March 6th, 2009 email update from Armenia

Hey guys! March 6, 2009

Since our internet hasn't been hooked up yet, we have barely been online. But we've thought of you guys lots and taken pictures to share with you and have already missed you, too. Our place is very nice – three bedrooms and two bath, no tub and no dishwasher, washer and dryers but they're tiny and take quite a while to go. The kids really feel at home so that's great. The walls are even light yellow, which I like. :) We got here early in the morning on the 4nd so it was still dark outside. I think by the time we got here it was about 7ish... so when the sun cam up an hour or so later we were looking out the windows to see what we could see. The Mt Ararat ranges goes all around so we saw that and wondered if we'd see THE Mt... when we looked the other way – and there it was! Right out our window! Huge and beautiful! Covered with snow and tinted pink against the slight sunrise. So exciting. I'll send a pic when we can! We're also just down the street from the missionaries here so we can walk down there to see them and to play with their 4 year old. They're having fun with Oliver. And Nick and Olivia have been taking good care of us! They even ordered a beautiful cake for Ruth's 6th birthday birthday, March 5th. Again, pictures... :) It was a pink barbie dress type cake. And they've taken us out to eat Armenian food as well as to a Purper type play place on Ruth's birthday where we also had pizza! The kids love Uncle Nick and Auntie Olivia already...

So all that to say that we're doing well and the Lord has blessed us. Besides that, we've also felt quite out of place! Not speaking the language, especially, creates such a barrier. Kevin felt pretty overwhelmed our first night here. Culture shock, I suppose. Me, too, but as the man of the family, he really had a kind of fear grip him about taking care of everything here... and not being able to do that really well. So keep us in your prayers. We have moments where we're like – what are we doing? We already know that we basically know nothing. Crazy. But we have felt the Lord leading us here so we are still trusting. Fear can be so confusing. Sometimes we don't even know what we're fearing. Just a feeling of fear. So anyway... Pray we'd be strong and courageous. And that we'd really know God as our Shepherd and the Prince of peace. He is perfecting our faith.

When we got here the place was just nice and felt like someplace we could feel at home, but after I thought that, I thought – we should invite Blake and Crystal over. And we missed you. It will be great to have any and all of you come to visit us! :) Home is home when your loved ones come over!

Our plane rides were pretty good. Four different flights. Lots of different languages. Lots of hauling all our carseats and bags around. Lots of thumb sucking! Hard to sleep on a plane. Kev and I were wiped out! By the time we got to Vienna to our 13 hour layover and to the hotel, we were all pretty exhausted! We had to get two rooms with 6 of us so the boys took one and the girls, the other. And we all napped. Except Kevin, who had to spend time in the bathroom! Uff da! He did drink some tap water at the hotel and wondered if that was part of the problem. So on our last flight to Yerevan, he was really tired and a little nervous. Poor guy. He did fine and I'm so proud of him for getting us to all the places we need to get to and filling out everything that needed to be filled out. He's amazing. I mostly watched the kiddos! I, on the other hand, caught Ruth's and Elijah's cold in Mpls just before we did all our flying. So I had cold medicine as my friend! Ruth and Elijah seem to be over theirs for the most part. I'm still coughing. But it's not terrible. :)

Oh, our first landing was pretty bumpy... it was snowing in Chicago so I suppose that made the air different. Since I have a tendency to get carsick, I had to concentrate on relaxing! Heh... and while I was doing that, the little boy behind me – was sick. He cried and puked most of the way down. Nice. All our other landings were much smoother, although, one of them made Ruth queezy but she wasn't sick. And on that flight, Elijah was sitting by a Pediatrician! So he was kind to Ruth and told her to take deep breaths and stuff... On our long flight over the ocean, we sat in front of a nice couple from Albania (it borders on the adriatic). The man spoke English so well, we wouldn't have guessed it was his second language. They were also sweet with the kids and visited with Ruth and Benjamin a while (who were sitting closest to them...) On our last flight, the flight attendant gave each of the kids little books and toys so they thought they were pretty spoiled! Heh. People would rub the little one's heads and treat them all kindly. So all in all, flying went pretty well. All our flights were on time and we didn't have to run to hard to get to the next gate...

When we flew into Yerevan, it was night and we saw all the lights... Hannie said, “Am I dreaming?” We wondered that a little bit ourselves! Heh. But here we are!

Kev's off with Nick to get a cell phone and the kids are in their jammies crying over how much cereal they got and who got more... so it's typical life to some extent! :) I better go help Lijah get what he needs!

Pray that we get over the jet lag and get caught up on our sleep so that we can think clearly again! :) The kids were up at 3 AM the first night but only Ruth was last night and she went back to sleep around 4 something... They say it takes a week or two to get adjusted! Whew.

We also met Nick and Olivia's assistant/friend/babysitter... Mariana (sp?) She came to Ruth's party with us and got her a barbie type doll... We also met another of their Armenian friends at the airport, Vaharam (sp?). He used his truck to drive us home. Sunday we'll go to church somewhere with them and meet a couple more people, I'm sure. That'll be good to have some connections, especially since Nick and Olivia will be leaving in April or May... They say there's a family down the road who speak some English (lived in CA for a while) who have three younger daughters. So we'll have to try to meet them, too! Olivia didn't know if the kids spoke English anymore but I suppose the parents do some...

Okay! Better go here, still... the kids must have worked something out out there!!? It's quiet again. I better go see.

All our boxes made it over (we had to check some of our carry-ons when we switched from United to Austrian airlines because of weight limits...) but we got them all. Not all of our ties held so a couple boxes were open and a couple things must have fallen out. Not too much, though. Two books, Benjamin's fleece ball blanket... Oh, my Mystic Chai Tea! Boo-hoo... :) But the bad thing is that they must have taken out Elijah's nebulizer. I suppose it could have seemed suspicious? So we have medicine for that but not the machine to work it. He hasn't needed it in a year or so so maybe he won't. But we'll have to try to see if they have something like that here or if we can get one sometime... something? Maybe there's other things that we don't realize but I really think the ties just didn't hold and things fell out. We had to check one of our laptops for the Austrian flight and were worried that it'd be broken or stolen... but we got it! Benjamin's been busy playing Backyard Baseball on it already! :)

So here we are. Settling in and thinking of you guys! Thanks for praying for us! We really are encouraged to know you are! We'll keep in touch.

Love you all!

--Oh Crystal, the liquid thing was 3 ounces, and all your bottles in one, one gallon bag! Heh. I figured it out in Mpls! :) Thought I'd tell you! At first I had each bottle in one big bag each! Heh.