Advent fun

In Russia the communists largely replaced Christmas as a celebration with New Year.

So Christmas is not the commercialized affair it has become in many countries.

Advent is something few outside of the church have any understanding of.

We decided to organize some Advent events aimed at helping kids (and their parents) understand the Christmas story whilst having fun.  

There were lots of activities

Face painting was particularly popular

Then it was story time...

Time to make an angel to take home

After all that work - snack time!

Book Club for three year olds.

Once Luda had the idea to get some friends together with their kids to discuss a favorite book the kids had read. This has now become a regular event - a book club for kids.

This time they discussed a book by the author Vladimir Suteyev. He was an animator who became a children's author, illustrating his own stories. He was also ambidextrous and could even write and draw at the same time!

One of his most

Wedding

It is hard to generalise about weddings. I can't say that this wedding is a "typical Russian wedding", most weddings here, take place in a registery office and followed by a boozy reception.
I can only claim to show you the wedding I went to recently, and point out a few things that are characteristic for most christian weddings I have been to here.

The bride and groom. Dressed like pretty much anywhere!

Everything starts with prayer.

The pastor preaches - he went long.

The couple make their vows and pray for each other.

Then the pastor gives the blessing and declares them man and wife.

This wedding was unusual in my experience, because everything took place in the same room.

After the wedding ceremony came the feast.

As well as congratulatory songs, usually there are some fun competitions 

often at the expense of the newly weds.

Because every woman wants to marry a knight in shining armour!

Maths Games

Luda has collected and created a host of games that teach and train mathematics, we test them on our own kids.

On Saturday we were invited by our friends in nearby Divnogorsk, to run a session of Maths games. 

It was a way to help parentss both inside and outside of the church.

The Church building in Divnogorsk

inside 

You can just about see the view of the surrounding mountains

First the kids played

Then we drank tea!

Our team of helpers!

Our Dacha

Our dacha is 35 km (about 20 miles) outside of Krasnoyarsk.

There is one room and a "kitchen" downstairs and a second room upstairs

Downstairs room. We decorated it with lots of the kids old paintings (as a rule anything old goes to the dacha to live out it's last days)

Kitchen, from the staircase.

Upstairs room

Anita and friends painted the murals, the big picture is of the church summer camp.

This is the view from the upstairs balcony.

For most people dachas are for growing things, we look at ours more as a place to relax and get away from the city and the polution.

That's why we have a climbing frame and sand pit, instead of plant beds.

Now that I have finished building the climbing frame (after only six years) 

I am turning my hand to making raised beds.

This summer we dug out the top layer of grass and sowed clover, we used the turf to make
raised beds

There's always something to do at the dacha!

You can run around,

play in the pool

eat

sleep

take pictures

Climb a tree

In the evening we like to watch films by candlelight!

Tanya

When we first moved to Krasnoyarsk we made friends, in church, with two girls from a children's home. Tanya was one of them. She later lived with us for a couple of years.

Tanya graduated as a social worker and got a job working in the children's home 

where she was brought up.

A year ago she married Artem

Now she has two children, both adopted.

Tolik

and Artem.