We were there at the lunch from 1-5:30 pm. When we got ready to leave they didn't want us to go. It took us 30 minutes to get to the door. It was one of the sweetest events we have been to.

At this lunch there was alot of singing, dancing, and speechs. The last two hours we were there there was dancing going on for everybody. They all seemed to want to dance with us. We did our best to dance with as many as we could. This lady was a very beautiful woman and as we danced with her there were tears in her eyes and her fathers eyes and in ours.

Pavlodar is near the Russian border. There were alot of Russian older women at the lunch that sang to us, and prounced blessings upon us. This particular woman was 85 years young and she blessed us with long life, good health, and happiness. The other Russian women did the same.

There was alot of food we just couldnot identify all of it. there were three glasses to drink out of. Soon as we got our plate cleaned up they brought more food of some kind.

At 1:00 pm they served a huge banquet where we were honored guests. There were alot of important people and people who had recieved wheelchairs. Nadezhda, in the center is the lady we worked with on this project.

This is a pic of the media interviewing us about LDS Charities(which we represent) and they were filming the presentation of these wheelchairs. This was later broadcast on the tv news throughtout Kazakhstan.

This is the third group who were brought in from outside villages. This group is very activity. This is where the formal closing ceremony took place. There were alot of people to witness these people get their wheelchairs.

This second group, several small children this size received wheelchairs and accompanied by their parents. The parents were so grateful.

This is the sedcond group-it consists of children and young adults. The ones in this pic sang to us and we entered the room. We stopped and listened. After we were introduced they sang us another song"Childhood". It literally brought us to tears.

Mira, our regular translator coulnot go with us so she got a friend, Aizhon went with us. she was fabulous and is getting married Christmas day. She said, "this is the most impressive thing I have ever seen".

There were 3 different groups of the organization that received wheelchairs. This 1st group are the elderly in an assisted living. between 30-50 wheelchairs were given here.

This is a closing of the Pavlodar(a city 350 miles NE) Wheelchairs. Where 250 chairs were given to an organization by the church. This is Victor the director of "Optimist". He is taking the wheelchairs out of the boxs and setting them up. This closing took all day long, we enjoyed it.

After the grand tour they took us to a room where a table of refreshments were served. Alot of fruit, some sardines on bread, and caviore(fish eggs) on top of bread, and juice or water.

In this pic is a blood pressure mointor that the church gave them. The church gave them two of them plus, a glucometer, and electrocardiograph.

In this pic we are in a room they sometimes use for surgery and this is the gynaecology chair the church gave them with a portable lamp. Pictured assistant, dept. head doc, Pam, Jack Aiman, and Mira(our translator).

After the ceremony in which Jack spoke a few words and everybody thanked everybody they took us on a tour to view the equipment that was given by the church. In this pic we are in the intensive care room where an aspirator was being used on a patient, that the church had given them. Also there were 3 other patients who were very sick.

At 9 am on Nov 9 we went to Hospital 1 for a closing ceremony. we were just a little late and they rushed us right into a room of 50 doctors who were waiting to thank us for the hospitla equipment that the church had given them. Pictured are the dept. head doc(who we worked with), the head doc of the whole hospital, and 2 other docs who teach and work with the other doctors.

Last week Nathan and his wife Heather Jones and Desmond age 6 and Zoe age 3 came to visit and go to church here. Enjoyed their company. They are from Pavlodar-350 miles NE.

The building behind Pamela is not far from where we live and we have been watching it being built all summer and fall. we went by today and noticed no one is working. we think it is done until spring.

This is a small snowman because this is the first snow of the year and it is just a small amount.

This is pic of Elder Cecil and Elder Hunter. Elder Hunter sang a solo"I know that my Redeemer Lives" in russian in sacrament mtg. It sounded heavenly and brought people to tears. so moving.

This is a pic of President Woolley and Sister Woolley, the mission president and wonderful wife.

This is Elder Prestwich and Elder Nutt. These two elders came out 3 months ago and are companions. They speak good russian already.

This is Sister Junejamaova from Russia and Sister Corbett from Canada .

These are two of the missionaries in Almaty- Elder Tanner and Elder Harker. We know Elder Harker from the first time we were in Almaty.He is a dynamic elder and he is going home in Dec.

When we come into the airport in Almaty we always need a taxi coming and going. This beautiful woman, Norzya, is the branch Relief Society president. She has a daughter on a mission in Russia. She is a super taxi driver and we adore her.

This is a beautiful moslem mosque in the middle of the city at night.

We left the city one day on a bus and went to a small village and this is a typical farmhouse and yard.Geese and chickens in the yard and a haystack. this is how they gather and store their hay.

This is the swamp yet to be made into a river.

In these next two pics we walk down to where the drudge had completed it's work. On one side of the road is where the drudge had been drudging, the other side of the road is the so called river or swamp that they haven't made into a river yet.

This school has 50 orphans who live here and 176 students who come and go during the day.The children have a learning disorder and other schools pushed them out and this school picked them up. The director is a marvelous individual and teaches these students very well and they love him. This is him and his assistant and us at the closing of this project.

This whole room is filled with the equipment to teach the children how to grow flowers that the church had bought for this school for this project. You can see the cabinets and the tools on the shelves.

The girls in this pic are harvesting seeds from flowers for next year at this boarding school and they are really enjoying what they are doing.

This last week we did a closing of a project. This project we started and finished to closing ourselves. We have closed other projects but this is our own all the way through. It is a landscape equipment for a boarding school. This is the director, Kusain showing the flowers. A very successful project.

The other day we saw some guys showing off thier four camels loaded with items, we thought we would ask for a ride but thought there is no way they would unload all those items to give us a ride, maybe next time.

Pamela standing by an early Kazak warrior

Jack standing by an early warrior statue in Kazak history

This pic shows the way the Kazak Muslems dressed in the early 1900's

These are the yurts(their houses) when the Kazak people wandered in the 1800's and early 1900's

Dr. Bayedilov, the surgeon and his wife have a lovely home. It looked alot like our homes here in America. She had prepared table of desserts of all kinds, also nuts and fruits for us. So we sat and ate again, the third meal.

The surgeon daughter, Anna, speaks english pretty good. She went to New York City when she was 19 yr. on a exchange program and worked at McDonalds for 5 months. She is a flight attendant for Astana Air. It was a delight to visit with her.

After supper the hospital surgeon, a wonderful man invited to his home to meet his family. This is us with him and his wife.

While we were in the hospital the district minister of health and his 2 assistants come to inspect the new changes that they had made in the building in their remodeling.He is a very important man, and they wanted us to talk to him. He had alot of questions for us and why we were there and about our organization. He covers a big area of Kazakhstan and asked if he could come to our closings of our projects in his district. He left happy. Then the director and some of the staff, and us and him sat down to 5-finger dish for supper.

They told us everyone in the hospital wanted to see us and wants their pic taken so we wnt to every room and took pictures. we are only showing you a few. they said if we didn't do this someone would feel left out.

Mothers with their new babies.

See the lady with the funny looking hat, this is a nurse uniform. the nurses wear this kind of uniform in Kazakhstan. We thought the nurses in our family should have a uniform like this.

This is our newest project. The picture is the director, her assistants, and some doctors, and nurses of the hospital in Zhairem.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

We were invited to a hospital that would take us 500 miles from where we live. A 10 hour bus ride in the middle of nowhere, southwest of Astana, to a village called Zhairem, of about 5,000 people.The hospital serves about 10,000 people. There is a big mining operation in the area that mines several precious metals. A few miles from the village we saw a herd of camels, the first camels we have seen here. The people told us that there are quite a few herds of camels in the area. The roads were very bad and the bus averaged only about 50mph. The driver would drive in the middle of the road but when someone passed him he had to move over to his side and it is all broken up. so he was constantly going back and forth on hte road, which made ofr a very interesting bus ride. we had 1 pit stop at a farm house that had been turned into a restraunt. we looked at the food and we weren't to interested in it but our translator wanted us to buy her some food. We ate some candy bars and crackers we had brought. It was 4pm when we got to the village. we called the hospital and they sent a nurse in an ambulance to pick us up. They use their ambulance like a taxi when not in other use. We have seen other hospitals do the same. This has been about our 4th ambulance ride, so when an ambulance goes to get us we aren't surprised. When we got to the hospital they introduced us to the staff and fed us. They took us on a grand tour of the hospital and showed us every patient and told us that none of the patients wanted to be missed. we took pics of every person in the hospital. They said to have two Americans to come way out here to see them was something that had never happened before. we talked about things they want and need for the hospital and then they took us to another and fed us a big meal. The surgeon of the hospital, a great hospital invited us to come to his house and meet his family and when it was time he would take us to the bus station at 9pm for our bus ride back home. We spent over an hour at his home with his wonderful family. We thought this family would make great members of the church, they don't drink, or smoke and had strong moral standards. If only we could have taught them the gospel. We are forbidden to teach the gospel. We caught our bus ride at the station which is in the middle of a field in the dark for our 10 hour ride back home. In the middle of the night the bus did a pit stop in the middle of a small village. Jack jumped off the bus to find a restroom, on his way back to the bus a policeman stopped him and wanted to know what Jack was doing there in the middle of the night. He thought Jack was stealing something and wouldn't let him go back to the bus. Jack thought he was going to miss the bus. He knew the bus driver wouldn't wait for him, but every time Jack started to go to the bus the policeman would stop him. All Jack could say is english and american. the police finally asked for papers. We are told to carry our papers with us all the time. So Jack pulled his papers out of his wallet, the policeman looked at the papers and gave them back and said Jack could go. Jack ran to the bus and got on just before it was leaving. We got back home at 8am the next morning. What an adventure we had. It was awesome.
Posted by Shaws at 8:59 PM 0 comments

At the other end of the resort there is a back entrance with a guard house. It is one of the very first things we noticed when we came to this country. Everyone has a fence around their home, all the apt. bldgs have fences around them and there is a guard house that watches those who come in and out. Sometimes if the know you they will raise a bar or open the gate for you. If they don't know you they will come and talk to you to find out where you are going and what you want. They have security guard written on their jacket. They literally live in these houses year around.

This is the group of people that we went to the resort to give the power point training of the Family Enrichment Program(like family home evening) to. There were a lot of young mothers with small children. We adored the children and got to hold and play with them.