Many Similarities to Home

Sorry, but you will need to wait one more day before we introduce you to our new son, but here he is modeling some of his new clothes…

Instead we will continue to give you a sense of his native country. We have now been here two weeks, which is half way through our first trip, and we have adjusted well to our new surrounds. Although many things are different and may not look like home, we have found several things that are very similar to home. Here are some examples...

This is the Ram Store (a.k.a. our local Meijer)…

Just like Meijer’s they have just about everything from canned vegetables to toasters to towels to milk. Well the milk is camel, horse, or goat and is shelf stable (at least we haven’t found cow’s milk yet).

This is the Corso (a.k.a. our local Starbucks)…

Just like Starbucks they have many different coffees, snacks, and desserts and they are just as expensive. Unfortunately the menu isn’t in English, but we have learned enough Russian to manage a simple cup of coffee with milk and sugar (try it yourself - phonic spelling: chash-ka koh-fyeh s smah-lah-KOHM e SAHK-ahr).

This is the Orda (a.k.a our local 24 hour 7-11)…

Traffic is crazy…

Saw a couple of familiar faces…

There are many other similarities, but the one thing that we have missed and can not find over here are chocolate chip cookies. So with a little creativity (i.e., using chocolate candy bars to make our own chocolate chips), math to convert ingredients to metrics, and some patience with our oven that doesn’t have a thermostat we were able to make our own…

Our driver, interpreter, and the other adoptive families loved them! God continues to bless us daily, whether it is simple things like chocolate chip cookies, new friends here like the other families, or your prayers and support from home!

Blessings,

Jay & Jen