Friday, June 16, 2006

Nettles, tooth, sisters, more photos, etc.

Jaan and I made an amazing scientific discovery today. We were watching our caterpillars, and we realized that their nettles were "smoking"! At least, that's what Jaan said they were doing. With lots of careful observation, we could see that each nettle flower has four stamens, which pop up one at a time. As each one pops up, it releases a puff of pollen. I don't know how much of that Jaan could actually see; the flowers are the size of small pinheads, but he and I were both fascinated!

We also made another discovery. . . in Raia's mouth. She's been horrible for the past week. At first I just excused it as travel tiredness, but it was really dragging out for a long time. She has a new tooth! No wonder she is miserable and trying to make all of us miserable, too. (Misery loves company, you know.) Now we can give her medicine, and she's happy to play with Aunt Abby.

Anna wrote more:
June 15
Ok- a little more info.-

I'm in the city of Vladimir. I'm not sure how big the city is, but it's one of the old ring cities around Moscow. We're at a Baptist church here and it's pretty nice compared to a lot of the other churches I've seen. They actually have guest rooms and one shower- cold water, but a shower, nonetheless. We're rotating showers every couple of days. They have a computer, so we bought an internet card. I seriously doubt this will be the situation in any other church during my time here, so I'm trying to take advantage of it now.
The ministry- a five day camp-24 hours a day. We currently have 16 kids ranging in age from 4-15. A typical day consists of : morning exercises, breakfast, crafts, bible lesson, sports, free time, discussion, drama, and exercise classes, games, dinner,evening meeting, getting the kids ready for bed and in bed by 11pm, and then we meet to plan the next day. It's a rather long day and very tiring. The kids are a lot of fun, though, and I'm having a good time.
I'm feeling a little better today. Not sure exactly what in the world I have. Last night I had a fever and was extremely cold. It broke in the middle of the night and then I started getting nauseous. Most of the pressure in my head is gone now, which is a real relief. Thanks so much to all who have been praying- I need it! Anna


And here are the last of the wedding photos:

Jaan in the limo
Originally uploaded by fylliska.

I hear he fell asleep sitting there.



Can't live without dirt!
Originally uploaded by fylliska.

Will said Jaan wandered off during the pictures. They found him here, and his explanation was, "I wanted to play."



Two handsome men
Originally uploaded by fylliska.


These two go with the first one that I posted of Jaan at the wedding:

Cleaning up
Originally uploaded by fylliska.



Yum!
Originally uploaded by fylliska.

He kept standing there at the table, cleaning up the crumbs, so the caterers gathered up a plateful for him and set him down with a cup of tea to finish them off.




Now, when the children wake up we're headed over to work in the garden!

2 comments:

Alissa Maxwell said...

Hi Phyllis,
Jaan and Raia are really getting big. That previous picture of the two of them on Raia's birthday really shows how they have grown. I can can see personality leaping out of my computer!

We'll be praying for strong energy for you guys throughout the summer!
Cheers! - Alissa

Anonymous said...

Honey--Because you posted after I had checked today, it took me a while to find these wonderful photos and the commentary.

Thank you! Those half-mast eyes in the last photo make me laugh. Love each of you....