. Also, big thanks to John and Grand Bank for arranging the balance of the cash I needed to take with me!

Eight Days Away

We leave in 8 days and are doing final preparation for our trip. We went to Half Price Books today and I bought a couple of crossword puzzle books. I'm hoping they last! I am going to raid some friends' 'libraries' this week for reading material. And we have to give a special shout-out to Kevin and Emily for letting us raid their DVD collection and, most especially, for the loan of their ipod during our trip. Jim was grinning from ear to ear when he got it and has been busy loading it up.

We also found out that the wife of Jim's college roommate has family in Taraz. She (Natalia) is from Russia and lived just south of Kazakhstan for a time while growing up. We are hoping to meet her relatives while we are in Taraz.

Sam was sick last night. We're hoping we don't catch what he had. It would make for a very unpleasant plane ride!

Treasure

Last Sunday (the 30th) I was invited to share our adoption story at all three worship services at church. Let me back up a bit...on January 9 our church gave out a grand total of $14,000 to the members and gave us all the challenge of using that money outside the church walls to help people in any way we liked. We were to report back over the following 3 Sundays by dropping a note describing what we did with the money in the collection basket. I decided to try to grow our money (I got $10 and Jim got $3) by donating a bunch of our unused and unneeded "stuff" to charity and working out the value of our donation and pooling it with the church money. I also returned a bunch of "stuff" to Target and added that to our fund. My plan was to use the money to buy medical supplies for the orphanage in Kazakhstan.

We were overwhelmed by the generosity of our church! After speaking, people we had never seen before were pressing money into our hands so that we could buy more supplies for the orphanage. We started with $13 and we now have $1500 to use! I have been in touch with a Christian aid organization in Taraz. They work with the orphanages and are going to send me a list of things that they need. There is also the possibility that we could underwrite corrective cleft palate or eye surgery for a child. We are so excited to see this project come to fruition and are amazed by God's perfect timing--in our adoption, our church's new missionary focus on Kazakhstan and the outreach challenge we received from church, all coinciding in bringing supplies to the orphanage!