Church today was really good. We picked up Peter and took him with us to Village Seven PCA. What a wonderful surprise to meet a woman there that we met at Russian language school who has been living in Moscow for the past 11+ years. She has now moved to Colorado Springs and will be working from here to help develope the ministry she was doing in Russia to be used in other countries. It was great to see her - and what an unexpected surprise.
This is the last Sunday of Advent and the pastor preached a very good sermon from Matthew 1. The church was decorated beautifully, using a lot of candles and poinsettias in pastel colors. I'm looking forward to the Christmas Eve service on Thursday night.
Had a really good time yesterday baking cookies with Stirling. We started out with Toll House Chocolate Chip and then ended with butter cookies. I had wanted to make some sugar cookies that we could frost, but my mother all but outright asked me to make the butter cookies and they really don't need to be frosted since they are more like the Scottish Shortbread cookies. I'm hoping we can make some more this week and actually frost them because for me, this is a Christmas tradition. Even in Ukraine I always ask women over each Christmas to frost cookies with me at Christmas. We'll see how it goes this week.
I also got some popcorn from my dad that he had left over from making popcorn balls, bought some cranberries, borrowed some thread and a needle from my mother and Stirling, Kara and I made two short garlands for the birds. Stirling and I took them outside and hung them on a young aspen that is fairly close to the window. Then I filled a pinecone with peanut butter and he helped me roll it in birdseed my dad provided. I hung it out later off the bird feeder. Will be interesting to see if the birds and squirrels actually eat any of the popcorn, cranberries and seeds off the cone. :-)
We spent most of Friday in the Denver area in meetings. One of the guys at the church did a video interview of us (yikes!) for their upcoming missions conference. It was great to talk with the members of the missions committee and see the pastor again (we've known him for about 15 years or more). It looks like we will have a two week team from that church come to Kherson this summer - if all works out well. That will be the 2nd team from Colorado who has come over the years! Yea!
Last Sunday we were in Rapid City. It was so good to see our old friends, Ron and Sue, and spend time with them catching up just a little. So much has changed in their lives since we last spent time with them. Their son is in Afghanistan now - I still have a hard time not thinking of him as a little boy about 12 years old or so! Oh my. They are working with a Lakota Sioux church (I hope I've got that correct!) now. I really wish we could have gone to a service with them, but time did not allow.
We also spent time with another family, Mark and Olya and their 3 children. It was really nice to see their home, to meet the kids again (the youngest for the first time) and to catch up a bit.
One of the best things in the world is all the travel we do. I am an introvert, so sometimes meeting people gets to be "too much" for me, especially when I have no time to be alone and process. That is why traveling across the western states is so wonderful. Miles and miles, hours and hours of time alone with Mel, silent or conversing, sometimes reading or sleeping while Mel drives, sometimes even working on a handcraft. But always spending time looking at what is around me.
Driving through Wyoming last week was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Long views, miles without another vehicle in sight, antelope, cattle, horses, deer and even a pheasant in the pastures. On the way back we even went past a corral where a group of cowboys were working cattle (I wondered what they were doing having a round-up of some kind in December??).
I so wanted to just park the car, go over the fence and walk off into the distance. Walk over the hills toward the bigger hills and buttes and even a real mountain in eastern Wyoming. Walk in the snow and grasses and sagebrush. Walk and feel the fresh cold wind in my face. Walk and walk and walk with the sun shining down, long views in sight, no people, no traffic, no human made noise pollution, visual pollution - only Wyoming.
The eastern Wyoming we saw last weekend is very much like the eastern Colorado I grew up in. And I miss it. Oh, I do not have the words to illustrate how much I miss that. The eastern Colorado I knew growing up is now subdivided into 35 acre ranchettes and driving at night it is yard lights everywhere you look. I remember driving for miles and only seeing a few when I was a kid coming home from Gramma and Grampa's farm. Oh my - all gone. So much has been lost.
I was reminded of that this morning when we stopped on the way to church at a McD's for breakfast. Mel went in while I waited in the car. There were a couple of older kids in the car next to me and they were goofing off. I remembered when we lived in Westcliffe and the girls in the trailer next to us had a rip-roaring fight one summer evening when their mom and dad were gone. We knew the whole family very well, so I went over and knocked on their door. Immediate silence - no more yelling and screaming and taunting each other. :-) One of the girls carefully opened the door, looked out and saw it was me, and opened the door completely. I said, "Hey, I can hear you guys fighting all the way over in our trailer. Come out here and look at the moon with me."
So, the two girls came out and we stood by/sat on the hood of our car and I got out a pair of binoculars and told them to look at the moon (it was full). It wasn't dark yet - just that beautiful turqoise evening sky quickly turning orange. They took turns looking at the moon, and then the youngest girl turned toward me and said, "Cindie, you are wierd." Weird because I thought it was better to look at the moon and enjoy the evening rather than listen to them fight. :-) hahahahahahah. I often wonder if those two girls ever look at the moon and remember that evening.....
Well, we are at Borders, having a nice cup of coffee (do you call these paper glasses 'cups'??). Mel just bought a Christmas present for someone and one for himself. I'm writing away. And now I'm going to close and go look at a couple books for myself!!
A nice Sunday afternoon.
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