August 2011

Well things have been mostly good but we had a little trouble trying to extend our visa. Basically we had to apply for temporary residency in the EU. We were relying on other people here to process our paperwork we probably should have nagged them a bit, but they were so busy we didn’t want to. Anyway the first drama was that to get the residency we had to have our children’s birth certificates which were in a box (a welding box) in the garage in Yass. So Michael Gazzard very kindly went out there and hunted for them. We had no idea where the box was or if it was in another larger box….all I can say is we prayed like mad. amazingly he found them. He emailed them to us and we took them to immigration in Johvi. Then a few days later we got a visit from the immigration police. Oh my we were a bit worried. In the end it was just a small problem, because on our application we stated that we were volunteering for the church and that they were giving us food and accommodation. They interpreted that as we were doing “work”. we had to go to their office the next day and fill out forms, thankfully we had a really good interpreter visiting that day and he was great. Thankfully we didn’t get a fine, and it didn’t go on our record. It was silly bureaucratic nonsense but in the end the guy said the kids birth certificates had to be Apostilled. So on went the drama. We had to get Michael to take the certificates to my friend Val who works at foreign affairs in Canberra. She not only organised the Apolstille stamp, and express couriered and paid for the whole thing!!! Rich and Val are darling friends of ours. So Stephen and I went to Australian Consul in Tullin on Monday 15th and then took copies of the certificates to the immigration office in Tullin. Then we had a lovely lunch and went shopping, the kids stayed in the camp with the English team here at the moment who are a delightful group of people.

So we have been slightly preoccupied in the last few weeks. We think it will be all OK now they have approved Steve and my application and we are waiting to hear that the kids ones are approved shouldn’t be a problem. Steve and Daniel flew to London yesterday 17th and they are having a sightseeing tour around the usual tourist sights. They had to cut the trip a bit shorter because of the visa situation but they are going to see Arsenal play Liverpool on Saturday.

We are hoping to visit St Petersburg over the next few months. Sally and I have had an offer to stay with a friend in the UK and she has offered to take us to Paris!! We will see about that as it is one of Sally’s big dreams to go to Paris so we will try to make it happen. The flights from here to London are really cheap if you don’t take much luggage.I sent a parcel for your birthday Mum, it seems to take a bout 2 weeks via air mail. Oh I got the envelope from you thanks. Sally got her parcel but I will let her open that on her birthday.

Joel is having a great time involved in camp the kids love him. Tim helps a lot in camp taking stuff to and fro, there is a lot of humanitarian aid that comes into the camp/church from Finland and Norway in the form of food and clothing. It has to be distributed to op shops, soup kitchens etc. Tim helps with that as it often involves heavy lifting.
Tim and Joel have also been hanging out with the youth here and have gone on a few outings which they have really enjoyed.
Katie has been in craft heaven here at the various camps and they give all their left-overs to us so we have a huge stock of craft supplies for the kids.
We had an opportunity to speak at a conference here a few weeks ago, and we shared about what we have been doing in Russia. It was funny because it was essentially an Estonian church conference so our interpreter spoke in Estonian and then there was another interpreter up the back for all the Russian speakers. Plus there was a team here that week from Brazil and it was awesome to meet and minister with them they knew how to have fun. Tim was dancing with them until midnight one night.
All in all not a dull moment. Camp finishes next week, so I think we will have a big clean up then big party then school work will start again in earnest.
We hope to visit orphanages when camp is over.Our grey van died but some friends in Israel happened to give us $1500 that week so we gave some of that money to the Pastor to buy a new bus. We have a different van now it is a Ford transit 15 seater. I have been practising driving here which is slightly nervewracking but I am being brave.
Ok so thats most of our news thanks guys for praying for us and supporting and encouraging us. Slava Bog (praise God in Russian.)

28th May 2011

cant believe we are now in Europe! We have been so blessed. We are staying in christian camp about 2 hours from Tullin. The generous people are renovating a cottage for us to live in, it has a little garden, chook yard, greenhouse, washing machine. While it is being fixed up we are staying in one of the camp dorms, which is very comfortable. We have 3 lovely meals in camp dining room. we are trying to get our sleeping patterns more normal we are waking very early. Days are long because we are so far north. We are very near the Russian border. Lots of people speak Russian here and many speak English. We were in the kitchen last night and helped peel potatoes (and mashed today with a drill and paint mixer see photo above) then got invited to a wedding here today! The camp is used for many christian functions such as weddings. Also an english motorbike club is staying next month. our kids are having a ball, they have the whole camp to themselves. We look forward to when camp starts later in June. The pastor here and his family have been so helpful and hospitable. We may make short trips to Finland and the beautiful St Petersburg. God is amazing we are so thankful.

20th May 2011

Hi friends and family, hope you are enjoying your autumn in Australia. We have had some lovely spring days here, but the weather has been changeable. We are looking forward to our trip to Estonia next week. God has been so good by opening up some doors for us there. Last visit to Russia we had some contact with Big Family Mission an American, Christian organisation, they gave us some funds to bless orphans.
We contacted them to see if they were doing ministry in Estonia. They have turned out to be so helpful and have really blessed us. They have a Christian camp organised over the summer where kids from the orphanage attend. We are going to their camp in Johvi, north east of Tullin which is called Camp Gideon!
We are really looking forward to it, they have even offered to pick us up from the airport with their van, and we feel so blessed. It means we don’t have to spend money on a hotel in Tullin they will take us straight to camp. At camp we only have to pay for our food. Also we praise God because there is a woman from our church in Khabarovsk who will sub-let our apartment for the 6 months we are away. As usual God brings all the details together at the last minute when we pray and trust Him.
Not sure what we will do after summer camp is over, but I’m sure God has a good plan.
Steve had a good meeting with a guy last week called Anton. We met Anton in 2009 very briefly one day at the orphanage; he attends a different church in Khabarovsk. After talking with him we learned some good news. He said that when we went back to Australia, he realised that he should be visiting the orphanage regularly too, mainly because we had been doing this. He has a great ministry there now, he is a wonderful guy and the kids love him.
He told us he encountered some opposition from some people from the Orthodox Church. Unfortunately some people from the Orthodox Church don’t like protestants (that’s us) we are just Christians but “it’s complicated”. Many situations in Russia are complicated. Anyway, the orthodox people were trying to stop Anton visiting the orphanage and giving him a hard time. On New Year’s Eve one of the girls fell down the stairs at the orphanage and hurt her back badly. They called an ambulance, but being New Years Eve the ambulance took a long time. While they were waiting Anton prayed for the girl and the orthodox lady saw this. Eventually the ambulance came and examined the girl and said there was nothing wrong with her, she was healed…praise god. After this, the orthodox people no longer gave him any trouble, yes God works in mysterious ways.
Our friend Sergei has continued to visit us at home; he comes to church with us too. We have been praying that he can get a job; it is so difficult for people who have lived in orphanage to get a job. Many of them don’t complete their trade courses when they leave. They have low expectation for their lives and low self-esteem. We are happy that Sergei has found some work doing painting and security, he seems happy too. He has been called up to the army also. All Russian men have to serve 1 year compulsory army service; unfortunately they don’t get paid to do this. I think Sergei will have to do this in September. I hope we can see him when we come back to Khabarovsk in December.
We are sad to leave our friends and church next week, but we are excited to visit a new country. I think that Estonia has a different atmosphere from Russia and will be more European. They do not use the euro dollars yet though. Also this part of Estonia is near the Russian border so quite a bit of Russian is spoken there. This will help us because we can speak some Russian; Tim’s Russian is coming along well. Joel is trying this time, in 2009 he wouldn’t speak Russian at all, but he is talking to all the kids this time which is great. Daniel is very confident this time and has lots of friends in the park downstairs; he speaks the international language of football and basketball (and some Russian). Sally as always has lots of friends, and the boys always chase her too. Katie has a ministry where she goes with Natasha Baronova on Saturday to her school and helps Natasha with her English class. Katie feels very grown up doing this and I think she is a bit of a natural teacher; it was lots of fun for her.
I met a guy from Canada yesterday who is a professional hockey player I think he was a bit disappointed that I had no idea who he was, but the young girls at the library where I was, were asking for his autograph! It was funny, of course ice hockey is a really big sport here and the Russians are often world champions. My friend Tania Eshelman showed us this American/Russian library where they have quite a few English books this was quite helpful to us and the lady who runs it is lovely; she and her husband are trying to immigrate to Australia.
Steve and I had a date night this week. There is a Korean restaurant which is within walking distance to our apartment. The food was great but we thought the waitress was asking us if we wanted a big serve of rice, but she was asking us if we wanted all our dishes (4 of them) to so we ate all of that! It was way too much food for 2 people; oh well, just like many of our experiences we’ll know better next time.
Please note that when we are in camp there will probably be no internet there so we will try to get into town and update our blog or facebook when we get the chance.

10th May 2011

Khabarovsk, Russia
Greetings to all our friends and family. We have been busy doing plenty here over the last few months.
Firstly though, an update on our visa situation. Initially we thought we had the same visa as 2008/09 but when we registered we were told our visa was a multi-entry for twelve months. This means we can only have three months in Russia and then we have to leave the country for three months before we come back. We have spent the last two months trying to get around this but to no avail. After much prayer and negotiation we feel to leave Russia for six months and then spend the last of our 12 months in Khabarovsk. On May 26 we will fly to Moscow, and then get bus or train to Estonia. We hope to spend 3 months in Estonia ministering in orphanages there. Then we will spend 3 months in Poland, Hungary or Latvia to be decided. Then after that time we will return to Khabarovsk early December for the last 3 months because our return flight to Australia is booked from there.
Thanks to the Schengen Convention Australians need not have a visa for 3 months into those countries, which is good for us. All seems rather complex but we feel God’s leading in this way which is pretty exciting, basically we’re making it up as we go along.
We have been having a good time visiting two orphanages, and taking some of the kids from there to church, sometimes they come back to our apartment for the afternoon. We have been pretty busy most of the time and look forward to some days off. We have met two other families here who are doing similar things to us which has been great. Firstly are the Hinson family who are lovely, they have 4 young children and are here for long-term they are from Minnesota, USA.
Also we’ve met the Eschlman family, Cecil is an American, married to Tania who is Russian. They have 3 children the same age as our kids and they home-school. We have enjoyed hanging out with them and learning lots from their experience in Russia and ministering in orphanages. Tim and Joel went to a birthday party at their house yesterday and then to the circus with them, they had a ball.

Alex has been visiting a hospital with Masha Zemelenskya which has been a rewarding experience for both of them. While at the hospital on Friday last week Alex & Masha walked out side and there on the foot path was a woman covered in dry blood and dirt. Her cloths were men’s cloths and were inside out. She had no shoes. Her hair was matted, filthy & bloody; she was covered in cuts and bruises & had a badly swollen black eye. She didn’t appear to be intoxicated but was suffering with some sort of mental health issue. The hospital staff didn’t want anything to do with her & just watched the situation unfold. The staff said there was nothing medically wrong with her & it was a terrible shame for Russia. Alex and Masha tried to give her something to eat and drink but she refused. Every time she stood to her feet she fell over and smashed her head on the concrete with a sickening thud. So Alex and Masha prayed for her & then called the homeless shelter. The homeless shelter was very helpful and was committed to picking her up and taking care of her. The staff at the hospital knew that Alex was a foreigner. Alex and Masha had to go into the hospital to visit Genya, a man they have been visiting for a few weeks. When they went back outside the woman was gone. The staff told them that they had taken her in and were taking care of her. We believe they only admitted her because they saw a foreigner helping & praying for her. We also believe this was Gods answer for her. The homeless shelter were going to follow her up and Alex and Masha are going to visit tomorrow.
Alex had a wonderful opportunity to speak at a seminar for people ministering at orphanages and, fostering children. This was good experience for her and she enjoyed meeting lots of great people there who are doing inspiring work with these children.
Our friend Sergei who lives nearby has been with us a lot. He comes to church with us and is going to a cell group at church which is great for him to make friends at church. Sergei becomes part of our family when we are here we will miss him heaps he has fallen in love with our nintendo wii. His English has really improved and he says to us impatiently “speak English!!” when we try to speak Russian to him.
Alex joined a home cell group this time which meets on Wednesday nights, it is in a friends home right near the orphanage which is very convenient. She has really enjoyed this experience and it has helped her to get to know what’s going on at church; getting prayer support and making some great friends. A lovely group of ladies, Masha Zemelenskya goes to that group, so she has an interpreter.
Praise report …. Daniel Bishop has made it to the age of 9 years old today, we see this as a miracle from God! Those of you who know Daniel will understand. Those of you who don’t…well he is the most active and adventurous young man so he has his own private team of angels specially assigned to keep him out of danger.
Joel was 13 last week, we wont talk about the girls chasing him here he can tell you about that himself one day.
Our lift started working this week, much to our excitement. The people who want exercise don’t use it but for carrying bags of groceries and suitcases it will be great!
We have just been watching fireworks from out veranda as it is victory day here, the end of world war two. Perhaps you have to be here but there are cars and people all along the banks of the Amore river watching and every time a firework goes off they cheer and blow their car horns it is hysterical. What’s just as funny is Tim & Joel standing out there in their undies.

13th April 2011

Hi all, just a quick note to let you know we are ok and that I have uploaded some photo’s to the multimedia page of our blog.
Many blessings
Steve

23rd March 2011

Blog update March 23, 2011

Greetings friends and family.

We now have an opportunity to do a proper  update.  We have internet at home now as before we were using 3G from our phones which is slow, or internet café.  Three weeks has passed since we first arrived, and we have been busy.  Our children started their school work at home in the second week, and they have settled in well doing that. It was difficult at first because we didn’t have much in the way of furniture, and the stools we had (3 of them) kept breaking! Now we have bought more stools and a  table and my clever husband has repaired the stools.  The children are all sleeping on mattresses in one bedroom and Stephen and I convert our sofa in the lounge room into our bed every night. The second bedroom is a computer room/walk-in wardrobe.  We are sort of living out of suitcases because of lack of storage, but it is all working well.

We now have hot water every day which is great; it was only working every 2^nd day which was not so good. We have a bath but no shower, and we are doing the cloths washing in the bath by hand. It is really warm in the apartment so the clothes dry really quickly and we have a good clothes -horse thingy. Washing by hand is good exercise. Speaking of exercise the 8 flights of stairs is a great work-out for the legs and we have got used to it.  Because our apartment is in a very new area the infrastructure is limited…but we were very excited last week because a small shop opened (just appeared out of nowhere & must have been lowered off the back of a truck) just nearby. This little kiosk sells daily essentials and the fabulous Russian bread we so love. It is fun for our kids to run errands to the shop to get things, they feel very grown up. I think the clerk is use to us and has ordered more stock as she will now sell us more than one item.

We had such an amazing welcome at the orphanage last week. The kids were so excited and so were the dorm teachers that were our friends last time. We had dinner with the girls group which was fun. We also met some new kids who have come to the orphanage in the last 2 years. There have also been quite a few friends coming with us to interpret which makes life much easier. Some of the people from church have been visiting the orphanage regularly which is fantastic and one of them, Dmitry, has been employed to help teach the boy’s photography and computer skills. It was just so good to see these kids again, words can’t explain.

A big group of girls came with us to church on Sunday and then came back to our place for a meal. We had 17 people in total, including Katia from church and a lovely lady Larissa. Larissa is adopting one of the girls Lera which is fantastic. It was a wild time and the girls were very excited to come to our home. They really enjoyed being with us and playing the Wii game Just Dance with Sally and Katie.

Also last week we wanted to track down a friend of ours Sergey. He lived near us last time, but because he has no phone or internet and limited English we have had no contact with him for 2 years. I said “come on Tim lets go for a walk and find Sergey” I had his address written in Russian and had a fair idea which building his apartment was in. The first door we tried was the wrong entry door, so we tried another. Let me paint a picture. These apartments are very old, dark, smelly, dodgy stairs and syringes lying about (bit like a movie). I said to Tim “I’m glad you came with me, mate” I was a bit nervous but determined to find Sergey. He was such a great friend and visited us several times a week. I knocked on a door and said I wanted Sergey, the woman said something which I didn’t understand. Tim said, let’s go Mum, but I was persistent. Then she opened the door and I showed her the piece of paper with his name and address written on it in Russian, after a bit she seemed to know what we wanted and called him. He was so surprised and shocked to see us; he didn’t even know we were back in Russia! I said come with us to our apartment now, so we walked there (about 15 minutes) and he came had coffee and talked for a few hours just like old times, it was great. Steve has known Sergey for 7 years and he used to live at the orphanage; he is now 21.

Also this week we have caught up with Julia who is Masha Mitrofanova’s sister. Masha was one of our interpreters last time but she is now living in St Petersburg with her mum. But Julia, 17, still lives in Khabarovsk and is studying graphic arts. She is such a lovely girl and her English has really improved, she came to the orphanage yesterday and helped us! We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends here.

Last week I had an opportunity to visit some people in the hospital with Masha Zemlyanskaya, who is a lovely young girl here with a great sense of humor.  We met and prayed with some men in the hospital who were quite unfortunate, it was a privilege to do this and we want to do this once a week.  Masha and I want to visit some people in prison also, she has not done this before but we are making enquiries and I will keep you posted about this exciting opportunity.

We have had some contact with a couple of American families who are Christians ministering here, we are looking forward to meeting them this weekend. They home-school and have children the same age as ours which will be a great blessing I’m sure. Facebook is good for some things, it’s not all bad!!!

One Sunday afternoon, Natasha Baronova took me, Sally & Katie to her friend’s dacha. It was quite a long way out of the city but it was a lovely adventure. They cooked shashlik, which was delicious. We walked in the woods in very deep snow. I really felt like I was in Russia now. I was expecting a bear or a tiger to pop out from behind a tree at any minute. They laughed at me when I said that, silly Australian.  As we started to leave it began to snow which was lovely, it was nice to get out of the city for a while.

Ok here is the story about the snow. There is so much snow this year….now it is starting to melt…then overnight it starts to freeze…then in the morning you try to walk on it…this is no easy task. The kids love slipping and sliding on the ice but those of us who are over 40 want to stay in the upright position. The snow near the road is black and dirty and melting into large black puddles of yuck, you don’t want to be near them when a truck goes past. I just saw today from our balcony (which has a great view  btw, Steve has put a photo on facebook of it, so get on facebook or you are so out of the loop) that a part of the river has started to thaw. The sun does have a bit or warmth after all!  Here are the different kinds of snow: white soft nice clean snow; dirty black snow; icy-crispy snow; slushy snow; slippery snow; easy- to- walk- on snow; not- so –easy- to -walk on snow. One becomes quite experienced at detecting the type of snow and formulates a strategy in how not to fall over or end up in a big black puddle of it.

I am so pleased and surprised that our Russian has come back to us; it’s kinda like riding a bike. Not that our Russian is that good but we have enough to get by. Tim’s and Stephen’s is better than mine but we can communicate basic things. We have a dictionary on our phones which helps a lot too; it can be fun and ends up like a game of charades at times.

 Near our apartment there are not many footpaths or roads so there is some improvisation required. We asked our friend the other day what our address is so we can give it to others to send stuff or visit, his response back was there wasn’t one yet! There is lots to laugh about here like the cream I bought by mistake I thought it was sorbolene but it was buttock firming gel!  The guy upstairs has a drill and a hammer. He uses them a lot. I’m sure his wife is glad, but I am not. I’m a poet, which was not meant to rhyme. That is a sign for me to go now. We are having a blast here, it’s all good. Thanks to all our wonderful friends & family who support us in so many ways. We love you and miss you.

Love from Alex, Steve, Tim, Joel, Sally, Daniel & Katie Bishop.

Ps  you won’t believe it we have a pet rat called Lucia, Koyla one of the boys from orphanage gave her to Joel, and she is so cute!

12/3/2011

Hi guys, hope you are well. We are going really well here. The flight to Seoul was good but when we landed they were going
to put us in a hotel in the city centre which is at least an hour on a bus. Experience counts for a lot. We asked if they
could transfer us to a hotel close to the airport (5 mins on a bus) and they very kindly did. We were so thankful for that because it is
such a long day for the children. The hotel was very nice and we had a good dinner. Korea is very Americanised, the
people are very helpful and friendly. Our children loved their experience there and little blonde-haired girls and
boys are a big novelty.

Our flight to Khabarovsk the next day was good, Katie actually ate the airline food! I met a
lovely lady on our flight, with a 4-month old baby from Mosman. She is Russian but has lived in Sydney for about 13 years. She was
very interested in what we were doing and I told her we used to live in Mosman. She is married to a French guy so she
has three languages, I hope I can keep in contact with her.

Ok, landing amongst a sea of snow and ice was amazing and very cold. Last time we arrived it was a bit cold but no
snow. We had left a very humid Sydney of 30 degrees C to arrive in Russia at about -16 degrees! We did have some warm
jackets in our carry-on luggage. If you don’t know, Daniel who is 8, travelled with ‘Lightening’ who is a very
large German Shepherd stuffed dog. This toy is his promise that one day he will have a real dog like this, it is his
dream. Anyway, in customs there was a huge German Shepherd sniffer dog, doing his job. As we were having our bags
checked this dog erupted into frenzied barking, it took us all few moments to figure out what the story was,
but we realised he had seen ‘Lightening’ and thought he was a real dog! We all laughed, Russians included. A light-
hearted entry into Russia. We were so thankful to see our friends from church to met us at the airport with a minibus.
Also Natasha with her car. So much snow and ice, they have had such a cold winter here and so much snow piled up on the
sides of the road.

Our apartment is good and we are very thankful for it. I will list the good things and then the not so good. It is new;
it has a good toilet; a new kitchen; new lino; good view; new parks which are great right outside the door and I
can see the kids from the windows above; it is half the price of last time so we are saving heaps of $; ok the not so good
it is on the 8th floor with no lift (good exercise); not much furniture or curtains which is not too bad; we will look
for a table and chairs this weekend; the shops are not very close (good exercise) we are right next to another
building site which makes walking to the bus challenging. Stephen and my bed convert into the lounge each morning,
only a problem for those who like to sleep in. Hot water intermittent and is only in the bathroom.

All in all we are very happy with where we are and it is great to be back. Our Russian has come back to us surprisingly
well and it is so much easier to get things done because we know where everything is and what bus numbers to catch etc.
We really enjoyed church on sunday and seeing all our friends again was a lovely reunion.
There have been some public holidays this week so we haven’t had a chance to go to the orphanage yet, but really
want to soon, also we have been busy getting organised.

Our children have started their school work so it is good getting them into a routine and they get a bit bored too.
Walking around here is precarious, because of the ice we have to be so careful. The kids don’t mind slipping and
sliding on the ice and snow, but those of us over 15 do mind slipping over. I’ve had a few near misses and I pray the whole
time.

We want to thank all of you who are praying for us and have supported us in anyway we are so grateful, you are part
of this adventure. This is a very rushed blog update, I apologise for the spelling & mistakes but better to getting
some news than not at all. We have no internet in our apartment, Steve has 3G on his HTC phone thingy but it uses up
all his credit and the networl is also intermittent. We will use internet cafes for a while.

blessings and Much love from us all Steve, Alex, Tim Joel, Sally, Daniel & Katie Bishop (and Lightening)