Pictures of Holy Week

I guess I should have warned you that I would have less time to write this week. We've had a wonderful, quiet, Christ-filled week!  I've been using nap time to prepare activities instead of writing, though.  Now, as we wait for the Resurrection, today I have a chance to share pictures.

Lazarus Saturday:

Palm Sunday:

(I have so many cute photos from the triumphal entry that I put all the rest of them over here.)

Cleansing of the Temple:

Christ anointed by Mary:

The Last Supper:

Gethsemane/Thursday:


Good Friday:

Easter Prayers

We had a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses come to our door a few days ago with this invitation, which reads:

"Do This in Remembrance of Me"
What are Jesus' disciples to commemorate?
Why is this something that is important for you to do as well?

We cordially invite you to come and find the answers to these questions this Thursday, April 9th 2009

Personally, I was overwhelmed, amused, and incensed, all at the same time.

 After all, this is historically a Christian country, with a strong tradition that speaks of the Triune God permeating many aspects of national culture. (Even if we have heard people mistakenly identify the holy Trinity as Jesus, Mary, and St. Nikolai. Seriously.)

Still, many folks are open to listening to the Jehovah's Witnesses heresy out of simple curiosity, and don't know enough to ask the simple question, "but WHO is Jesus Christ to you? The Eternal Creator God... or NOT?"

That was Phyllis' question to the women who rang our doorbell. "Do you believe that Jesus is GOD? Did God Himself live a sinless life in a human body on this earth, the Perfect God/Man? Was not Jesus' resurrection the ultimate proof of his Godhood? "  

It MUST be more than what the Jehovah's Witnesses say, stating that "we, JW's, celebrate his death in order to obtain God's favor and an approved position before Him, obeying Jesus' command in Luke 22."

"If Christ (the Messiah and God in the Flesh) has not been raised, our faith is mere delusion, and we are still under the control and penalty of sin;

And further, those who have died in Christ are eternally lost!

If we who are in Christ have hope only in this life and that is all, then we are of all people most miserable and to be pitied."
(1 Corinthians 15:12-19)

The absurdity and sheer brazen audacity of advertising a false gospel and false christ during this season of preparation leading up to the greatest celebration in the Christian year is just staggering.  (For us, tomorrow is Palm Sunday, and here the Great Fast is drawing to a close.)

Please pray for us and all our fellow Christians, who know and celebrate the true wonder of Easter, - our Savior Redeemer God who out of love for us died and rose again. Pray that we would continue to boldly proclaim this miraculous truth throughout this Easter season.

Plans for Holy Week

Our preparations for celebrating the Resurrection are picking up speed around here.  I've had a list going in my mind, and I need to get it written down.  These are the preparations and then the stories for each day:

• Thursday - make tomb and finish up Easter garden (We've been gathering and adding plants for a while.)
• Friday - varnish tomb, finish making little people  (I should have brought over a pack of pipe cleaners!)
  
• Saturday - story of Lazarus (I know it doesn't fit with the chronology of the life of Christ, but this is traditionally Lazarus Saturday.  It will be fun to play the story with the tomb that we've made, before we put it in the garden.)
• Sunday - triumphal entry
• Monday - cleansing of the temple
• Tuesday - Jesus annointed
• Wednesday - Last Supper (Again breaking up the chronology, but Thursday's events are too much to cover at once, and I want them to hear this before we go to church on Thursday.)
• Thursday - garden of Gethsemane
• Friday - crucifixion
• Saturday - waiting, mourning
• Sunday - HE IS RISEN!

For more about what we're doing during Holy Week, read the Easter section of Treasuring God in our Traditions or this article, and this.

Consolation in a Ukrainian lesson

Since I'm changing out the quote on the side, I'm archiving the old one here.  I still love it!  Don't bother to ask for a translation, though.  If you know Russian, you can understand it, and if you don't. . . well, poetry doesn't translate well.

Не журись, коли недоля
В край чужий тебе закине!
Рідний край у тебе в серці,
Поки спогад ще не гине.

Не журись, не марно пройдуть
Сії сльози й тяжка мука:
Рідний край щиріш любити
Научає нас розлука.
--Леся Українка

SPRING dacha days

After being away from our dacha for about a month (!), we've had two wonderful days there recently.

On April 2 we planted

• mustard greens (I hope Will likes them as much as he says!  We have a whole row.)
  
• spinach (So excited to find that here!)
  
• marigolds
• some old salvia seeds (Not too much hope of seeing any results there.)
• baby lupine plants, along with some old lupine seeds
• the poor lavender plants that have been wanting to go into the ground for so long
• peonies!
• and peas for the children.

The greens that we had planted under a window frame so long ago were up and looking great, but none of the little bottle "greenhouses" were successful.

Yesterday we planted

• morning glories
  
• two kinds of petunias (Jaan)
  
• calendula (Raia)
  

And we did lots of exploring, observing, and wallowing in dirt.  We had also lost a tree , so Will cut it up.  The most amazing part was the flowers!  When we got there in the morning, I could tell that we would have a few blooms soon.  I went around and took pictures of a fat daffodil bud and some on the apricot tree.  They looked like they would be blooming the soonest.  And by the time we left in the evening, they were open!

And of course, a day outside wouldn't be complete without a nature discovery.  After lunch, Will put the girls down for naps, and I settled down to read outside.  Jaan was supposed to just be quiet, so he was sitting up in the top of a tree.  We've been curious about the small holes in the ground that we've been seeing around here lately.  There were several right near me, and I saw movement in them.  I waited, and soon a beetle poked its head out of the one nearest to me  As soon as I moved, he hid again.  I called Jaan over, and we set the camera up, aimed at the hole.  When the beetle started to come out again, we got this photo:

We also watched one of these beetles cut off a dandelion leaf and drag it home.  And then we dug one up to show the girls when they woke up.  Asya was especially thrilled to have a new "baby" to play with.

Last night Will and I figured out what the beetles are: Кравчик-головач (Lethrus apterus). Unfortuntely, they're a vineyard pest.  Yes, they're concentrated around where our grapes grow.  I don't think they'll be a problem, though.  We have enough grape vines to share.  We started out thinking that maybe our beetle was a kind of scarab beetle, but the body shape wasn't quite right.  And why would it have been carrying leaves?  So, we kept searching and found this.  The article I linked to is quite interesting.  (Sorry, it's in Russian, though.)  I'm planning to read it to Jaan and Raia.

I put the rest of the photos from yesterday in a Facebook album.  (You should be able to view them, even without a Facebook account.)

Raia's first photo

Routine

We're busy and happy, but there's nothing big going on these days. I just through I'd post our usual weekly schedule, for those who like details. It's not all flowers and butterflies and dacha days here.   Someday I'll get Will to write one of his rare updates about the other parts of life.  I just don't see much of that side of things myself.  Here's what his usual week looks like:

• Monday: Day off! (some Monday evenings: English and Ukrainian lessons for Lena and me)
  
• Tuesday evening: church leadership meeting
  
• Wednesday evening: youth Bible study/prayer meeting (Will leads.)
  
• Thursday evening: choir practice
  
• Friday: free for preparation, running errands and whatever else needs to be done
  
• Saturday evening: youth fellowship (Will leads.)
  
• Sunday morning: church, of course  (Will often preaches.)
  
• Sunday afternoon: hospital and shut-in visits
  
• Sunday evening: video seminar
  

And then there are extras, like last week a babushka from church died.  We didn't even know her, but she didn't have any relatives, so Will helped with digging her grave, doing the funeral, carrying the coffin and everything.  Now is the time for spring projects and cleanup, and Will's going to be painting at the church today.  Those are the kinds of things that fill his days.

Now, back to the regular program of cute children exploring the world around them. . . .

Second spring flowers :-)

Raia chose the next flowers for us to study, and they're not even any that I had on my short list of what we've seen so far.  (That is, lesser celandine, violets, the little yellow stars and dandelions.) We had a wonderful day at our dacha yesterday, and she discovered them there.  Our new flower is very tiny, blue, and it's called Veronica, at least in Russian and the scientific name.  I think Raia's is probably Veronica persica (Bird's-eye), but I'm not entirely sure. I wish you could have seen Raia's face when we found "her flower" online.  These flowers are so tiny and low-growing, that you probably wouldn't even notice them, unless you bent down and looked closely.  I was really impressed with how Raia carefully dug up a few small plants and carried them home, all by herself.  I didn't even suggest it!  She and I planted them in a pot this morning.  We can't draw the flowers right now, because they all closed up from the stress of being moved, but it looks like they'll be back soon.  I also want to have Jaan measure one when they open up, just because they are so incredibly tiny.  So, I'll probably come back later to add our drawings and measurements and any other observations here.

The photo of Raia is actually her picking violets a few days ago, and the flower picture is from Wikipedia.

First butterfly!

We saw our first butterfly of the year today! Asya was especially enthralled, because this is the first butterfly that she would remember seeing. All little creatures are "baby" ("ляля") to her, so this was "баба ляля."

First spring flowers!

We're finally seeing some flowers around here! Lesser celandine (Чистяк весенний) was the first to start blooming.  I loved the literary references in the Wikipedia article.  C. S. Lewis mentioned this plant, and Wordworth loved it.  Here's part of a poem that he wrote about it:

There's a flower that shall be mine,
'Tis the little Celandine. . . .

Ere a leaf is on a bush,
In the time before the Thrush
Has a thought about its nest,
Thou wild come with half a call,
Spreading out thy glossy breast
Like a careless Prodigal;
Telling tales about the sun,
When we've little warmth, or none.

. . . Spring is coming, Thou art come!

Here the lesser celandine actually started blooming a few weeks ago, at least in the places where there are hot water pipes under the ground.  I really wanted to get closer to take some photos and look at it, but the babushki are so protective of that area.  Some of the celandine has taken off by itself outside the flower bed, and I was thinking of trying to sneak one of those wild plants away.  Then Will solved my problem by buying me a beautiful bunch of it at the market.

So, today we studied the plant that we have.  We looked at its roots. . .

trimmed off the old blooms and potted it,

did some research in our books,

and, of course, drew it:

We've also seen a few more flowers!  Soon there will be too many to keep track of, but so far, it's easy.  The first was this celandine.  Then yesterday we found violets and a tiny, yellow, start-shaped wildflower.  I was so excited!  I especially love violets.  And today we saw the first few dandelion blooms.  Can anyone help us with identifying the yellow star flowers below?  That's a little bulb root, if you can't see it well.

Owl pellets

Even before our big night-owl adventure, we dissected the owl pellets that we had found that first time out. It wasn't as gross as it sounds. (If you want gross, go to this video that we watched just before we got started.)





One of the tiny skulls that they found
This was so funny! The "great scientist" kept dropping his magnifying glass to count on his fingers.

"THIS is a backbone."

There were about two voles (полёвки) in each owl pellet. I kept calling them mice, but Will said that their faces were too short, and of course, he was right. He knows about these kinds of things. We just didn't know what they were, if not mice. Once our little scientists went down for their nap, I started looking on the internet. This chart looks exactly like what our owl had been eating. That helped me to identify the kind of owl, too. Apparently Short-eared owls eat lots of voles. After nap time, Jaan and Raia enjoyed matching the bones that they had found with the chart and then turning to a human anatomy lesson, too.

Jaan and Raia are still so excited about owls! Raia wanted to take the bones to Sunday school the next day to show their teacher. And today we had a guest come over. They couldn't even wait until she was done with tea; they brought bones and the leftover pellets to the table to show her.

Next post on this topic: Owl art. . . .

Owl outing

Asya, alone in the woods

Monday night we went on our much-anticipated owl watching adventure!  We got to the patch of woods while it was still light and wandered around some.  We spooked some game birds; we're definitely going to have to get better at identifying them.  It's hard when they just about startle you out of your wits and quickly disappear, while making an incredible amount of noise!  They all kind of look like chickens to me.  Although, Will saw one that just ran away from him, and he said it looked like a small grey goose.

Ready to watch!

Then we sat down in a clearing at the center of the woods to watch as dark came.  I made the huge mistake of forgetting Asya's beloved pacifier, so we had trouble keeping her quiet.  Jaan and Raia were very happy to sit quietly and savor the special treat of Skittles, but that didn't work for Asya.  She just wanted to cram them all in her mouth and scream for more.

Soon we started hearing the owl, though!  That interested even Asya, and she settled down some.  We're pretty sure that our owl is a Short-eared Owl.  (I'll explain why we think that another time.)  They don't always make the traditional "hoo-hoo" sound, but we had listened to recordings of their call over and over before going out, so we recognized the screaming.  Will says that they sound like monkeys.

Will walked around more and scared the owl towards us.  It actually landed in a tree straight in front of us, but not close enough to get a clear view.  It was definitely an owl, but other than that, I couldn't see much.  We could see how its head was swiveling back and forth!  And then it took off and seemed to be hunting in circles around us, along the edges of the clump of woods.  We could hear it going around and around and catch glimpses every once in a while.

Will also made more birds move in our direction. We saw the silhouette of a pheasant directly over us against the last bit of light reflected in the clouds.  Also, once it was completely dark, some kind of large bird landed in a big nest right over our heads!  We had thought it was an abandoned squirrel nest there, but we saw a large, ghostly bird--in the night, it kind of looked white--come and land there.  Its wings seemed to make a loud click noise each time they moved.  I have no idea what it was!

So, we got to see our owl and a whole lot more!  Jaan and Raia stayed closely pressed against on the way back; they were a little scared.  But they were all glowing from the excitement of a nighttime nature walk.  Today they told a friend of ours that "we go out for walks at night to watch owls!"

Raia came back saying that she wants to draw lots and lots of owls, and she has started on that.  Plus, we dissected some of the owl pellets that we found.  I still have more to write about owls, but at least now you have heard about our big owl adventure.

Linguistic development

Some of the more Ukrainian babushki at church are absolutely thrilled because, as they say, "Raia speaks perfect Ukrainian!"  The funny thing is that she doesn't speak any Ukrainian.  They are just hearing her mistakes in Russian and taking them for "perfect Ukrainian."

Yesterday morning Asya said her first sentence.  I think.  She has a very limited spoken vocabulary so far: Mama, Papa, nyum or am for food, ляля (baby or referring to herself), ow (hot/ouch/dog/cat/horse, depends on the context) and sometimes Ba (Jaan, from братик/brother?) and Yaya (Raia).  Well, yesterday morning she was standing in her crib, hungry and yelling for me.  Then she paused and said very clearly, "Мама Ляля АМ!"  That's a sentence, right?  "Mama, Baby [wants] FOOD!"

Reflections of Lenten Lights

My favorite photo from last week
We started on the second reading from Lenten Lights tonight.  Honestly, I've been surprised by how much Jaan and Raia are understanding.  It's mostly straight Scripture, which is of course good for them, but I thought it might be over their heads.  The candles are a good visual for them, though.  You should have seen the shock on their faces when the first candle went out last week! Asya enjoys it all, too, even though she doesn't understand; she wants to sing (howl?) through the whole reading and blow out the candles.  Almost every night we have reread the first selection, and they are definitely thinking about it and asking questions. We're also learning to sing Путь к Голгофе далёк, and they're all really trying.   Another side benefit is that I've had some of the neighbor children asking me about what we're doing.  I never would have thought of that aspect.  However, the candles are in our window, and they're pretty visible from the street, even by day.  Easter is the biggest religious holiday of the year in this part of the world, so pray with us that we would take advantage of the opportunities to discuss the true meaning of it with others.

Come walk with us!

We had a wonderful walk this morning!  When we started out, the sun was shining, and we headed down to "the sea."  Before long, clouds rolled in.  We left the stroller and explored along the beach for a while.

Wildlife?
The sea!
The colors were beautiful today
Resting
Examining layers

When we left the beach and started back, we decided to cut through a patch of woods that we hadn't explored before.  Our first find there:

Woodpecker hole

At that point, our camera battery ran out, so you'll have to imagine all the rest of the excitement in that little thicket.  (We have a new camera, thanks to my aunt.  It's wonderful!  And this is the first time the battery has run out in two weeks of using it constantly.  The contrast to our elderly camera is incredible.)

Right after we found and examined a low woodpecker hole, we started finding feathers everywhere.  They were beautiful!  I kept some of the prettiest (photo below).  Then Will saw some kind of large bird, off in the trees.  Because of the feathers, we guessed that it might have been a pheasant, but he really didn't get a good look at all.  We kind of scattered out, and all of us made discoveries.  (Well, poor Asya was trapped in her stroller, but I don't think she felt left out.  She was quite interested and entertained.)  We found more and more feathers from various birds, most of a wing, clumps of rabbit fur, areas where the ground was all scratched up, and droppings from some kind of large game bird, too.  Then we found where an owl had been sitting!  There was "kaka" all around, and also owl pellets.  (That's my new Russian vocabulary, by the way: погадки. )  So many signs of wildlife in such a small area!  As we wandered around, Jaan and I saw a squirrel, too.  This one wasn't a regular red squirrel, it was pink!  Really, it was much lighter than usual, almost white with slight red highlights.  It went right into a nest.  While Jaan watched, I ran back to call everyone else.  They got a glimpse of it, too.  Again, Will saw his large bird, and this time he was pretty sure that it was the owl!  We're planning an evening trip back to this area soon, hopefully to see or hear the owl.

Our finds (minus rabbit fur)Whose wing is that?
Any guesses what these are from?

After all that excitement we headed home. When we got here, Asya was snoring, and the first few drops of rain were falling. It's still raining now. . . .