zakos show

Before we went to Turkey, the kids put on this puppet show for the kids at the orphanage! Awesome!! Several kids were sick and in the hospital for bronchitis! But we still had a good time and it looks like everyone's back and healthy now!

Thank you, Nadela jan, for teaching us Armenian! :) (They had two months of lessons just before this...)

retreat!

Let me share our retreat to Turkey with you in the form of pictures... Hum, how do I pick just a few pics. Let me try. (There's more on my facebook page and tons on our flickr... fyi.)

We started out at the hotel's doctor's office with Ruthie... always her ears...

Spent lots of time at the beach and in the pools. When we got home I realized that I didn't take pictures of them IN the water, which is where they were most of our free time! Heh... so you'll have to imagine four wet kids in swimsuits! :) Kevin and I swam with them, too, of course!

We went back to Ephesus this year so that Benjamin could check it out. Last year he swam in the pools instead of taking the tour but this year he wanted to go to Ephesus instead of swim. So we took him and got to spend the afternoon with one of our best friends, Marine, and a fellow Armenia team friend, Carissa.

This is maybe half of our Eurasia NW group...

The kids had a BLAST with their friends and their teachers while we were in our meetings. From the first day they named their teachers Beautiful and Handsome! :) Their real names are Jenilee and Jeremy. They were fast friends. We're thankful for their time and lovin' on our kiddos.

This is our the Eurasia NW group after our last evening meeting of the retreat. Good group of folks here... :)

The last day of the retreat was a hang out together day. Our whole group took a boat ride around the Aegean sea. Good chance to hang out! This first pic is my sweet Armenian friend, Marine. She came along to watch Nick's and Olivia's Ava during the team meetings.

Kevin jumped off the roof top of the boat into the Aegean sea... whooooo! :)

Jeremy found a sea cucumber and threw it up into the boat (onto my belly...) and we got to check it out up close. Our future oceanographer was excited to see it but didn't really want to touch it! :) It's really slimy. Here he his holding it!

Our family on the last day that we were in Turkey... because of flights we were there a little longer then the team so we had to make the most of it! :) It was a fun night hanging out on the beach at sunset.

Our trip home was super crazy, starting with Lijah throwing up on me in the van on the way to our first flight (of three)... Uff... Blurry pic to represent our blurry day of travel!? By the time we were home both boys were sick and Ruth's ears still bothered her... But we made it home and had a great time on our trip with fellow friends on the field! Thankful for our time in Turkey! (And the boys are much better. Ruth might make a trip to the doctor on Monday...)

One of our prayers during this week in Turkey was that we'd have more of a clear direction about the future. Our MA term is up this winter. Do we continue to pursue missions, seek ministry opportunities in the US, get back into a "regular" job... where to live, working out adoption... too many possibilities... Our prayers seem to end up mostly with the Lord continuing to say, wait. :) We know He's working on us and has great plans. We're doing our best now and hopeful for the future.

This is our story, this is our song... praising our Savior all the day long.

We know His work in our live will turn out to be a great story!