Luke's BIG Movie

Enjoy the movie and as always write us and tell us how you're doing!

The Kids Entertain Themselves

They entertained themselves and now they entertain you and I.

Enjoy

Good fun with Great Friends

Here we are in Istanbul with some dear friends of ours. We don't get to see them very often so we treasure each opportunity. We had a wonderful dinner cooked by my beautiful bride and then enjoyed some relaxing time of just talking about where we've each been and how our Dad is working in and around our lives.

We love these people and these times.

Remember the Work

Here are a few pictures of one of our last HC meetings while we were in the Ukraine.


Two of the people work with our co., three are Ukrainian believers that love my Dad and work hard, three are Canadian workers and one is seeking and one is the mother-in-law of the Uk believer. A few adults were not present in the picture and all but one of the children are in a different room.


Please remember this new little HC as they meet each weekend and share the news to all they can.

Courts teacher Max

Here is Max, my teacher for the past 3 months. What a great help he was. He was always so patient with me and every day came up with new ways and chanlenges to help me learn this difficult language. He is so talented and is teaching in a local highschool as well in one of the universities there in the city.

Jennifer and the kids language teachers in Ukraine

Here are the kids and Jennifer's teachers. Kate was Jennifer's and Sasha was the kids.


They did a great job and worked many long hard hours teaching us for the 3 months we were there.
We will miss them much.

The Lukester

Hello everybody!! I'm a wild and crazy guy!!

I miss you guys and you might not even recognize me I've gotten so big.

In this picture I'm on the top of a HUGE Ferris wheel that I've been begging Mom and Dad to take me on. Its in a park near our house here in the city we are living in for now.

I like it here but I'm ready to go back to our other city.

Miss you and I hope you like seeing me as much as I like to be seen. :)

Luke

Grant's 8th birthday

Grant was very excited to get two remote controlled cars for his birthday, one from us and one from friends!

A trip with friends

This was a little day trip we took to a beautiful city on the coast of the Black Sea called Yalta. We are over looking the city in this photo. It was a beautiful day as you can see and we had a cool breeze blowing on us all day. We had a great time and very much enjoyed our time there with our friends.
See the man behind us? We didn't until we were home looking at our photos. :) His friend was taking a picture of him as he hung dangerously over a 1500 foot cliff. He obviously wasn't fearful of heights.

A Saturday field trip!

We've decided to make the best use of our time here in the Ukraine and so we try to fill our Saturdays full of exploring and seeing as many of the awesome local sights we can. This is one of the most prestigious Orthodox churches in the Crimea. It's located in Sevastopol in the southern most part of the Crimea.
Is was built right on the Black Sea and is on the same site as the oldest know civilizations in this area. These are Greek columns from a building that is said to be 2500 years old! I think they even say that this was some sort of a church in that day. Maybe even a church that Paul may have visited during one of the three M journeys?
It was one of the hottest days we've had here thus far, but the kids enjoyed it very much.
We're not sure what the significance of the huge bell is, but we just thought it looked cool and everyone else was taking their picture under it so we followed along.

Don't forget about my Birthday Daddy. My b-day was July 15th and I also had a great day.

We went to a huge water park about an hour away from our city here in the Ukraine. We stayed all day and had so much fun!














You can't see it yet but we all got a little sunburn from this day but it was worth it. Love you guys. Faith

Hello everyone July 6th was my 10th Birthday. I had a good birthday but missed you all not being here to celebrate it with me.
We even have a McDonald's here in the Crimea and I asked to eat there for my birthday lunch. It taste just like the McDonald's back there in the US.
Love you guys and miss you lots!! Come see us and pay no attention to my weird brother with his eyes crossed.
Love you,
Whitney

The Call

Five times a day we are serenaded with this little tune and we thought you might enjoy hearing it. It's a 5 times a day reminder to remember the work. As you listen please think about their dedication to their r and test your own level of resolve. How often do you speak to your father? What did you say to Him the last time? Even more importantly, what did He say to you?

Trip across the Bosphorus to the Europe side of the city.

Hope you enjoy a cute picture of a brother and sister that for the time look like they love each other. :) They really do love each other but some times have a weird way of showing it.
The second picture was take by Jennifer who is becoming quite the little photo bug.
The call to prayer had just sounded not long before this picture was taken. To get the full effect of the scene you need to see the picture and hear the call. It's a very moving experience! Moving is a term I use to speak about the plans/passions my Dad has given me.
During this 20 minute boat ride I was given the opportunity to have a very interesting talk with a young man that was sitting next to us. He was very much a part of the majority r and sparked the conversation by asking if I was a concerv___ chri___. Even though he spoke very clear English I still had to ask him to repeat what he had just asked me. I was very surprised to hear him ask that question.
He said he thought we were because we were foreigners and had 4 children. We spoke for about 10 minutes about many things concerning our beliefs and left with a friendly handshake and a smile when the boat docked on the other side. It was a very encouraging talk because I could see that this young man was very intelligent and searching for truth. I don't know his name, only his face but I will remember him every time I close my eyes and I trust that I'll see him again some day. Pr.
I tell you this short story to show how helpful children are in the work. They break down barriers and open doors that would hardly be possible any other way. What a blessing to know that the plan includes and uses all parts of the family. We are truly blessed!!

Well we're back amomg the masses in the Big Bird!

We are now back in Istanbul among the masses and mosques. We'll be here until the end of the month when we'll be moving to the Ukraine for 3 months. We are enjoying the beautiful sunsets and the great food but we are also very much missing our friends and team mates back at home in Nineveh. Thank you for your thoughts and words of encouragement. We miss you guys very much and

This is a picture we took out the window of our apartment a week or so before we left. It's not the first time we've seen such a beautiful sight out our window and each time we see this we are reminded of our Creators promise and His great power to make all things new.

We Hope for the day we see this sign in the hearts of our people and not only in the sky above them.

Welcome to our Mc D's

This is our Mc D's! Yep the real deal only it doesn't taste anything like the real thing. :) We've only gone there once but it was a little different.

Their sign used to look just like the real thing but we thank they were made to change it to what you see now.

When you walk in you feel like you just stepped into a Mc D's there at home. hahahha The good thing is that the kids don't beg to go like they did back in the states.

Mount Elbrus

Say hello to Mt. Elbrus the tallest peak in Europe! It's just under 19 thousands feet and snow covered all year. We live only about 2 hours from the peak and were able to go this day with some expat friends of ours from another city.

This is Mrs. Janah our kids language teacher in our city. She's great and the kids love her!

It was hard for the kids and equally hard on Mrs. Janah to say goodbye for the next four months. We'll miss her but we're happy to know that we've made such a friend and that the kids will be excited to get home and back to language study.

A view of the TOP!

Yes It's Real!!!!! He made it, I took it, you see it!

Enjoy it!! We took this while on our adventure of a 900 year old Balkar village.

Come see us and we'll take you.

A few pictures from a walk we took near our city

Here we are walking through an orchard on a Sunday headed to a hill outside of town where we had decided to have a time of worship. It was a beautiful day and we very much enjoyed our time with the Creator of that beauty!
We've enjoyed many walks like this in the hills that are to the south of our town and we love that it only takes a few minutes from our apartment and we're there.

Here we are taking a walk just outside of our town.

It's only a few minutes from our appartment and we love walking here.

Luke made an amazing discovery on the road we were walking on.

Love you guys!

We will try to do more in time but it's hard to get to a place that has highspeed.

Enjoy our newest attempt at family video production.

Filmed and produced by the Jetsons.

Grant was laying face down in the snow, not sure why but he stayed there for a long time. If you can hear the kids at the end of the video they scream with joy as they go down the last and steepest part of the hill.

Mommy got a good workout.

Love you guys.

Part Two, "The Conclusion"

This is part two in the video log of "Luke gets hip deep in the snow!"

In this video we see the conclusion of Luke and his mother getting stuck in the snow drift.

King of the Hill!

We had a blast in the Big Bird Blizzad of 08, especially Mom!

Luke had a little trouble in two wheel drive but mom came to the rescue!

Enjoy it, I know we did!

Big Bird Blizzard of 08!

We miss you at the Big Bird Blizzard of 08! Oh what fun, we spent most of Monday with the kids out playing in the Turkish delight. Along with half the city.
I'm amazed at how may people, young and old come out to play in the snow. We live near an open area they call a park, it has some trees and a few muddy trails but everyone and there brother come to it on days like this.
They were sledding down the few small hills the park has on anything they could find. Plastic bags, trash can lids, a cookie sheet from the oven... It was soon funny to watch grown men sliding down a hill in a foot of snow on a plastic grocery sack!
Jennifer, through her resourcefulness found a very large plastic banner near some trees and we clamed this as the Jetsons sled!! 4 could fit on at a time, others were staring with envy.
It is 10:18pm here right now and still I can hear the laughter of kids out sledding on the streets in front of our apartment. They love this stuff almost as much as I do.

A day of fun in the Turkish snows of Istanbul!

It's been snowing for two days here in the Big Bird and we took some time to enjoy it this afternoon. We had a snowball war and thankfully there were no casualities! :) Although I will be very sore in the morning.

This wasn't your sisters snowball war, it was an all out full contact snow in your face war!!

Thankfully the kids had pity on me and didn't hurt me to bad.

Friends Food and Fun!

This is a picture of us with some of our frinds from the Farm. We had a great time eating Mac D's and catching up on all that's happened in our lives over the past 6 months. We had a great time and we miss you guys! Keep up the great work.

The Jetson Gang

Week 3 in the big Bird

Were doing great in the big bird. We've been here for 3 weeks now and time is going by fast.

We received word yesterday that our LOI's are done and should be sent our way very soon. PTL!!!!!! and pass the VISA's!

Once we have our LOI's the visa process is supposed to take only 2 weeks. So we could be headed to our city in about 3 weeks!!!!!! Very exciting, as nice as this place is we can't wait to get into our city and get on a schedule of language learning and living.

We will need to find an apartment once we get there and this may prove to be a Him task as apartments are few and far between.

The kids are doing great and seem to be enjoying their time.

talk at you soon.

Apartment with a view, but of what?

Here is a view of what we see from the window of our appartment.

What a view! What do you see?

It is quite a reminder each time I look out.

Do you remember?

Five Days Antalya Turkey

We're back in Istanbul now but a few days ago we were in Antalya. Antalya is a nice little city of a few million people nestled just between the Mediterranean Sea and the mountains.

What a beautiful place, I call it paradise!

We spent 5 days at a hotel just outside of there while we were in
meetings with our company. During our free time we could enjoy some relaxation along some of the most beautiful cost you've ever seen. The water was emerald green and so clear you could see forever.
Most mornings I would go out and watch the sun rise over the Sea. What a beautiful site. Man can my God paint a picture.
Here are a few pics of the boys on the last morning we were there. They thought it was pretty cool. We also watched as a few fishing boats went out to work. Our first day we even decided to go swimming, that was swimming in January. What a great and beautiful time in the sun!

Both of these pics were
taken without the boys
ever getting up. Sea on
one side and the mountains
on the other!