1. Watching the snow fall. Even as I write this I am sitting in front of my bedroom window watching large flakes of snow drift to the ground. At times it snows so hard that the buildings that surround our apartment actually disappear. There is something refreshing about sitting at the window with a hot cup of coffee and just watching the snow fall. I think that if given the opportunity I would do it for hours on end.
2. Cinnamon rolls and hot coffee. I love cinnamon. As a matter of a fact, I think that is what heaven will smell like when we get there. At least it will to me. My wife can do fabulous things in the kitchen. And when it comes to baked goods she really is an artist. Add to this that any time we want we can go to the local grocery store and buy freshly made packages of bread dough. So the result is one of my all-time favorite treats...cinnamon rolls. There is just nothing like starting your day with freshly-baked home-made cinnamon rolls and a hot cup of coffee.
3. Small language victories. It is easy to get discouraged when every day you struggle with a new element of a foreign language. It is even more discouraging when you stop to review and find that you have forgotten most of what you have been taught. However, there are days with small victories and boy are they sweet. This week I had two. The first was when we were reviewing vocabulary and I was able to take a huge stack of flash cards and move them from the "study" pile to the "learned" pile. The second came yesterday afternoon when the phone rang. Now, there are few things more intimidating than answering the phone and hearing a Russian voice on the other end. There is something about not being able to see a person's face that makes that conversation much more intimidating. So the woman who called yesterday was doing what we would equate to a Neilson survey. And, thanks to my fantastic language teacher, I was able to understand the woman on the other end AND answer her questions on the survey...all in Russian. I must tell you that was pretty cool.
4. A working elevator. We live on the 8th floor of a 14-floor apartment building. And most days that is not a bad thing. We are high enough to have a nice view and we love our apartment. However, many days we do not love the building in which it is located. This past week government officials came to inspect our elevators and discovered that the managers of the apartment had misplaced the paperwork that certifies that our elevators are safe. So the elevators were turned off. That's right folks, turned off. And, to make matters worse it was the day of our semi-monthly shopping trip to the Mega-Mall where Kellye is able to purchase meat and juice in bulk. Let's just say that dragging my belly full of cinnamon rolls up 8 flights of stairs is not an easy task in itself, but add a full backpack and two armloads of groceries and I was hurting pretty badly by the end of the second trip. Thank goodness for our friend Frances (who drove Kellye to the store in her van) and Irena who both helped Kellye and I take all the groceries upstairs. You have no idea how wonderful the simple pleasure of riding up an elevator is until you push the button and the light does not light up. The elevators were turned on yesterday afternoon and I am thinking about riding them up and down a few times today just to celebrate!
5. Quiet time. As you can imagine, having five people ranging in ages from 6 to 40 crammed into a small Moscow apartment in the middle of winter does not provide much of an opportunity for quiet. But Friday afternoon Kellye and I experienced "the perfect storm"...all of the children were out of the house at the same time and we had nothing on our calendar! It was the first time in over 100 days that we have been totally alone. As it turned out all of the children wound up spending the night at different people's houses and Kellye and I were able to spend nearly 24 hours alone in our apartment. We even watched a movie without being interrupted. I realize that one day in the distant future the sound of silence in our home will be a bad thing. But this week it was a precious gift.
6. A full and noisy apartment. Conversely, we are blessed to have made wonderful friends with our Moscow missionary family. Tonight, (early tomorrow morning), as most of you who read this are watching the Super Bowl in your living rooms, we will be doing the same thing with more than a dozen missionaries. Thanks to a gift from our family, we are able to watch the game via my computer hooked to a projector. Our Super Bowl party starts at 1am and will end around 6 or 7am. There will be Marc's chili, Kellye's cinnamon rolls and who knows what else to eat. We love to fellowship with our missionary brothers and sisters and are blessed that our family has provided a wonderful piece of technology that allows us to watch American television and share that gift with others here in Moscow.
7. Homemade salsa. One of our "mission friends" has shared a recipe for fresh salsa with us and it is some of the best salsa that I have ever had. It is one of the simple things I enjoy in a week.
8. My family. Though it can get noisy and tempers can flare in these closed quarters, I love spending time with my family.
9. Technology and high-speed Internet service. Many of you remember our struggles with getting Internet service when we first arrived. It felt as if we had been cut-off from the rest of the world. Well, one of my simple pleasures is the fact that I can communicate anywhere in the world with a few simple keystrokes. On Sunday evenings we watch a live webcast from a church in Oklahoma City. On many evenings I am able to chat with missionary friends around the world and we are able to encourage each other through our struggles. Thanks to Vonage our friends and family back home are able to call us on the phone as if they were making a local call. I am able to watch American television, especially football. And I am able to share this blog with friends from all over the world. (If you haven't done so already, check out the map at the bottom of my blog...clicking on it will show you the different places around the world where people are reading this post, although it still baffles me why anybody would want to.) Living a missionary's life is hard enough. I cannot imagine how difficult it was for those who went before us whose only form of communication with the outside world was a letter or semi-annual phone call. I am certainly grateful for the simple pleasure of technology and the benefits it brings.
10. Your prayers. I know that the people who read this blog pray for us regularly and many of you pray for us on a daily basis. And your prayers have been heard, answered and felt on this end. I hope that we never take your prayers for granted and we thank God for each of you who lift us up before Him. So, thank you.
Wherever in the world that you are today I hope that you take a few minutes to reflect on some of the simple pleasures in your life. Sometimes I think we work so hard to provide big memorable things (Disney vacations, etc.) that we forget to stop and see the simple joys of life that surround us each and every day. Enjoy the snow, or the warm sunshine, or the smell of bacon and morning coffee, or the fellowship of your Christian brothers and sisters, or the sounds of your children (even if they are fighting with one another), or just the simple fact that when you go to the store and someone speaks to you that you can understand all of the words that they are saying.
Blessings,
Marc
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