Monday, October 12, 2009

Catching up...




Over a month ago we started language school. We go everyday in the afternoons. Most days it's incredibly challenging. It's cool to be learning another language; the downside is that it occassionally makes your brain hurt. In a few weeks Josh and I will be making a little video to show what we do and where we go for day to day stuff, and I'll be sure to post it in the blog so you can check it and get an idea of how life is over here.

This past weekend was a little out of the ordinary for us. We were invited by some friends to join them at their country home. In Estonia, almost everyone has a country home that they go to on the weekends. So, we went down to the very southern part of the country with them. It took about 4 hours to drive from the very top to nearly the bottom. On the way down, we saw the first signs of snow on the ground!

When we got there, they took us around to all sorts of different landmarks: the highest point (a really big hill), a "desert", some granite cliffs, caves, an abandoned Soviet military base, and nature reserves. It's a really beautiful place, not to mention it was great just to be out of the city for a few days.

Most interestingly though, we had the traditional sauna experience. Basically, you sit in the sauna and someone slaps you a few times with birch limbs (like exfoliating), and then when you're too hot to stand it anymore you run outside and jump into the nearest body of water (if there is one) to cool down. Even when the water is iced over in the winter, they'll go and chip it away so you can jump in. It actually felt pretty good, even though it was just about freezing outside.

Spiritually, it's a step in the right direction. As we've been for months, we're allowing our relationships with these friends to grow. Please pray that they will see the mysterious presence of Christ in us. We've not been able to have conversations on that level, but pray that when we do, our actions will have spoken ahead for us.

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