Manna from Heaven

We have been praying that God would grant us a good day on Monday so that we could get a little rest and refreshment. We really just needed a break before our big flight home. We imagined that God would just make the boys very calm and obedient for a day - that would be our answer to prayer.

Well, God usually likes to use his church to accomplish his tasks, and that's exactly what he did. We had been in contact with a friend of ours, Zhanar, who lives in Almaty. We first met her during our trip to KZ in 2003 and have kept in contact since. Before we left Petro, we had tentatively planned to have dinner with Zhanar and her daughter on Monday night. Honestly, when Monday night came, we were strongly considering cancelling. We really wanted to see our old friend, but we were also tired and not ready to manage the boys in unknown territory (her apartment). Well, in typical Kazakh fashion, Zhanar insisted that she treat us to dinner at her place, and even drove across town to pick us up. The rest of the night was heaven.

Zhanar sat us down in her living room and gave the boys tons of toys to play with. She insisted we rest while she, her daughter, sister and cousin prepared a feast for us (we actually watched a few episodes of 'House', in Russian of course). We then were treated to a fantastic Japanese meal - filet of salmon, sushi, wine.... It was by far the best meal we have had in two months. Furthermore, another friend of ours from KZ, Dinara joined us with her husband.

The best part was we spent 3 hours in the dining room chatting and catching up with our friends, and didn't once have to worry about the kids - they actually played quietly in the other room!

We left at 10pm that night feeling rejuvinated. It was amazing how God used our Kazakh friends to lift us up when we needed it. We will never forget Zhanar and her unbelievable hospitality.