Cakes!

The treatments that I was on a couple months ago caused extreme insomnia. One time I went 10 days with only 8 hours of sleep total! I almost went crazy. Since I had an additional 8 hours a night to kill, I decided to take up cake decorating. I took a class and then spent the wee hours of the night, practicing. Below are the fruits of my labor...at 2AM!

Russia

I decided to back track a little. Chase and I went to Russia in March with Global Aid Network (where I work). We visited orphanages, baby houses, rehab centers, and churches. It was an incredible experience. I realized that most of our family hasn't seen the pic's from the trip, so here are a few. Enjoy!

This is Chase's favorite orphan. This young lady is 18 and is about to be kicked out of the orphanage due to her age. She has been very abused and doesn't touch men. You can see from the picture that she clung onto to Chase! We were told that this has never happened before. She was very sweet and didn't talk much. Chase loves telling the story so you'll have to ask him more about it later.
We handed out Carepacks to several orphanages. We got a chance to love on the kids which was so much fun. This little girl was taken with Chase....but who wouldn't be?
This is a men's drug, alcohol, and gambling rehab center. It is a Christian home and the men have to commit to 9 months of rehab. We had an INCREDIBLE worship time with them! I helped lead worship and we sang "Shout to the Lord" which they knew in Russian. Half of the room sang in Russian and the other half sang in English. I had chills the entire time. It was just a small glimpse of what heaven will be like!
This was one of our interpreters. She is in college, a strong believer, and a GREAT interpreter.

This pic was at the baby house. Chase had the camera and we ended up in two different groups. It was SO sad to see so many infants and toddlers in those conditions. Many of them had illnesses or disabilities that would be such a simple fix in the U.S. but because the orphanage cannot afford the right medicine or surgery, many of them will die.

This was one of my favorite visits. Chase and I did a home visit with to a grandma's house. We brought her some food and sat down for a visit. She served us tea and cakes. She was SO precious! She was SOOO excited to have Americans in her home!

This was another interpreter, Andre. He was our groups interpreter more times then not. He is a freshman in college and is a great musician. He played for me on several occasions. We got to know him and his family pretty well.

Finally!

Ta da! It's offical, we have a blog! I have been an avid Blog-stalker for quite some time now. It all started with my friend Chry's blog. She posts nearly every day and I have LOVED knowing what is going on with her family, especially her 2 little boys, on a daily basis. I am NOT a scrapbooker at all so I figured this was a good way to document life and keep our beloved family in the loop. Most of them live so far away so it has become a challenge keeping them informed.

Ok, now for an update. Currently there is not much going on in our lives. We are joinng Apartment Life Ministry (aka Cares Team), so we are house sitting as we wait for an apartment to open up in our area. Chase and I knew going into this that the wait could be long...but now that we are actually in the "wait process", I'm getting a little anxious. Waiting is hard. We want life to be on our time not the Lord's time. I have to keep reminding myself that HIS timing is perfect and HIS ways are higher than mine.

More to come later. We love you family!