11/27/2023

Hello there! Wanted to post a quick update... things here in Central Asia are going well and we've had some fun opportunities with the students recently. Jaden, Bailee, and I have had a lot of fun playing basketball with a group of students we found here. We go every Sunday night and it's been a ton of fun and a great way to build relationships. We also had an incredible opportunity to show the Jesus Film to 10 unbelieving students, which led to many deep conversations and lots of good questions from the students. We made sure to do it the American way... so naturally there was lots of pizza and candy haha.

Below are some pictures of basketball and the movie night...

We also had a lot of fun putting on a Thanksgiving celebration for the students at our talking club. We introduced them to mac and cheese and cobbler. We were going to make cherry cobbler but the only canned fruits we could find were mangos and pineapple so we made mango cobbler instead. We taught them the Cotton Eye Joe and explained why we celebrate Thanksgiving. Speaking of Thanksgiving, we got to celebrate and have dinner as a team which was a lot of fun. We were unable to find a turkey so we ended up having kebab instead haha. But outside of ministry and the holidays, we've made sure to have a lot of fun as well. We've enjoyed exploring the city and hanging out with each other and the students.

Below are some pictures of us just having fun haha...

In order stay here for the full 3 months as planned, we will have to get student visas for a month which means we will start taking Russian in December. I'm excited to get the opportunity to learn a new language and use it as an opportunity to hang out with students more as well.

Prayer Requests...

• Pray for our visas. Because of when our current visas expire and when our plane tickets are booked for, we need to receive our visas after December 1st but before December 7th in order to not get deported or have to change our flight plans for Thailand😅.

• Pray for our team. There has been a lot of home sickness and discouragement because of the holidays and challenges of being here.

• Pray for Bailee and I as we continue to navigate leading our team. It's really easy to get discouraged and feel like we are not doing a good enough job or need to be doing things differently. It's easy for us to put a lot of pressures on ourselves.