A Night With the Petrovich Family

Some of you may remember that during the orphan camp Jason helped a Russian man with the music.  Tonight we had the blessing of having him and his family over for tea.  They arrived with the traditional torte for us and presents for the girls (cookies and juice boxes).  Since neither Zhenya nor his wife, Olya, speak English, they brought along translators.  Tanya, who we also met at camp, and Ksyusha, who attends the Baptist church with us, both came.  It was such a blessing to be able to fellowship with all four of them.

Zhenya and Olya's little boy, Vladik (4 years old),was shy at first, but gradually warmed up enough to make it into the girls' room where the toys were.  Havah and Mercy were ecstatic to finally have some company, and Havah dove into explaining things about their toys.  Vladik finally looked at her, with arms crossed in front of himself, and said (in Russian), "I don't speak English.  I only speak Russian."  This didn't deter Havah, and she tried her best to speak Russian after that.  Unfortunately, her "Russian" is mainly, "Blee blah blee blah boo."  :o)

Olya asked us to sing a song for her in English, since she was interested to hear what it sounded like.  While we were in the middle of singing it, Zhenya got up and left the room.  After we finished he told us that he had just been speaking with Andre, the pastor of our church, and we were now on the schedule to sing that song tomorrow in church.  Talk about short notice!  They also convinced us to sing a song with them at our church's Christmas service.

We ended the evening praising the Lord together in song.  They left promising to have us over to their house soon and offering (with "all her heart") to watch the girls for us if we ever wanted to go see a movie!  What a blessing!