All About Canaan's MOMMY!

Ok, Dougle probably thinks this belongs on HIS blog, since it is more culture related, but I am going to post something else on there soon about car garages here. So, this is going on MY blog. It is kind of about Canaan, because it is about HIS MOMMY!

She is going crazy! I am in culture shock. My long, extended, beautiful honeymoon period (about which I wrote about here) has passed. I am now into big time culture shock. I told that to my language teacher, Volodya (as an excuse to why I haven't been studying much), and he told me that it was too late for culture shock. Well, I have news for everyone: it can come this late!!

I have been in culture shock about two weeks now. I hope it will soon pass. The weather here doesn't help. It has been cold, cloudy and rainy. When it is 100 degrees (oh it sounds so nice and warm) in Lubbock, it is 55 degrees here! However, we did wake up earlier than normal this morning because the sunlight was pouring through our window at 5:30 this morning. This is because there were no clouds to keep it darker in the room. So, it has been a nice, sunshiny day today, though it has been cool and windy.

I haven't wanted to talk Russian or practice. It seems impossible. While I know in my head that is not true, my heart is ready to give up at times! I just dread having to speak in Russian, because I know I won't be able to express myself like I want to. I know that I will only be able to understand half of what is said to me, and that my responses will be grammatically incorrect, two-year old words that are strung together in a sentence like fashion! Some days I just dread going out to the playground with Canaan where I will probably talk with another mom (in Russian). However, once we do go out, it ends up working out just fine. I am able to play with Canaan, talk with other moms (maybe not as easily as I'd like to-but we communicate), and it is not so bad at all! I am just having to work on keeping my motivation up!!

Thankfully, God is faithful in keeping us going through the rough times! Two Sundays ago, I was sitting in church, listening to the preacher. Ok, I wasn't really listening; I had given up after 10 minutes because I was only catching one out of every 10 words, which doesn't make for good understanding! :) So, I was looking around at my Russian brothers and sisters. Part of me was so happy that I've had the time to get to know them, talk with them (even if it is just in short sentences), and worship with them. The other part of me was just feeling sick that I didn't know them as well as I'd like to (mainly because of our current language barrier) and that I couldn't do more with them. But the thought of learning more Russian to accomplish these dreams was just sickening! Ugg. I couldn't even think about Russian anymore; I just wanted to drown out my bad feelings in a pile of some delicious, McDonald's french fries. Unfortunately (or so I thought), we were invited to a couple's house to eat lunch. We went with them to a War Memorial Park, walking and talking with them. The husband only knows Russian, but the wife knows some English (thankfully)! They have two kids, one who is 8 yrs old and one who is two months older than Canaan. After going with them to the park, we went to their home and ate a good Russian meal, pelmini. Although I really didn't want to go with them at first, we ended up having a super-fantastic time! After leaving their home around 8pm that evening, we were so encouraged! My day that had started out down and in the culture shock dumps, turned right-side-up. It was great. God is so good in how He knows what we need, even when we don't! Since them, we've had them to our home too; they are such a neat couple, with whom we are enjoying a great, growing friendship. Though we will only be here a few more months, they have been so generous and welcoming to us and we are learning much from them!


Well, that is enough about culture shock. Just thought I'd let you know that it had hit. Any extra prayers you could offer up on my, and my husband's, behalf (poor guy, he has to take care of me and let me cry on his shoulder over little things), are greatly appreciated. We love you all! Hope you are having a wonderful week!