The Alps

On the recommendation of some friends we have been staying at some christian owned housing. The first one was in Vienna area and now we are staying in an apartment in a house up in the Alps. The owner is a missionary and has this great place for christian conferences and spiritual renewal. We have been finding few people that can speak English and so communication has been strained but when we our in the fellowship of believers the kinship we have goes beyond culture and language. One lady in particular has blessed me so much! Her first blessing on me was doing my laundry and then she asked if she could mend the holes in our pants! Two things I dread! I was very grateful! But even after that she said she felt God telling her to bless me (more) by giving me a small gift of money! She told me it was for me to spend on myself. It is so nice to feel the arms of Gods love.
Some other blessings have been enjoying the Alps! This house we are living in is right across the street from the mountain we have been riding down. It is amazing to wake up and see these beautiful mountains all around us!
Mark spent the first 2 days teaching Haillie and Noah how to snowboard. He was successful, with a few minor injuries and lots of sore muscles.

O.K... I know that I am 37 but I always wanted to learn to snowboard! So Mark coached me and I was successful in learning how to get up and turn around, steer and slow down. I did not learn all the moves because... well I spent a lot of time falling and sitting on the mountain to catch my breathe and to get up the energy and nerve to get myself down! I have to say I am proud that I got that far. It has been 2 days since then and I am still so sore. I ended up spraining my knee on one fall but it is not too bad. I only wish I got proof in a picture or on video that I did it. I would like to try again when I have recovered.

Jonah and Silas got to go to ski school for free, all we had to do was rent the skis. Silas did well until the 3rd day when they got to the bunny hill and he cried all the way down because he was scared. So they kicked him out of ski school. Jonah continued on until graduation when they all got a medal for finishing and riding down the mountain.


They also had a race, which. Jonah ignored all the flags he was to ski around because he just wanted to go fast, he told us.

One day he said to Silas after school, " Was I great or was I great?!" We need to work on his humility. It was really amazing to see these little kids skiing down this huge mountain with their teacher leading them zigzag all the way down. Some of them were as young as 3!

A funny quote from Silas after I asked him about how he liked BoBo the penguin (the mascot of ski school) was said in a very straight face, "Mom, he's not weal!" We laughed looking at the pictures of Silas checking out BoBo standing next to him with a 'you don't fool me' look.

This is a picture of me and Jonah inside a cave that we found while hiking. It reminds me to ask you to pray that we would quickly and safely get all our documents back. They have been sent and are now being processed. Your prayers help cover us as we wait to safely get all our papers back that we need to live and work in Russia.