Moments of joy

Yura promised me he would get up early today. By 10 Yura and I were out the door and went to visit 74 year old Kladviya. Kladviya told us many things about her life which I have recorded. She also told us some Ket folk tales, even one about how a dog will come and rescue them from heaven. I now need to get the folk tales transcribed so that we can sit down and dissect the stories and try to discover the keys to explaining the gospel. If I think I have discovered something I will write a letter to Gennady and run the idea by him.
The day before the four of us had tried to find the "white lake" but some how we could not get there. So on the Wednesday Gennady and Sasha took us to the white lake. It was a nice walk through the forest. I was aware of the fact that there was no one anywhere around apart from the village of Kellog.


The weather was lovely and 25 degrees, which was very welcome. Up until that day the weather had been 15 and overcast most days. It was just a wonderful time of relating to these men that we wanted to encourage so much. We had a time of prayer and thaking God for his creation at the lake.


(Samuli is taking the photo.)


The walk was very peaceful and quiet. Later on a bunch of kids came along and had a swim in the lake. This was fun to watch too.


Yura pointed out the presence of this lichen. In English it is also known as "reindeer moss". In Russian it is called "ягель" (yagel'). There was plenty of it in all directions which does show that this terrain is best suited to reindeer. I am reminded of the transformations story from the Inuit, that when they had revival in their communities the caribou began to return. I could imagine the same happening for the Ket.


Lichen close up


It is effectively still Spring in Kellog in June. These are the berry plants beginning to grow, although there are no signs of the berries yet. People will collect berries here in August.


Later that day at 6pm we put on a concert for the village in the community hall. Around 50 people turned up. There were a good number of kids there as well as adults. We performed a number of kids songs in Russian. Yura performed some songs in Evenki and in Russian and shared his testimony again. Mika and Samuli also sang a couple of songs in Finnish and one in English with me. It was a real joy to see the smiles on the kids faces as we sang songs about Jesus loving the little children. I know that the children understood this and just know that if they had this kind of input regularly into their lives that it would make all the difference. Some people told us that this concert was the first time they had heard of the love of God.