Roma's 20

Sunday September 9th was Roma's 20th birthday- and the city's 125th.

We had a crowd for dinner, then they went into the city to see the concert and fireworks that accompany any celebratory occasion here-
Roma and his girlfriend Alissa arrived after everyone else had left, so we had them all to ourselves!
We couldn't have arranged the timing better.

First dinner crowd

Now that Rome's 20 he has to apply for a new passport- all Russians over the age of 14 have a domestic passport that acts as an identity document- they need a passport to et a job, pick up a parcel from the post office, or to make a large purchase.

One of Kostya's paintings

Our house is decorated with pictures and paintings from Kostya. He has very little free time as a soldier serving his compulsory 2 year sentence, but the time he does he spends productively.

Mostly he uses the gel pens Trac posts to him occasionally; this was his first time to branch out into paints. He laid the watercolor on pretty thick to get a strong consistency.

Sakhalin Orchid

That is, I think it's an orchid.
Native or introduced?

Does anyone know?

How many gentle flowers grow

3 doors down lives a babushka. She is very kind to us: her husband sells us his diesel when we've run out (our heating and hot water runs from a diesel boiler); they brought us jars of birch tree sap to drink in early spring; and she often bring us herbs and vegetables from her garden- not to mention the flowers.

Baptisms

On Saturday Valya and Sasha were baptised, along with several men from our church.
We drove in a convoy to a lake that's in the marshy plains, outside of the city. I'd never been there before.



After a little worship and prayer, one by one the candidates waded out to Pastor Peter.


Afterwards they were presented with a Bible each, and then a great feasting on watermelon began!

Sunday School

Sunday School celebrated the back to school season as well. Becky was less than excited about standing at the front to sing a song and say a few lines with the other (much smaller) girls- but she did a good job, and was by far the best when it came to actions.

The kids perked up a bit when "Congratulations you're about to survive another year" gifts were presented to each student.

Back to School

Students across the nation collectively grit their teeth on Saturday, September 1st 2007, for what was the first day of the new school year.
Bedecked in new school attire, laden with books and stationery all neatly placed inside their new school bags (kindly supplied by Pa and Granma), our three really looked the part.

All the best for the new school year!

Kate's birthday

It was Kate's birthday yesterday- and also a celebration of Ruslan's birthday last week, and their wedding in -20 days, as Ruslan counts it.

Kate and Trac and Ruslan spent a lot of time on Saturday developing a rally-type game-
her friends met at our place, then when they were ready Kate gave them their first task. They earned directions to the next check point by completing the task.
I was stationed at Check point 2, where a team member had to act the word "dream" as a charade for the rest of the team to guess. Luke was at Point 3 by the Spring with a mathematical problem for them to deal with- in total there were 6 check points. We all "ended up" at a picnic in the forest, where Ruslan had set out picnic blankets, goodies, and got the sheshlik cooker fired up and cooking some kebabs.



Kate and Friends
The late afternoon glow drifted down into a dusky darkness- then the rising moon brought with it a light of a different quality. What beauty we have at our doorstep.
Happy Birthday Kate and Ruslan!

Wedding Number 2: Ruslan and Tatiana

Tanya's sister, Ira, was married last month. This month is was Tanya's turn: we played at both weddings, and this time I had more than a clue as to what to expect!

Ruslan and Tanya chose to have a church ceremony. To marry in Russia, the couple plus witnesses should go to the marriage registration office where there is a legal ceremony performed by the state, a toast is made and from there the couple continue to celebrate as they choose. Orthodox couples take a 4-hour long church ceremony, some have their pastors perform a ceremony of blessing where the couple make Christian vows; most couples simply go on to a reception in a hotel or restaurant, if they can afford to.



Saturday's ceremony for Ruslan and Tanya was short and beautiful, then we all went back to her father's house where we celebrated, played music, watched skits, ate food, saw fireworks and, when most people had already gone... there was dancing!

Natural drama

Dramatic clouds cover the sky, trapping the rich afternoon light; it dances from reflective surfaces, and fills us with a deep, innate desire to be outside.

Sasha and Vlad (aka Mr Putin)

Maxim, practicing being 40.

Katya

Vaisa, Luke and Pete bringing in the shopping

Wintery summer days

For those of you in Australia, I'm enjoying the winter along with you. Soon it'll be autumn, and then a winter all of Sakhalin's own.
Apparently it's not a normal Sakhalin summer- thank God, because it truly is not preparing anyone's spirits for the 6 months of white frozenness ahead. I'm glad it's not always like this.

The wedding is on Saturday! A young couple from our church are getting married and they're having a service in our church, as well as the official registration ceremony that many Russian couples leave it at. We (the music team) are practicing unceasingly, and so far the hard work is showing itself off.

But for some reason, everything wants to happen this week. There is a concert Ryan is playing in on Friday (that's tomorrow) and Saturday night, 3 different groups of people we HAVE to invite for dinner this week before their birthdays/ weddings/ going home to the mainland, the wedding on Saturday, and I'm feeding my friend's bulimic cats for the next three days while he's in Seoul.

Today Pete, Luke, Jake and Sasha have gone to the stables- our friend keeps her horses there, and knows the owner very well. He's building new stables this year, and the boys have gone to help him. They might be busy for the next couple of weeks! A good way to end the summer holidays.

Music

I've been caught up in a whirl-wind of creative activity-

I don't know what the trigger was! After nearly a complete year of dormancy, I've began to write again! I played with a design on the computer, I've been listening to music Ruslan gave me almost non-stop- Belarussian and British! and my guitar is getting tired of me, as I am of it-
now that Sergei (our church music team leader) is back, we have a rush of power back in our practice nights, I have a lot of music to learn as usual, and there's another wedding coming up; the sister of July's bride.

I have a headache - but I'll continue on!

must...practice-
must.......

Music Festival

The music festival happened last Sunday- the groups from Belarus all arrived the week before, stayed at different people's places (including ours) and traveled to different towns, churches and summer camps around southern Sakhalin before the big concert.
They sure worked hard.

There were a couple of different groups- and singers. They played in short rounds- cycling throughout the afternoon and into the evening.
Starting at 3 and finishing at 10pm, there was a lot of time to hang out and hear them all. And for the audience- if they didn't particularly like one style of music, it was only a quarter of an hour before the next group would play. So where's the problem?

I know I'm biased, but these were my favourite guys. Nick gave me a copy of their earlier CD too, so I knew most of the songs when they played.

Antivirus: Ruslan, Vitalik, Max and DimaNick on sound

Our own Sergei joined Spasenie with his blues harmonica

Why does this always happen?

Some of you might know that I studied English literature and creative writing at uni. I love stories, books, language... yet I rarely read.
I wondered why. So- I picked up a book and decided to remind myself of how great reading is.
And couldn't stop. After putting in some serious hours to finish every book in the series, I searched out another story- images, emotions, characters, events needed to keep flowing through my mind.

I finished my last book at 4:30am. I'm sleep deprived. A little bit cranky. I can't stop thinking about the characters, continuing the story to myself. And I'm looking for another book to start.

I need my life back.

I'm so like my mum.

Rock rocks!

Peter and the boys, Luke and Jake, got home from camp yesterday.
Exhausted, hungry and sick of being wet, they had a great time! All said and done.

When Trac and I sat down with Pete late last night to tell him all that had happened in the two weeks he'd been away, we realised just how MUCH had happened! Some suspicious incidences involving strange men just walking into our house (repeated again this morning)- I mean we do have a door to knock on!

The whole hospital thing with Roma; the boys getting work; the Russian wedding we attended; our washing machine flooded our house so on the next sunny day we had to lift the big carpet in the lounge, take it outside, wash it and dry it and then replace it; and we had 3 members of a Belarussian rock band stay with us on Monday and Tuesday!

There's a Christian music festival in town this weekend- about 4 groups from Belarus came to Sakhalin, and the Med City Band which I don't know a lot about, but I think hail from New York. Throughout this week they've been circuiting around the island, playing small concerts at camps, a prison, ...they're the only places I heard about.
The guys that stayed with us are Ruslan, Nik and Max from Antivirus. They're great guys- thankfully Ruslan speaks English fluently, so we could ask a lot of questions ;-)
Russian is spoken in Belarus, but Belarus is much more European than Russia. The similarities and differences (from what we could gather in a couple of hours) are fascinating. I'd love to visit Minsk some day!


They (all the bands) are playing tomorrow night at Grace Church, then the big concert is at 3pm on Sunday afternoon, in the soccer stadium in the park.
I hope this is the first of many events to come!!

Tuesday, at last

Tuesday is the first day of our "weekend"- alway a day looked forward to. It's a day our household is closed- meaning that young people aren't welcome to visit today, only those who are living here. When all 4, or even 6 of them are at home, it hardly feels any different!

But today Trac, Beckles and I got a good few hours to ourselves.
And we coloured our hair- I've learned a lot from Trac already. it's great living with a hairdresser!



**
Yesterday Jenya and Anton started working in Holmsk- a port city on the west coast, north of Yuzhny. They're working in a team renovating the interior of a 5-star restaurant. They'll be away for a month! It's usual practice for workers to live in the building they're working on - they'll need blankets and pillows to sleep on.
They called last night- to tell us they miss us, that they love Holmsk, that we should go there to visit them on the weekend, when they have time off... maybe they will!
They came back this evening and will stay until tomorrow, to deal with some legal matters and documentation. We miss them when they're away! But we hope they'll learn a lot while they're away-especially that they'll learn to find satisfaction in their work, and learn to rely on God for their needs.

We might see them fairly often throughout the month ;-)