Meteorlogical Madness

     On the 23^rd of October the snow that locals had longed warned of finally began to fall. At first it was rather wimpy by Russian standards, but it just kept coming. It snowed until the evening of the 30th, heavily at times, covering the earth with a fresh, clean blanket of snow. It looked like Russia again. And no one thought that we would see the ground before spring. The seventh day of snow was actually accompanied by white out conditions and visibility was almost zero. The government declared an extreme situation as the snow was blown horizontally by winds in excess of 20 miles per hour. But then on Halloween, the sun came out, and temps that had peaked at about 25 degrees every day and plunged to the teens at night, suddenly became low 40s. After five days of sun, the snow is gone and we are experiencing spring like conditions. Only a few patches of ice (as in the picture) remain. The locals are scratching their heads, but continue to promise and warn foreigners about the ensuing Russian winter that they are so proud of. We’ve had fall, winter, and spring within two weeks time. We guess it’s time to break out the sun tan lotion J. We’ll pray for those of you in chiller climes; we just don’t know if we could live in such cold places J. For now, we are just soaking in the rays near the sweltering edge of western Siberia.

Pray that the Lord may give us an extra measure of grace when the tardy Russian winter finally arrives. Pray that the Lord might call some of you to brave said winter for a period of two weeks, in order to join God in His work on this side of the planet, and enjoy some great fellowship with some old friends. Yes, that is an invite! Pray about it, won’t you?