A hot summer

It's Monday morning here in Ekaterinburg and Dan and I are taking stock of the weekend behind us and the week & a half ahead of us.

We are living with our friends Kostya & Luda while we're here in Ekaterinburg. Kostya owns a small Christian book store (that's housed in their church, though Christians from all over the region shop there since it's the only Christian bookstore around) and Luda stays home with their 2 small children, breeding and selling rabbits to earn some extra money for the family. Together with them we hosted a bbq get-together on Saturday for good friends from their church, Living Word Church. It was a great time to catch up on people's lives (and catch them up on ours).

One thing that has become clear in the short time we've been here is what a difficult year it has been for our friends here. Last winter was a very, very cold one and now, as some of you have heard, the summer is scorching hot. Russia is experiencing a terrible drought and fighting forest fires in several regions. While the worst fires are closer to Moscow (2 times zones to the west of us), yesterday and today a hazy smog and the smell of smoke have been hanging in the air here. One of our close friends, Masha, suffered a family tragedy a month ago when her childhood home burned to the ground (unrelated to the forest fires - the fire started in the neighbor's house). She is an architect without much work at the moment and so she has drawn up plans for a small house to be built in place of the home that burned. She is anxious to get it built before the winter so that her mother can have a safe, warm place to live. She will have to take out credit to pay for it and doesn't know where the money will come from to pay back the debt - she's trusting God will take care of them. Please pray for Masha and for many others who are affected by fires this summer.

The drought is also causing people to worry about the possibility of food shortages in the near future. Russia has recently banned exports of certain grains to guard against this but people are anticipating rising costs of food in an already expensive economy. A few friends here are buying up things like rice, flour and sugar in bulk to prepare for the winter ahead. Pray especially for those who don't have the resources to buy ahead and would be most hurt by food shortages - people like the couple who run the Family Rehabilitation Center we bought a refrigerator for last year. They feed dozens of street children on a small budget and any increase in cost would be difficult for their ministry.

Dan's sermon and our time with people at Living Word Church went well yesterday. Dan will write an update in the next day or two. We head south to the city of Chelyabinsk tomorrow afternoon. Thanks for reading and praying!

Lucy & Dan