Gifts for Our Hosts

My information packet included instructions to take gifts for our hosts in Russia. Family photo albums were suggested as a good gift so I decided to put my scrapbooking skills to work. Creative Memories sells a product called a "photo sharing card" that allows you to use eight or ten pictures and do a little bit of journaling about them. I'm going to make several and include pictures of my house, where I work, my church, Charleston's Sternwheel Regatta, Hawk's Nest State Park and the Capitol Building. That should give my new friends a sample of what life is like here in West Virginia. I put the first one together Friday night at Dee Rogers' CM workshop in South Charleston and it looks really cute!

Back from Emmaus

What a wonderful weekend! I was the Music Director for this weekend's Women's Walk to Emmaus. As usual, it was a wonderful, mountaintop experience and it's a little hard to come back down to real life, but that's the way it is. I was able to share my plans for my mission trip to Russia while on the Walk and to talk to one of the other Team members who has been to Russia in the winter. Her best piece of advice was to take every piece of warm clothing I have!

Kids' Presents I Still Need

You all are great! I have almost all the things I need to make up the Christmas packages for the Russian orphans we will be visiting. (Each volunteer is responsible for 25 kits.)

Thanks to Jean Young and her granddaughters - they hit the stores and bought all the gloves, nail polish, lip gloss and most of the hats that I still needed. Also, my dear friend Elaine Anderson has pledged all the hand lotion I will need. Here's the list of what I still need:

Girls' make-up (other than lip gloss) - 25 of each item
(Since I have 25 girly items I'm not going to need boys' cologne. If you have already purchased some for me I will see that it gets to another volunteer for use in their packages.)
Winter hats - 9
Toothbrushes - 22
Toothpaste - 15
Erasers, pens, pencils - 25 or more
Girls' socks - 25

It's going to be such a joy for me to see the faces of the kids when they receive their Christmas packages. I promise to take lots of pictures to share with you when I get back!

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures

I keep learning a little more all the time about blogs and uploading images and all that. I don't understand why, but I needed to post this picture before I could load it into my profile. I think I could delete it now and it would stay on the profile page but I've fooled with it too long to risk losing it now!

Anyhow, this is one of the pictures I'm going to use in my mini-albums I'm taking with me on my trip to give as presents to our hosts. I'm also going to use a picture of my house, of the building I work in, a shot of the boat races in the Charleston Sternwheel Regatta, and a picture of the choir at church. I hope that will give my new friends a glimpse of my life here in West Virginia.

Other Travelers

In this month's edition of "The West Virginia United Methodist" (the church's official newletter for the state) there is a nice article titled "Russia trip introduces Wesleyan students to global outlook". The newsletter is online but unfortunately this article didn't make the cut for inclusion in the online version. Anyhow, it tells the experiences of six students from W.Va. Wesleyan College who spent their May class term in Russia exploring the history, music, religion and culture of Russia. They also worked with special needs children.

Quite unexpectedly, I heard about two other travelers who I think will be on the trip with me in December. I e-mailed a library colleague about something the other day and sent her the link to my blog when she asked what I had been up to lately. It turns out that one of her co-worker's husband and son have been on the summer mission trip and are planning to go again this winter. I can't wait to talk with them - it's a small world!

Odds and Ends

I'm sorry I haven't posted for a while - life has been busy!

This past Friday night Central UMC held a fund-raising spaghetti dinner to go along with the City of Charleston's "Doo Wop Car Rally" celebrating the classic cars of the '50s and '60s. The rough numbers are that we served close to 400 dinners (about 75 pounds of spaghetti with meatballs, salad, bread and dessert) and made at least $1000 profit. I call that a success but boy, it was a lot of work! I was in charge of the drive-thru out in the parking lot working with six young men from Charleston Catholic High School who were earning community service credits by working the dinner with us. They were a hoot to work with - I had the best job of the day!

The other event that is taking a lot of my time right now is being on the Team for the upcoming Women's Walk to Emmaus. I'm the Musical Director for the weekend and we meet once a week for about six weeks before the Walk to prepare. (If you're not familiar with the Walk to Emmaus check out the website: http://www.upperroom.org/emmaus .)
It's a wonderful experience but it takes a lot of preparation time. This will be the third time I've been on a Team since my own Walk.

I'm starting to get some donations of glove and hats for the Russian Orphans' Christmas packages. They are so cute! I've gotten a couple bottles of nail polish, too; I wonder how "Wild and Crazy" colors translate into Russian?!?