In honor of the Olympics...

I thought I would start off with a picture of me competing at the Olympics in Bejing. This will also explain why I am two weeks behind in updating this blog!



No, not really. Glenn and I have been in Ukraine and Russia for our last two weeks of AGM (Annual General Meetings).



We were in Ukraine August 1-8. Our meetings during the day were held at a small retreat center, but at night all the participants were housed in 3 additional locations nearby because the retreat center was not large enough to hold all of us.

Two languages are used in Ukraine: Russian and Ukrainian. Both use the Cyrillic alphabet, and neither Glenn nor I can tell the difference in Russian or Ukrainian words. We had a real difficult time reading directions or instructions, or even the names of places because it didn't look like anything with which we were familiar.

The biggest difference that I noticed between Kiev, Ukraine and Budapest, Hungary (besides the alphabet) was that the roads are much wider and there are more modern buildings in Kiev than in Budapest.

At the end of our week in Ukraine we had the grand finale with a Lottie Moon Christmas auction and a wonderful children's program. The volunteers that come out from America to work with our MK's while parents are in meetings bring coveted food items (Oreos, grits,chocolate chips, cake mixes and such), DVD movies, books, etc. and the missionaries bring souvenirs from their home country. All of it is auctioned off with the proceeds going to the Lottie Moon Christmas offerring. It is a fun way to give our Lottie Moon offerring!

At the end of the week we had one day free before flying to Moscow, Russia for the next meetings. We talked Skipper into being our guide for the day. Skipper and his wife Sue used to live in Kiev but now live in Budapest just 12 walking minutes away. Skipper did a great job of showing us the main attractions and his old stomping grounds.

I won't bore you with the names of everything we saw (and I don't remember the names anyway!) but I do remember that this is St. Andrews Church.

There were LOTS of huge, ornate churches throughout Kiev, but I liked this blue one the best of all I saw. Truly, it was this blue!!

You could recognize churches by their "onion" tops. Notice the one in the distance? Most of the churches are Orthodox.

We saw a lot of interesting sights that day, including this one of a truck watering the countless beautiful flowerbeds that are spread throughout the city!

The Dnieper River flows through the city of Kiev. Kind of reminded me of the blue Danube (which is now really a murky green) that winds its way through Budapest.

McDonald's are everywhere. Fortunately, this one has blended well with the gorgeous local architecture!

The Friendship Arch commemorates the friendship between Ukraine and Russia. Yea, right.

We didn't know what this sign said, but we know it was emphatic about it!

We smiled for the camera at a strategic overlook of the city.

We wandered through many parks spread throughout the city. The day was comfortably hot so we really enjoyed the lush greenery that hung over the sidewalks. We saw families out enjoying the beautiful sunshine and lovers ignoring the scenery as they smooched on the benches that lined the walkways.

One thing we saw that was very UNUSUAL was the large number of wedding photographs of brides and grooms being taken in public places, especially in city parks with fountains or on the grounds of the many churches. (Not that they were being married IN the church, but having pictures made infront of them.)

In this picture, you can easily see 3 brides. While we were sitting here, taking a break, we saw 7 brides at ONE TIME in various locations around this fountain! It became a game to us to see how many brides we could find in each location.

I will definitely remember Kiev as the place with all the brides and grooms!!

There is a bridge where lovers tie a string, ribbon or rope (maybe the thickness determines the amount or strength of their love???) or attach a lock that signifies that they are locked in a love relationship forever. It was really quite touching to see padlocks with couples names written on them (you know, "Cile 'n Glenn") until we saw a lady trying to pick a lock. We wonder if her boyfriend or husband left her.

BIG buildings everywhere; mixture of old and new styles.

Aren't we cute?

Exhausted from sightseeing all day, we slept well that night before flying to Russia for the fifth and final week of AGM.

Russia is our largest field, both in terms of square miles (kilometers) and number of personnel. Russia covers 11 time zones. These folks are real heroes! Life is tough here; maybe even harder than living in Africa!

I don't have a lot of pictures from our time in Russia but this is a picture of the wife of one of the Russian pastors who came to share with us about the "Russian mindset". It was very informative! Glenn and I have been asked to lead a marriage/family weekend retreat for one of our Russian Baptist churches in far east Russia in October so this information was very helpful to us! (More about this as the retreat approaches!)

This is one of our families who live in St. Petersburg. Leslie and Buck know some of our friends from Marietta First Baptist Church. MFBC has sent volunteer teams over to work with our personnel in St. Petersburg! Thanks, MFBC!!!

Mindy and I had to say good-bye in Moscow at the end of the week. Mindy works for a sister organization and came to do achievement testing for all our MK's. Because of my role as the MK Education consultant, she and I worked together on the testing. Well, I did the coordination and she did the testing. Mindy helped us at all 5 AGM's so we got to know each other pretty well by the end of all the meetings!! Mindy lives in Prague so I will see her again, I'm sure.

The meetings ended at the Russia AGM at noon giving us only a few hours to do any sightseeing before flying back to Budapest early the next day. However, even if we'd had a full day, I'm not sure Glenn or I would have had the energy to do anything!! We were exhausted by the last day and greatly looked forward to finally sleeping in our own beds!

We spent the night with the Cherry family who graciously showed us a few things in our limited time. My favorite of all were the local markets of fresh fruits and vegetables, of which we do not have many in Budapest!

During our 5 weeks of AGM's we ate a lot of pasta and rice. Very few green vegetables, and even less fruit. I really missed watermelon, which is in its peak season right now!!

We saw this awesome sunset from the Cherry's apartment window. The photo doesn't do it justice!

Moscow is a huge city with wide streets and thousands and thousands of highrise apartment complexes! Everywhere you look you see highrises; some obviously from the communist era with their plain, dreary, gray block construction, and others with large balconies painted in pretty pastels, overflowing with plants of many varieties. What is so shocking is that in a city with 12 million people, they are still building more apartments!

Another view from the Cherry's kitchen window.

I haven't seen many buildings as big as this one, except maybe Versailles!

As we were walking down the pedestrian mall, we came upon this colorful outfit. I love all the colors, but I don't think they should all be worn together like this!

A better view of the pedestrian mall, only without the colorful outfit!

While in Moscow, I saw this ice cream shop and just about flipped out! Dad and Emogene, they don't have the Tuesday special ($1 a scoop), but whatever we paid, it was worth every ruble!!

And then, we ended the sightseeing tour with a coffee from Starbucks! Any excuse to rest our weary legs! I sure wish I liked coffee!! Don't tell pastor Ken, but we bought him a Moscow Starbucks mug because we were thinking of him. We will give it to him when we go to the U.S. for a Member Care conference at Thanksgiving. He is a big fan of Starbucks. Wonder if he already has one????

Well, I believe this is my longest blog entry to date. Sorry! Hope it wasn't too boring. We are home for the next month (thankfully!) so I probably won't have much to write about in the next few weeks other than my thoughts...