The past two weeks we have been visiting many facilities in the hopes of finding the projects that the Lord wants us to work on for the remainder of this year. We have met some very interesting people in the process. Here are some photos of our recent visits.
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| These little girls were waiting to perform at a program of handicapped children. Their native Kazakh costumes are lovely. |
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| This gentleman lives at a retirement home we visited. He is a WWII veteran and enjoyed telling us his stories even though we were not understanding very much! Emin did his best to keep up with the translating, but we got the general idea! |
This is a photo with all his medals and ribbons.
This is a museum showing all the veterans that had lived at this facility. It was interesting to see all of their medals.
This man runs the shoe repair shop at the home. I missed getting a photo of the wheelchair repair shop, but the man running it had a certificate on the wall from his training from LDS Charities. He said they trained him for free!
They have a very nice salon.
This is the arts and crafts room. The gentleman in the back is blind and he is doing some weaving to make a bag.
The director of the arts and crafts told us she has to be creative to get supplies for the people to work on. This is an array of plastic spoons and a CD in the center.
This basket is made from juice boxes and is woven together.
Macaroni is glued to a jar and spray painted!
The frames on this artwork is used Braille pages. It is a heavy weight paper and has interesting textures.
This cabinet shop is at a facility run for older (over 18) handicapped persons and their families. There is also a small garage, salon, shoe repair and clothing shop.
These tradidional Kazakh designs are very colorful.
We were told that these fabrics are all hand worked!
Some traditional Kazakh costumes.
This is at a state run facility for rehab for children. It had several sensory rooms that we wanted to visit.
This organization is at a remote location. It was about a two hour drive to find them. They were so thrilled that someone from the US cared about them. The government gives them just enough support to pay the rent on the building. The teachers provide most of the funds for the children's activities.
They have a nice area for parties
These little boys were enjoying a computer lesson.
Again, creative use of what is available. This chair and table are made of empty juice boxes!
This is bead work they have worked on.
This is a large room for parties. They said they had a Halloween Party there recently. The director would love to have mirrors for their dance lessons. This organization has been in existence for over 50 years.
This lady runs an organization to help the handicapped in one section of Astana. It was a rainy day when we set out to visit her.
She is preparing bags of food for the poor. She invited us to attend an animal sacrifice where part of the meat is donated to the poor. She was going to collect meat for the needy.
Warning!
I declined the invitation, but Elder A and Emin went to the sacrifice.
This is the list of those who are receiving the donated meat.
