We hosted dinners on three evenings, the first for people involved in ministry in Almaty. As you can see, our house had a great dining area, and lots of enthusiastic conversation happened around the tables. Those who came shared that they really didn’t know some of their fellow-missionaries in the Almaty area, and getting together at his event would result in future fellowship. 

We were greatly impressed with the gentle servant-spirit of this couple, Bakhit and Shinar, from Taldikorgan (about 4  hours north of Almaty). They have quietly worked with a local  orphanage and often have grads at their  home. 

We were grateful for their willingness to drive to Almaty to spend two days with us. 

Another dinner… this one with orphanage graduates. George had prepared a Mexican dinner, and here was showing our guests the fine art of making a taco and a burrito. 

We were pleasantly surprised at how outgoing the grads were toward us, possibly because many of them are involved in a church consisting primarily of orphan grads. 

We traveled two hours east of Almaty to the village of Issyk, where Sasha and Diana Zotov work with orphans and at-risk children. A German church was leading a soccer camp for younger kids. Sasha is bi-vocational and they operate on a shoe-string!

Around the Almaty area you can see beautiful snow-capped mountains, even in July. Reminiscent of Colorado! This is the view from Sasha’s office! 

Another dinner on Sunday night, as Jenya prepared an excellent Mediterranean Chicken!

Several of us had worshiped in a church led by Timur, comprised mostly of orphan grads. We then invited them all to dinner!

Timur was adopted as an infant, attended seminary in the US and returned to pastor this church.

Many orphan grads are housed in a govenment run appartment named Dom Yunoshestva  (“Youth House”). We were shown around by Bulat, who works with the grads.

Here is where we first saw the new seal of Kazakhstan with the new spelling with a Q - Qazaqstan. This is an effort from the government to distance from the Russian/Cyrillic alphabet to the western Roman one. 

A possible project for one of our Ministry Centers is a  hydroponics/aquaponics greenhouse. Marina gave us a tour, showing how vegetables are grown in non-soil (hydroponic) settings, with fertilizer coming from, as she put it, the fish poop produced in the aquaponics setting, where tilapia are grown and then sold to restaurants. Marina also has a deliverance ministry on the side!

Zhanna and Eduard Kim invited us for “tea,” which like in Russia pretty much means a full meal!

Their ministry is most like what we operate in Russia. They work closely with governmental agencies, something few of the other organizations we visited with do.

While after 11 days we were all ready to go home, we also hated to leave each other. Here we are saying goodbye to Natasha and Yana as they head for the airport. 

Natasha tried to keep a sad/serious face for this picture, and failed :-)