Life...

I’m still adjusting to life here, but DAD is helping me. Things are good here - different obviously but good. Language is tough and can be real frustrating but my teacher is probably around my age and is a believer and he is real sweet so that’s nice. I go for 2 hours a day – I might extend it to 3 in a week. So yea, I’m back in school every day! It’s about a 35 minute walk to get to it so I’m getting my walking in. We walk EVERYWHERE!

Dad is working – that’s for sure. I got to share my story with one girl who is so close to walking with Dad – I am hoping to spend more time with her. I met another girl on campus the other day so maybe I’ll be seeing her again too. Right now, during summer there aren’t a lot of people at school (just a few extensive English classes) so our focus is on Russian and developing our relationship with Dad – it’s kind of nice to be able to take time to focus on that alone.

I went to a mentally handicapped orphanage a few days ago and I think it was the hardest and saddest thing I’ve ever seen in my life – really. We could only stay for an hour and oh it was so hard. I held a girl who I thought was about a year old the whole time. I found out later she was FIVE. They have no help – no physical therapist, no help for their issues. There was ONE girl watching about 10 kids under 7 that couldn’t move on their own. It broke my heart but I know it is something I definitely want to do somewhat regularly. Anyway, I could go on and on about the hour I spent there but the bottom line is: Dad is showing me that a big part of my heart is with orphans. We are looking for ways to extend ourselves to orphans so now, I am very much involved in that process and very excited about it.

My feet are totally destroyed from walking – blisters everywhere! I was really really sick all weekend – it was awful. At first I thought it was something I ate or from the orphanage or something but 2 other people on my team got it too – so it must have been some sort of virus – it was miserable!I am better now though :)

Here are some pictures for you :)

This is where we spent the day yesterday - It was our day of "thinking"

This is Tara, Myself and Salta (roommates minus Tammy)

Tara and I with watermelon :) (we eat a lot of it)

More will come later this week - I will be taking more pictures :)