Family Photo Update- Finally!

I am sure that most of you guessed, but our baby is here! Actually, he’s been here for 5 weeks! Jude was born late in the morning of April 3rd. We love him so much! He’s been a fussy little guy, unfortunately, hence the lack of time to be posting pictures and updates, but he seems to be calming down a bit lately. I thought while he naps and the kids are playing nicely that I’d try to squeeze in a quick update of family happenings. Thank you SO much to everyone who has prayed for us during and after Jude’s arrival! We are so grateful for you!

Jude at 3 weeks

Jude at 5 weeks (sadly with a very bad case of baby acne)

We’ve had lots of wonderful friends helping out. One day Joyelle got to go with the girls on our team to have a day of baking and movie watching! She had so much fun and felt so special getting to go by herself to hang out with her “grown-up friends.”

Easter in Russia was on May 5th this year! Here our our Easter eggs. We also all went to church and had an Easter egg hunt at home.

Our dear friends, the McFaddens, are moving back to the US next week. Here are Jodi, Sam, Andrew, Owen, and Mia during one of our many times playing outside on the playground outside of our apartments. We are going to miss them so much!

The weather has been nice and Jude is happiest outside, so we’ve been having lots of picnics on the benches on the playground! This is from today when our friend Lizzie (and also two of her friends from England who aren’t in the picture) came over to visit.

Silas is now a bike rider! No training wheels! Way to go, buddy!

EMN on the news, English Camp, and “Baby” is officially due!

Today is officially our baby’s due date! We had a suspenseful past week as our team and many of our other friends were out of town or sick, which would have made finding places for our oldest 3 a challenge had the baby been born then. I know many of you were praying, so THANK YOU!!! Now we can peacefully wait for the baby to arrive knowing that we now have an abundance of options for Joyelle, Silas, and Elsie when the time comes. We are so thankful to have such an amazing and generous community around us that can help us while we are so far away from our family. It is an amazing thing to experience the body of Christ truly functioning as family in so many ways as we take turns depending on one another.

Last week, we had quite a surprise when St. Petersburg’s top news station requested to attend our weekly English Movie Night (EMN) to take some footage of our event and do a bit of interviewing. They wanted to include us in a news story about free English-learning opportunities in the city. The newscasters were friendly and excited about what we have going on. This event has been our most popular and effective ministry event since its beginnings about 5 or 6 years ago. Students love it, they get to practice and grow in their English speaking abilities, and conversations about the films are deep and meaningful and often lead to opportunities for the gospel.

This week our team went outside of the city to help with an English camp for about 80 high-schoolers that was put on by a team of volunteers that come each year from the States for this opportunity to bless students through friendship, English teaching, and sharing with them about Jesus. Unfortunately not even Jamin was able to go this year as it was too far away and too close to my due-date, but we are very excited to hear about all that God did during this time. Attending a “snow camp” during high school was one of the most influential experiences as in my young faith, and actually is the time when I consider to have truly committed my life to Christ. I was praying for these students all week, knowing what an important time of life these “kids” are in and praying that they too would decide to follow Jesus with their lives.

Next time I post here it will likely be to share baby pictures! If you would, please pray for a smooth, safe delivery and for our family as we transition to being a family of six!

A few ministry and life updates

Thank you so much to those of you who prayed for us as we went through the pre-school registration process. We successfully completed all of the many medical tests and submitted the needed documents and are now just in the waiting process. We’re so happy to have that done for now!

I am officially “full-term” now so we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Baby Latvala #4 in the next few weeks. I am very tired and uncomfortable, which makes me all the more ready! Please pray for a safe delivery and for skilled doctors. We had a wonderful experience at this hospital when Elsie was born, so I am very thankful that we are pleasantly looking forward to this experience again. There are many things about Russian medicine (even in private clinics) that are different and sometimes uncomfortable for us coming from a different medical philosophy, but one thing I really appreciated about my first Russian birth experience was the focus on the care of the mother. They really made sure that I is well attended to before, during, and well after the delivery, which really helped me focus all of my attention on caring for our new baby. At first I was dreading having to spend more than one day at the hospital (average is 4 at our hospital, but I went home on day 3), but I found that the extra days of rest were actually quite helpful.

(Elsie in the hospital on the day she was born.)

As we are already looking toward next year (the Spring is when a lot of decisions are made for the Fall semester), we are looking at some big changes on our team. Please pray that God will continue to give wisdom to our leadership and individual team members as we see what the coming year has in store. Sorry to be vague, but I’ll share more soon!

This past week a couple of new guys have joined our ministry. Some of our teammates met these guys via a Russian social networking sight that is like Facebook, and upon meeting face to face, they were really excited to become a part of our student movement and are particularly excited to take part in discipleship and to learn to share their faith with their peers. Thank you God for technology! There are far fewer believing men on campus and in the church in Russia in general than there are women, as men for some reason are generally much more closed to spiritual things. We are all excited to have met these two guys and are excited about their enthusiasm to join us in ministry.

Last Friday was “Women’s Day” here. It is a huge holiday where there is a day off of school and work, and men buy flowers, chocolates, and gifts and do other special things to celebrate the special women in their lives. This holiday is for the little girls all the way to the babushkas. Joyelle and Silas both had performances at school and we had two other celebrations during the week as well (with our team and at home as a family). I forgot to bring the camera to Silas’s performance, and the only picture from Joyelle’s came out terribly, but here it is anyway!

(Joyelle is next to the little boy in the red Spiderman shirt)

Thank you for keeping up with our family and ministry!

 

The “simple” process of registering for pre-school

This week we are trying to register Silas and Elsie for a new pre-school for next year. These are the times when I feel like I live in a completely different world. How hard can it be to register for pre-school? I’ll tell you how!

Required documents to sign-up:

- Complete medical records for the kids
- Translated and notarized copies of kids’ birth certificates
- Kids’ passports, visa, registration, migration card
- Parent’s passport, visa, registration, migration card
- Copy of parent’s work contract?
- Copy of apartment lease or record of payment

(The front page of Silas’s outdated medical card… ahem, medical book is more like it!)

The medical record part involves having “a few” tests and check-ups. They want you to have a clinical blood analysis, clinical urine analysis, test for worms, test for some other type of parasite, and test for TB. Then, you must have an evaluation by these doctors: orthopedic doctor, eye doctor, dermatologist, neurologist, speech pathologist, psychologist, surgeon (not really sure what this translates to in English actually).

We have been doing this the “fast way” by going through private clinics. Let’s just say that fast is relative. Speaking of fast, requiring two pre-schoolers to fast for blood work is inhumane. I took Silas and Elise to do blood tests this morning and had to tell them that they couldn’t eat breakfast until afterward. They were starving and there was much waiting involved. Elsie cried for 2 hours. I also was fasting so I could do some required pregnancy related blood work at the same time, so it is a miracle that we survived this incident. I was seriously contemplating just going home and opting to home-school. It was almost that tempting to not have to endure this craziness!

Once you have submitted all of these documents and filled out various forms (and waited in line for some hours in order to be able to do so) you get your first “pass.” This will only happen on the first try if by some miracle there are no surprises. Usually you think you have everything that you need for such things, only to be told that, oops, you need such and such a document as well… Or maybe just need to wait in line for a few more hours to meet the required hassle quota. (Ok, I might be joking… but I might not!) Receiving this first pass means that you are officially on the waiting list to be admitted to a preschool somewhere in the city. You state your preferred school, but there is no guarantee.

This summer we will receive our second pass, if we get a spot, and will find out if we get into a pre-school close to where we live. We take pass #2 to the pre-school and then fill out more forms and officially register at the school.

From here there are more medical tests that are specific to the particular school I guess. The child must then also obtain a separate “certificate of good health” within a couple of days of starting pre-school. Then if he/she misses more than 3 days of school at any given time, he/she needs to get another “certificate of good health” from a doctor to prove that they are not too sick to be at pre-school.

And that’s it! It’s as easy as pie (or maybe just a slight bit harder than making a lemon meringue pie without an electric mixer). I will be very happy when/if we succeed in this process! I always think that it will be the big things in life that God will use to refine and grow me, but right now it is simply the process of signing up for pre-school.

Our first month back!

I can’t believe that we’ve been back in Russia for nearly a month now! Life and ministry got off to a quick start and we are fully into the new semester and preparing for some very big upcoming events. We did face some bumps, however, upon arriving home. We mentioned our crazy travel fiasco and missing bags (the final one was returned 10 days late), and also during that time we battled some more rather serious illness (it has been quite the season of illness for us!).  Silas had the flu, and I also caught the same bug which ended up turning into pleurisy. It was very painful and scary! We were so thankful for skilled doctors to diagnose and treat the illness.

Jamin left for Moscow just after I recovered to attend our annual student Winter Bible Conference. It was a great time for our students to be encouraged in their faith, taught new skills for sharing the gospel with their peers, and to receive vision for how God can use them on their campuses and beyond. Our students came back greatly encouraged and ready to put some of the things that they learned into action back on campus. One of the main topics that they discussed at this conference was how to effectively use social media as a way to relevantly share the gospel. They even had the opportunity to spend an afternoon online putting some of the things that they learned into practice. It is such an important topic for today’s students! Our team also was greatly encouraged. It is always wonderful when you go with the expectation that you’ll be working hard serving others and end up being encouraged and refreshed yourself!

Upon arriving home, the team delved into some final semester planning. We have started meeting with students again and are re-starting our regular weekly events. Please pray that this semester would be a very fruitful time of ministry!

Students and staff at a leadership team event

On the family side of things, I have been fully back into my usual mom-mode, which is a lot busier (more tiring!) than I had the pleasure of enjoying during our time in the US. It has taken me some time to get back into the swing of things, and when adding in the tiredness of third trimester pregnancy fatigue, I’m definitely feeling like my days are very full! But, that hasn’t stopped the “nesting instinct” from getting the best of me. I am kind of resistant to the idea that I am being taken hostage by an instinct, but it can’t be denied that I have felt large bursts of energy to do all sorts of crazy projects to get our house and life in order. I found that nesting+jet-lag= inspiration to do taxes at 7am. I was thankful for instinct being on my side to get that out of the way. Here are a couple of other things that I’ve been working on:

I had a bit of fun organizing and slightly re-doing our room. It has had a portable crib in it for the past 2.5 years for Elsie’s naps. Now that Silas rarely naps during the day, I decided to rid our room of all kid-related items for a couple of months. It will certainly become kid-full again soon, but it is nice to have our own room fully to ourselves again, even if for a short time. I got a couple of new plants and some new curtains too.

Another big task has been getting rid of things! We only have one built-in closet in our whole apartment (we have 2 other free-standing ones), so storage is at a premium. It can actually be quite hard to give things away here because there aren’t thrift stores like in the US, and it can be hard to figure out how to get used but useful items into the hands of people who can actually use them, especially when giving away a bunch of stuff at one time. I found out that some of our friends in the  missionary community do a monthly clothing give-away for the community that they work with, many of whom are in need, so we passed along about 8 bags of clothing. We also passed off a spare car-seat last night to a family from church, so that freed up some space too. I am not sure if you can tell, but I transformed our out-of-service bathroom into a storage closet. Everything in this bathroom breaks continually, so I washed everything down and claimed a new storage space!

The biggest project that I am in the process of is preparing and freezing meals for after the baby is born. Russia doesn’t have the tradition of bringing a family meals after a baby is born (though some of my American friends lovingly uphold this tradition!) since grandparents usually stay with a family for the weeks after a mother gives birth, so before Elsie arrived we got a big deep freezer so we could stock up on pre-prepared meals. Last time I made and froze 30 meals so I wouldn’t have to cook dinner for a month. It was awesome! I hope to do the same this time, though kind of doubt I’ll make it to the full 30. Baby is due to arrive in less than 6 weeks!

So, that’s what we’re up to! Thank you for your care and prayers for our family and ministry! We are so grateful for you!

Our family holiday visit

(Sorry for the lack of pictures! I don’t currently have access to any of the photos that would fit this post as they are all trapped on Jamin’s camera that I don’t know how to work!)

I can’t believe it has been 2 months since I last wrote an update! I sure would love to post regular life and ministry updates, but like many things in life these days for me, there just isn’t the time!

Starting December 5th, our family entered into a time of serious extended illness/injury. We have literally had at least one person sick very nearly every day for almost 2 months, and several of these ailments have required trips to the ER or urgent care, which is very unheard of for our family. Please pray for our health. We are ready to be done with illnesses!

Besides the illnesses though, we have had a wonderful past month. I didn’t even get around to writing anything here, but due to the fact that we cannot take our usual bi-annual furlough this coming Summer, we made a quick family trip back to Seattle to make sure we don’t go too many years without getting quality family time.

We lived with “Nana and Tapa,” which are what our kids’ call Jamin’s parents, and loved getting to enjoy so much time together with them. The kids loved reading with their grandparents, playing games with them on the computer, playing baseball outside (Silas and Tapa, that is), helping in the kitchen (Joyelle and Nana), taking trips to the library, and may other things. Jamin and I loved just getting to be with our dearly loved family, especially over meals, movies, and just enjoying life together. We also spent a number of days as even a larger family as we got to enjoy having Paul and Jen (Jamin’s brother and brother’s wife) and our 3 awesome nephews added into the mix. Our kids and theirs are very close in age, so it is a wild good time when they are all together. We know with confidence that God has called us to Russia, but it is times like these when we are painfully aware of what God is calling us to leave behind (and what our family is called to sacrifice as well). We joke about storing up extra hugs and special moments together to ration out over the coming time before we see each other again. If only it actually worked that way!

We enjoyed a wonderful Latvala family Christmas in Auburn, WA, and just a couple of days later flew to Boise, Idaho to spend a week with my parents in their beautiful new home. They just moved there 2 months before we arrived! We enjoyed getting to spend time with my parents, my “little” brother Jake and his girlfriend Katie, my grandma, and my parents’ adorable dog, Brady, that our kids loved! Among the many special things we enjoyed during our time were conversations over good food, swimming at the YMCA, a trip out to the park and then ice-cream, a family drum session (Jamin gave a djembe lesson to my parents!), going on a hike and seeing horses, and pulling out some pretty amazing memorabilia from our family history. Again, we couldn’t be more thankful for the family that we have been blessed with.

Sandwiched on either side of our time in Idaho, we got a couple of day with Jamin’s Aunt Mary. She is such a loving and fun person with so many interesting things to share. We always enjoy our times with her and this time was no exception. A highlight of our short time together was seeing Les Miserables in the theater with her and Jamin’s dad.

Though this trip was planned to be a short family-focused trip, we had the joy of spending time with a number of dear friend and partners in ministry at a few gatherings at Bear Creek Community Church in Woodinville, WA, and at Grace Community Church in Auburn, WA. We treasure these visits when we come back as we get to be surrounded by those who faithfully pray and partner with us to enable the gospel to go out here in St. Pete. We literally could not be here and the ministry that we are assigned to could not happen apart from this incredible group of faithful ministry partners. We left each of these gatherings so encouraged by our family in Christ and so grateful for the privileged of serving with such incredible people.

We managed a few brief visits with friends, but far fewer than we had wished we had time for. We can’t wait for a longer furlough so that we can get a chance to catch up with many more of the people dear to us!

The last main element of our trip was shopping for needed items for the next year+ before we’ll be back. We try to stock up on things like medicines and kids’ clothes while in town, primarily because we can get these things at far better prices in the US than in Russia. Have I mentioned before how expensive everything is here? You wouldn’t think that Russia would be an expensive place, but prices are actually drastically higher here on most things. I enjoyed getting to stock up on some new baby gear, thanks to some generously given baby gifts. This baby may be the 4th, but I think he/she just might get some of the best gear out of all of them! We got a new car seat, a fancy Ergo baby carrier, some swaddling blankets, and other helpful items.

Our trip culminated with the craziest travel experience that we’ve had to date. It took us over 3 days from door-to-door and there were so many turns of events along the way that I’d have to have take a bunch more time to explain the details. The most important part is that we are just very thankful to be home after having enjoyed such a special trip, and are excited and ready for the new ministry semester!

A few kid pictures

It seems that our first real snow has appeared! Today we woke up to a light dusting that continued on and off throughout the morning and afternoon. The kids had a good time enjoying some good snowball fighting and sliding especially fast down the icy slide.

Elsie is quite a good little mommy to her baby doll these days.  Each day, multiple times a day, she faithfully puts baby down for naps, changes her diaper, feeds her meals, and takes her for walks in her stroller. For those of you who know how much Joyelle loves her stuffed “Monkey” (yes, that is his name), Elsie loves “Baby” just about as much.

I had completely forgotten that I took this picture a week or so ago! And until then, I had forgotten to take any pictures of Baby #4′s growth! Though life is busy and I am not as good about remembering to document pregnancy this time around, we are equally as excited about this little one as we have been about the other 3. This picture is at about 21.5 weeks or so. I’m now nearing the 23 week mark and all is well. We had a healthy ultrasound last week and are happy to have had a chance to peek in on Baby to see that he/she is doing well.