BRRRRRRRRRR!!

You talk about COLD weather!! Last week it was the coldest it's been in the Moscow area in 26 years! The coldest the official thermometer at the bank registered was -34 C. They were predicting it would get down to -40 one night.. I thought that would be neat since C and F level out at -40 :). On the coldest night Johanna was nursing around 2:00 am and I kept thinking.. 'it's really cold in here', but was too tired to get up.. James got up around 5:00 and realized the radiators were cold - NOT good! The gas heater had stopped working sometime in the night and besides a cold house all the water pipes were frozen! We got all the kids up bundled in our bed with a little space heater and made a fun *family memory* reading and cuddling all morning while poor James ran around trying to figure out why the heater had stopped working. He finally discovered that the vent to the outside had a piece of ice frozen inside and the heater has a safety feature that if anything obstructs the outside vent it immediately shuts down. So we were very thankful when it started working again - it's amazing how quickly a house can cool down when it's -30 out! I'll never forget David's expression when he was cuddling in bed with me.. he had a far away look on his face and I asked him what he was thinking about.. he answered 'I'm praying to Jesus' :) he's too cute. I told James there's nothing like a little crisis to make for some good family bonding times! :)

In other news.. Chris & Jeremy returned and had more home visits and Bible studies. There has been a young man Vlad who started coming to the English lessons - he told James he was an atheist, but wanted to learn English. After a few weeks of coming to the English lessons, he came to the Wed night Bible study and stayed late asking all kinds of questions. James gave him a Bible and he's been reading through the book of John. Anyway, some Jehovah Witnesses showed up at the Youth Center apartment and wanted to visit. Andrei (James' assistant) invited them in and they asked 'what exactly do you do here?' They told Andrei they had been visiting a young man named Vlad who told them he was an atheist, but IF he ever would decide to believe there was a God he would be interested in the God they talk about at Marshalla-Zhukova apartment 24 (our address). So the JW's decided to check out who lived at that address. For some reason this was amusing to me.. to think about an atheist *witnessing* to the JW's :) Anyway, pray for Vlad. And yes I will try to post some pictures soon before the Grandparents disinherit us :) :):)