Kazakh Song

So if you read the last post, you know that Chris mentioned something about us writing a song on the way home. . .well here it is!

Kazakh Song
By
The Mad Hatters

Not a lot of planning
But no one was demanding
Didn’t know much
But we kinda had a hunch
That God had a plan
To use us in Kazakhstan
We started off with nine
But not once did they whine
Despite the lost bag
And a little jetlag
Got welcomed by Resurrection
With whole hearted affection

Chorus:
We thought we would survive
Until we hit bus 95
Coach was crawlin’
Ocho was fallin’
We took other busses
That made no fusses
Some babushkas got mad
And Bobblehead got sad
But we made it out alive
From that evil 95

Week one started with VBS
With much success
It wasn’t hard to gage
How much they loved Page, Page, Page. . .
Pavl put us on a squad
Then we couldn’t move our quads
But the orphans didn’t care
And learned to play fair
We got started with street ball
Where the turnout wasn’t small
Pops, Coach, and Tricks played a good game
Despite the reffing that was quite lame

Chorus

A 4ft noodle started it all
Next thing we knew the stone started to fall
Tyler and Maxim were racing cross town
While Coach’s stone came plummeting down
As Captain Karate taught that morning
Coach appeared there without warning
We finished church and headed for the park
Hoping to finish the tourney right before dark
We plotted and planned to finally contrive
How to survive the deadly 95

Chorus

Moved on to sports camp
Where everyone was a champ
Blue Crew and Red Machine
Did better than one could dream
Balls kept coming at McDaggett
Almost like she was a magnet
In between taking pics
Snappy got in a few kicks
Getting taxis Coach got good
Wear our hat down the neighborhood
Getting a taxi record 12.5
Kept us alive form the evil 95

Chorus

We had 9 soccer teams show up ready to play
We felt like rotisserie chicken by the end of the day
One big freckle Fresca was ready to turn
While the rest of the team was feeling the burn
Macaroni and snickers were the food of the day
When Krafty and Munchie showed up to play
Then there was the walk, halfway down from heaven
Executed by the magnificent seven
As we made our way down
With help from the taxi clown
Made a mad dash with the police at the gate
Hoping the girls in the back didn’t duck down too late

Chorus

Caught the new bus, 31 was our ride
It was equally terrifying but nobody died
We found hood hats at the Green Bazaar
We got help from Lefty and Danica’s car
The plane ride was ridiculously long
That gave us time for this Kazakhstan song
Each rider must carry their own pain
We’re hoping for some sleep before we go insane

We thought we would survive
Until we hit bus 95
Coach was crawlin’
Ocho was fallin’
We took other busses
That made no fusses
Some babushkas got mad
And Bobblehead got sad
But we made it out alive
From that evil 95

Way home

Wow, what a wonderful trip. We're now on the plane heading to San Francisco reflecting on the trip. All the girls and Don are in 6 sits together, and so are working on a trip poem, page and Tyler gave up their seats and so will be coming out tomorrow, chris and Derek are just meeting some new people on the plane. At the airport in germany we got to spend a short time reflecting on the trip and one thing that continued to come up was god's faithfulness in answering prayers. This trip really has been marked by that and we have to thank you, our faithful prayer supporters, for lifting us up. Our last night in Kazakhstan we had a time of reflections, prayer, and worship with our family in Kazakhstan. It was an incredibly encouraging night and one that many team members saw as giving purpose for the trip. The nationals mentioned how much they saw the unity that our team shared and began to make steps to build that within themselves. It was one of the most encouraging things ever to see them exchange phone numbers for the first time. It was such a sad time of departure, but we are all excited to go home. 
We have all learned a lot and have grown from this experience. Please continue to pray for us as we try to apply what we've learned and pray for those in Almaty, those who we truly love more now.

Germany

We're on the plane in Germany headed towards SFO. We have had such a wonderful time and are somewhat ready to come home. Tyler and Page are trying to give up their seats for some who want then, so pray they are able to safely make the same flight tomorrow.
See you all soon, our flight's ETA is 1205 Saturday.

On the way to the airport

We are now on the way to the airport so that we can head home. Please pray for us to easily get through security and onto the plane. We had a great, but very long day. Last update to come soon.

While we're sitting at a kids soccer tournament....

Sorry for not updating since Sunday morning, we've been incredibly busy.
First the basketball tournament: We had 70 teams with around 250 players plus spectators for over 300 people altogether.  Way more than we expected!  We had quite a few people come and look at our table which we had loaded with tracks and other literature.  Unfortunately we didn't always have a translator close by so we missed a few opportunities.  But God knew and brought many people who spoke some English so we did have some good conversations.  God answered our prayers for no rain on BOTH days...which was so amazing!  There were no serious injuries, which is always a praise. Both nights we got home really late. Saturday the bus engine was burning up and so we had to find another bus. Sunday lasted late, but Don has able to share a good analogy of everything coming down to a free throw just like our lives come down to one decision. While we were not allowed to preach the gospel, everyone there listened intently to Don's words. 

  Our sports camp started yesterday and other than being just a tad sore (and by a tad I [Taryn] mean quite sore ), we all push through the pain and soreness to give the kids a great game.  We haven't had too many kids but then again we didn't advertise it very well.  It is all working out exactly how God wants it to and that is comforting! We did have some community kids join us for soccer today and we hope to bring more as the week goes on. Please pray for more kids to come, that we will have energy to play with them, and the gospel will be spoken while we show what it means to live as Christians. 
Yesterday we were able to travel up to the top of a mountain overlooking the city and just pray for the people of Almaty, that we would have a heart for them as Jesus did. We also were invited to a local's house for dinner, meet his friends and had the best Mexican food I've [chris] ever had outside of the Americas. We got to experience the sardine effect on the bus ride as more and more people crowded into the bus. We had to literally push our way through the crowd to get off at our stop. 
We're still all in pretty good health, just tired, but excited for the rest of the week. 

Thanks for your prayers. 

Slava boga!

Praise God!!! Don walked in half way through Chris' sermon. He is doing much better and in amazing spirits. His quick recovery and joyfulness through it all is such a blessing and encouragement to all of the team. Resurrection had prayed for him in their service and not an hour later he walked in to the church to everyone's amazement. It is just another example of God's sovereignty and perfect plan for His children. We are now on our way to our second day of our basketball tournament. Please continue to pray for opportunities to share the gospel and for people start relationships with the people at Resurrection.

Don

Pleat pray for Don as he is experiencing major pain and needs to see a doctor to get some strong medication. So we are taking him to a doctor's clinic.

No rain!

Praise god that it has not rained since we began praying for it! It was cold and cloudy yesterday morning, but it did not rain!
Tomorrow, Saturday, we have our basketball tournament. We have 60 teams or 3-4 people signed up, so you can do the math on how many people we have there. Please continue to pray for no rain during the tournament and for the logistics to run well. Most importantly pray for opportunities to preach the gospel as we are not allowed to just preach it from up front.
More stories to follow soon.

Ps. As of right now we cannot upload pictures, but if webcam figure it out, they'll be up soon.

Weather

It's suppose to rain the next few days here, so if you can pray for it to be dry the next few days during our activites, so people will come.

Thanks!

Rainny afternoons

7/21 blog
It's Wednesday and it's raining outside again! On Sunday it started to pour out as we were on the bus on the way back from church so we had to run like mad from the bus stop to our house. Compared to that today is nothing!
So far we've had 3 successful days of VBS (only 1 had rain) and a fun day of Olympic games with some orphans. We had our own little talent show for the kids where Tyler did some volleyball tricks and Page showed off some sweet basketball skills. They will be participating in the basketball tournament. We may have a girls team as well with our very own lovely ladies participating.
Thankfully no one is sick and everyone is in high spirits. Our plans for next week are even coming together, praise God. 

Please pray for us as we do things in the heavy rain with people and for the basketball tournament this weekend. We have to come up with some sideshow events while people are getting ready to play. We can not publicly proclaim the gospel, so we need individual opportunities. 

Thanks for your prayers and support,
Kaz team

We're here!

So, we made it to Kazakhstan. We had a few long flights, but praise god, no problems in travel  We only lost one bag, fortunately it was not a personal bag. Unfortunately it as the bag with cliff bars...which made some members of the team not so happy!  The girls had an interesting first Kazakhstan experience......we woke up to the sound of our shower beeping at us.  None of us could figure out how to turn it off...so after an hour and a half the boys came and rescued us by unplugging the speakers!!  
We'll update more when we can. 
Thank-you all for your prayers. 

And we're off!

So the first group of us heads off tomorrow! Page will be joining us a day later and Don at the end of our first week there.

As we head off we just wanted to let you all know how you can be praying for us in the next few days:

• Safety in travel and that all our bags would make it there with us. But also prayer for flexibility in the case that things may not go the way we had planned or would like them to, that we would remember that God is in control and has a plan in all things.


• Prayers for our attitudes with each other and that our actions will stay focused on God, especially as we get tired and frustrated (we leave SFO 2:15 Friday and arrive in Almaty 2:15 Sunday morning. . . we'll let you do the math on that one!)


• Also prayers for team unity and that we would be open with each other when we are struggling with somethng and able to encourage one another.


• And last (for now at least!) prayers that in all our words and actions as we are traveling that we would be a light for Christ to all whom we come in contact with.

Oh and we finally have a team picture!!

Thanks for all your prayers!!!!

Almost Ready. . .

Hello. Welcome to the NorthCreek Church Kazakhstan Team Blog. We plan to use this as a means of communicating with those who have committed to pray for us. Our team of 10 leaves on July 16 for the missions trip to Almaty, returning July 31. With less than 1% of the people proclaiming faith in Jesus Christ, Kazakhstan is among the "least-reached" countries in the world. We are joining with Resurrection Church to further its outreach into their community.

Team members are Chris Bogstad (team • leader), Tyler Berry, Derek Brooks, Kristen Cederwall, Natalie Csider, Taryn Daggs, Elizabeth Errington, Mary Lee, Don Menez, Mark Peterson, and Page Roberson.

While there we will be involved in a VBS outreach to Kazakh and missionary kids, an outreach at a government run orphanage, and a sports outreach to high school and college students. In all of the activities, the goal is to share the love of Christ in word and deed and to provide contacts for follow up by the believers from Resurrection Church.