Halloween Party, Children's Hospital and Children's Home

Halloween is not celebrated in Kazakhstan, but that did not stop us from having fun!  One of our American families had a party that we enjoyed.  Here is the Bergeson family (and little Eileena looking on.)

Olivia and Zoe

Noah and his dad.  I tried to get all the kids together, but that just did not happen!

 

Katia and Galia think Americans are crazy!

 

 

Lots of yummy food

Now Zoe has baby Harry and Olivia is fixing her costume.

 

 

 

This is our monthly "Linger Longer" after church last Sunday.

 

 

This man runs the organization for the veterans of the Afghanistan War.  He was an interesting man.  He said he does not understand Americans because during his war, the Americans were helping Al Queda, but now we're fighting against them.  When he saw our card with the Church's name, he asked about Mitt Romney being a Mormon, so he is keeping up to date with U S news.  We enjoyed meeting him.  He is trying to help the veterans of the war to be employed and productful.

 

 



We had another project closing this week.  The church obtained this electro-encephalograph for the Children's Hospital.  They are demonstrating its use for us.  The machine they had previously was so old that they could no longer obtain replacement parts.

 

We also got to visit the nursery of the hospital.  These babies have been abandoned by their families.  They have illnesses but when they recover, they will be sent to an orphanage.  I wanted to take one home with me!  Sometimes they need volunteers to rock the babies, but right now they have plenty of student nurses that are caring for them.

 This one has so much hair, he reminded me of a couple of our grandbabies!

I've made a few baby caps that we donated to the hospital.

 

 

 We visited a children's village in Astana.  These are group homes with about 6 children and a group mother.  The boy's eyes sure lit up when I said I wanted a photo of them!  And I noticed how tidy their bedrooms were.

This looks like a nice neighborhood until you get too close.  The contractor cut corners while building the houses, so there is very little insulation and it is cold.  Also it is far from the city, so some people have moved out and gone back to the city.  The house below was donated to the orphanage by the city, but they have had to obtain donations to repair it to make it liveable.  Last year they had a garden in the back, but did not plant this year because of the remodeling.

When the youth get older (9th grade), they are moved to another home with more kids in the hopes that they can learn to be independent.  Because when they turn 18, they are no longer in the state's care. 

 

This facility would like some beds for the children when they become ready to open it again.

 

 

Primary Program!

These are our lovely Primary children.  They sang "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus" for our Sacrament Meeting this week.

 

 

 

Galia, who is in our English group and taking the discussions is a teacher.  She invited us to her class to let the children practice English with us.  It was great fun.

They gave reports (in English) about Sports and about Attractions in Astana.  There's a clown in every bunch!

 

 

I have to add this sweet photo from home.  It is our Heather's little Chloe and Sunny's new baby Amber on her blessing day.  Our littlest angels!

 

Various Organizations

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.

These little girls were waiting to perform at a program of handicapped children.  Their native Kazakh costumes are lovely.

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.