Love
one another for love is of God. 1 John 4:7
SIBERIA
The reason I chose Siberia is partly because for the last several years this has been on my list to visit someday and maybe teach school or something. The main motivation being that it gets really cold and everyone around here thinks it’s too cold so… I know, the temperature can range from -17˚F in the winter to 50˚F in the summer. Not very warm compared to where I live. But I kind of think it would be a challenge. Oh, by the way, the lowest temperature ever recorded in Siberia was -89.9˚F (that was in 1933). It does get pretty warm sometimes though with the highest ever being 100.4˚F. So that’s a lot about the temp. and honestly that is the biggest attraction for me. But I also think it would be fun to know some of the people, to have friends there and know my brothers and sisters over there.
Since Siberia is part of Russia there is
not a capital but the largest city is Novosibirsk. About 2/3 of the people live in the cities
and the rest of them live in rural areas. I guess if I want to go to Siberia I’d
probably better start studying Russian or some other “Siberian” language, since
there are lots of different ones.
I have two books that I want to tell you
about. I actually just read them in the
past month, partly for a reading challenge I’m doing and these are probably
some of the only books I’ve read about Siberia, terrible! I tend to read books
depending on whether they look interesting or not, not if they are about what I’m
interested. Well, I do like reading about other countries, but not specific
ones. These books are both about people who were moved to Siberia during World
War II.
The first book is called From Wealth to Faith. It is the story of a family from where Ukraine is who were fairly
wealthy. They were Mennonites who did
not really “need” their faith. They had
it all and so it was easy to forget that God had provided for them and that
wealth could easily disappear. Then
communism took over. The rich people’s
wealth was taken away. People were going
to live equally everyone would live the same. Hans Reimer and his wife Netta
move around to avoid being taken. And then one day he was taken away from his
family and off to Siberia. While in
Siberia in the prisons he heard the Gospel and when he was able to return to
Netta they learned more about faith in Jesus and how it is so much more than
wealth. To read the whole story, which is true, you can click the link above to
buy it, (Note: it will look different than the one I showed).
The next book, The Endless Steppe, is the
true story of Esther Hautzig she tells about how, when she was 10, her family
was herded into trucks along with many others, their crime, being capitalists.
The people were taken in train cars the long way from Poland to Siberia where
they were made to work under the blazing sun, (yes, I said blazing) working in
the garden or under the ground in a mine. The living conditions were bad and
food was scarce. Eventually they were allowed to move to the village where they
were given other jobs. Will life improve
for Esther and her family? Will they all survive and get to return home? What
happens to Esther? This book answers these questions and more as it describes
Esther and her families’ exile and the experience of living in “the endless
steppe”.
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So, is there a need in Siberia? Yes, there are many people in Siberia who do not know the saving power of Christ and there are people who are working to share the good news about Christ and His love to the people who live there. HeartCry Missionary Society has missionaries in 6 different geographical regions one of which is Siberia. The link I shared contains the story of the pastor who is working in Siberia. There he is working to build the church and spread the gospel. Pray that God would bless the work that he and his wife are doing and that people watching them could see the love of Christ in them.
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The
reason I did this post early is because today I’m going to show you how I make
valentines. For your information Valentine’s Day is Sunday. So I’m going to
show you some of the ones I made. I don’t know if you think Valentines are kind
of weird or not. But at our house we give Valentines every year, basically a
heart shaped card with a note inside which can be funny or encouraging and then
of course some kind of candy.
There
are a lot of different stories related to Valentine’s day. Most include
Valentine (Now St. Valentine) being put into prison and giving notes. The one I like the best is where St. Valentine
would throw encouraging notes out the window to passersby. And I think that is
mostly what we as a family are doing.
It’s nothing gushy mushy. Just
writing notes to each other or our friends to say we love them and are glad for
who they are.
With
all that said. Let’s get started.
What
you’ll need:
paper
(red, pink, white, or any color for that matter)
stickers
(flowers or hearts)
scissors
ruler
pencil
pen
markers
(optional
items)
stencils
tinfoil
hearts
chocolate
(not pictured)
First
I’m going to show you how to make a “perfect” heart. Fold your paper in “half” or so that you have
a big enough section to draw half of your heart.
Draw
half of a heart on the folded over part.
Cut
out the shape.
Unfold
the heart (doing hearts this way makes where both sides are exactly the same
and I like to make my patterns this way.)
Once
you have several heart patterns you can use them in multiple ways. I will show you a few.
The
first one is when you fold a paper in half and trace the heart onto it with the
top of the heart against the crease. Cut out the heart leaving the bumps of the
heart attached to each other. Open up
the heart and … you have a card all ready to decorate.
Here
is one idea of homemade decoration. We
call them pop-ups. There’s probably a
better name for them. Cut a paper about
8 inches long and 1 inch wide. Fan fold
the paper then draw a heart on the front.
Make sure the edges of the heart reach the edge of the paper (where the
creases are). Cut out the heart, making
sure that the hearts are still connected at the sides. Unfold the paper and you have a row of
hearts.
Another
pattern we like to do is little girls or boys.
Draw the person onto the folded up paper, make sure the arms reach all
the way to the creased edges. Cut out
the “dolls” and unfold. You can use
these “pop-ups” either as a stack or strung out across a card. There will be
some pictures later that show this.
Here
is what I did with a folded card. Glue a
red heart that is one size smaller than the folded heart. I then cut off one of the girls from my
string and glued her in the center.
Here
is a picture of my mess.😊 You can see how I glued the strings of girls onto the
heart cards. In the front I am using tinfoil to add a pink heart to a white
card. This is done like I showed in a
previous post.
This
is how the card looks after I did the pink heart using tinfoil. Then I used stencils to add lettering. I haven’t used stencils for a while but they
really are a nice way to add a finishing touch to a card. And you don’t just have to freehand it.
Here I
am using another stencil. I put the
roses and leaves on and then added a ribbon like pattern at the top. The last
picture will have the finished product.
Once I
have my valentines all made I like to add chocolate or some other kind of
Valentine looking candy. Last but not least add a note inside or on the back
and your card is all ready for Valentines day.
These
are my finished cards. I used a sticker,
which you can’t really see for the top left one and the back white piece is cut
scalloped so that it looks a little bit like lace.
The
second and fourth in the top row have the strings of dolls and then I added
some chocolate.
The
third one on the top row is made using stencils.
The
second one in the bottom row has the chocolate stuck onto the back.
The
third bottom one I glued the stack of hearts onto added a sticker heart and made it say I 💖U
The
last card is made by stacking hearts one on top of the other and adding a
sticker in the middle.
There
are lots of other things you can do such as double hearts, fabric valentines,
etc., but this should give you a start and then you can be as creative as you
want.
Now
lets go show God’s love to others this week.
Happy Valentines Day!
Goodbye, Do svidaniya
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Sources: World Book Encyclopedia
HeartCry Missionary Society
Wikepedia
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