Pictures :)

This is Salta, Tara, Jonna and I at the waterpark - Yes - waterpark!!! It was our day off and we had fun!! It had waterslides and everything!

Our friend had never roasted marshmellows and wanted to - so she insisted we roast them over our gas stove haha. This is Tara and Anessa roasting marshmellows...

Here is a pic of all 4 of the roommates: Salta, Tara, Vic and Tammy!

This is Tara, Salta and I posing in front of the atakent...yes, we got looked at funny but we had fun!

These are some of the girls that we have been hanging out with! This is at a restaurant last week...

This is what happens when you let someone put make up on you here! We had our friend over for dinner (we made mexican!!) and it turned into beauty night...or something like that...haha

I went camping last weekend - this is me standing in the freezing cold water! It was a blast...

This is a picture of the cute little babushkas selling things on the side of the street...
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This is a view of the mountains from our favorite restaurant (we go to it when we need a taste of America! haha)

Happy one month to me :)

Well, I've been in Kazakhstan about a month now! I can't believe it!

If you receive my emails - this will be a repeat but I will post pictures :)

I think I am adjusting quite well - I began language a couple of weeks ago and having a routine has helped a lot. TO be honest, I don’t know where the day goes half the time – all of a sudden it is 9:00 at night! My team is great – it is such a blessing to have them here and for the most part, close by. They have really helped me in the transition process. One thing that has been hard is not being in the states for major things going on with friends (wedding, babies, etc.) I am learning to “count the costs” and to “die to myself” which is great for me to learn.

Learning Russian is great... I feel like it is coming along well. I’ve learned animals, fruits, vegetables, some verbs, nature words, city words, drinks, common phrases, etc, etc – I think I am up to knowing (recognizing) about 500 words already! I can understand A LOT more than I can speak. I am not what you would call the most patient person in the world so I have had to depend on The Father to give me patience while learning Russian! :)

One of my favorite parts of KZ is walking everywhere and seeing hundreds of women on the side of the sidewalk selling fruit and vegetables! I don’t know why, but I absolutely love it! I have had a couple of traditional dishes here and they are good! We eat A LOT of bread here. With every meal, there is bread. They also love their meat here – lamb, pork, horse! Yes, horse – I ate a horse hot dog the first week I was here (I wasn’t told until afterward what is was)! As I am writing – it almost 1:00 a.m. and I keep thinking I should go to bed and finish this later but there are probably 10 dogs barking outside so I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway! :) There are a lot of stray cats and dogs here. It has been hot hot hot here. For about a week and a half it was over 100 degrees everyday!!! It has finally cooled down (during the day it is about 85-90) and at night it is in the 70’s! It is nice sleeping weather!

I am making friends which is fun for me :) We are visiting different campuses this month and through that, have been able to connect with some students. There are a few girls in particular who seem to enjoy hanging out with us so please ask The Father that we would continue to be friends and be able to go deeper. School starts this week so there will be a lot more students on the campuses, hopefully we will be meeting more and more people. We hang out with at least 3 or 4 people a week...it is nice to finally feel like I am connecting with people! :)

Apartment...

A tour of Vic, Tara, Tammy and Salta's Apartment :)

We forgot a room....

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 :)

First 4 days in KZ

Welp, I made it on time with no trouble! I have been here for 4 full days and I am slowly but surely getting settled. I've been with my team a lot - catching up and getting to know them better! Tara and I went shopping - I bought a pretty bed spread and a few other needs! It is hot hot hot here - and there is no AC so I bought a fan and keep the windows open!! One thing that is hard is the language - it is really frustrating not being able to communicate much at all with anyone but my team so I am excited to develop a bit in that!I begin language school tomorrow so I will let you know how it goes :)

New concept: So, in order to go shopping the other day, Tara and I had to catch a taxi. We walked to the busier road and she stuck her hand out and this white car pulled over almost immediately. She told him where we wanted to go and they agreed on a price and we got in. I noticed it didn't really look like a taxi and I said, "Tara, is this a taxi?", she said "yea, everyone is a taxi." So, pretty much - we are hitchhikers here and it is totally normal! haha!

Last night we had a little get together. The jet lag finally hit yesterday and I have been exhausted ever since so I was struggling to stay awake. It was good for me because it wasn't a huge crowd or even close to it. I got to know one girl pretty well- I was able to share my story with her and she seemed to be interested. We are going to hang out again this weekend.

Also last night we grilled hot dogs. After I was done eating - Tammy looked at me and said "do you know what you just ate?" - Yea, the hot dog was made of HORSE!

Today the team and I went to 2 different campuses that we will be working with. Students t one of them are required to speak English. University here is not like in the US. It is not the next thing to do for everyone - these students are driven and focused and WANT an education. Our team paired up and went to 3 different English classes and spoke. It was an "intensive English class" and all of them were incoming freshman. I met one girl in the class - we ate lunch together and she showed me around campus and her dorm.

Tonight we ate dinner in a Yurt. People live there but apparently they kind of run it as a restaurant as well. We ate Shaslik (no idea how to spell it :) but it is sheep. We also ate logmon which is like thick noodles with vegetables, meat and a soup like sauce. We also had cucumber and tomato salad with chai (tea). It was great!

This is a Yurt:

This is Tara with a cow...

This is my team eating in the Yurt

Tara and I eating Shashlik!

Colorado...

I had a VERY close friend get married in Colorado and it was also a good chance to see and say goodbye to some great friends! I got to see friends that I haven't seen in years, the wedding was amazing and I made many new great friends! There is a family there who have impacted my life in huge ways and have become so precious to me over the years and it was such a blessing to be able to spend time with them, although, there were some tears saying goodbye :( I've come to realize that friendships are something that I really value. I've also realized that I have a lot of great friends in Colorado so this trip was really special to me - to connect, reconnect and say a good goodbye to many friends :)

Precious Friends...

Lucy and I :)
Jenny and I :)
Stacey and Kyle
Clearwater Gals - Helen, Stace, Jenny, Me, Ivey, Claire, Dana and Lauren!
Helen, Vic, Dana and Claire - miss em!
The Beautiful Bride and I!
Clearwater friends reunited in Pcola! haha. Ivey and I

North Carolina Road Trip...

If you know me really well, you know that I love my bed! My bed is really the only nice thing I own and well, I think it is the most comfortable thing on earth :) As you know, I'm leaving for 2 years and won't need it (sadly, I can't take it with me - believe me, I would! :) I've wanted to give it to Tommi and her husband and the only way we could get it to NC was to drive it up. So my roommate and I set out a week and a half later with a trailer (with my bed) hitched to the truck and drove the 13 hours to North Carolina! I had a blast and made a lot of unexpected new friends through Tommi and her husband! It was a great time of fun and fellowship and I am so glad that it worked out that way! (Although, I'm still a bit sensitive about giving up my bed...haha) We didn't run into any problems with the drive until the last 7 hours! We were pulling out of Athens, GA and as I glanced in rearview mirror and noticed the trailer was completely lopsided! Yea - one of the tires on the trailer was totally flat! Thankfully, Tommi's father in law was there to help us - it only took an hour or so!! haha!

Funny Story: We stopped at starbucks on the way back from North Carolina to caffeine up after we got the tire changed. As we walked out to the car - I grabbed the keys and attempted to turn on the car. The key would not budge! We sat there for 20 minutes and tried over and over again to start the truck - no such luck! After a few more minutes, I looked at the keys closely and noticed that my jump drive was on there. I dug through my purse and pulled out another set of keys - yes - the keys to the truck! Yes, I am a big dork and didn't notice we had been trying with the wrong keys the whole time BUT I would like to redeem myself (or try to) with the fact that the keys themselves were exactly the same along with the keychains on the keys! The only difference was that I had a jump drive on mine and Ren had a grocery store card on hers! You can laugh at me - its okay - I laughed :)

Ren and I at the Marine Corp Fair - on the zipper :)

Watch out - this could be trouble :)
Precious - Tommi and Micah
My favorite Pic - Ren, Tommi and Myslef
Ren + Vic + 6:30a.m. + a flat trailer tire