Delegation Preparation

Happy Mother's Day to all the mother's reading this.  I am so thankful for my mother and the way that she built into our lives.  I am thankful that she chose to allow us to be adventurous even when it might have scared her a bit.  I wouldn't be in Kazakhstan today if it weren't for her encouraging me to follow God's plan for my life and being willing to let go of me in order to allow me to travel halfway across the world.  I am also extremely grateful for my grandmothers and the blessing they have been in my life as well.  Their support has always been an encouragement to me.  I realized today that this is the first mother's day without my Grandma Coggins.  It is kind of sad to think of not being able to call her and wish her a Happy Mother's Day.  I am blessed to have the mother and grandmothers that I have.  

This week has been one of preparation for our first full delegation.  We have four people arriving on Wednesday, adding to the two already here, to make a total of six delegates.  They will be in-country for one week.  I have been working this week with two of the members of our youth department to set up a schedule for them.  Setting up a schedule includes thinking through activities, translators, transportation, and participants for each activity.  Our entire staff gets to be a part of preparing for the delegation.  The delegates are going to be living at the house with us, so Vicki and I are thinking through meals and other items together.  

I realized the other day that you might enjoy hearing the story of how we make lasagna, since it is a bit more complicated than in the States.  Vicki and I went to the bazaar the other day and purchased some of the items needed, included cheese, ground beef, curds and cream.  

The cheese is purchased by the kilo (or portion of the kilo).  In this case we purchased 2 kilos (4 pounds) of cheese.  They cut the cheese from large blocks of cheese and then weigh it to make sure it is the amount that we request.  The sellers are really good at estimating the exact quantity of cheese to cut.  We then shred the cheese and use it in the appropriate layer of lasagna.  

We don't have ricotta cheese here, so we have to make our own.  We purchase the curds (what would be our cottage cheese with the liquid drained off and dried some).  Then we combine this with a thick cream that we purchase.  As we purchase this and the cheese, we are encouraged to taste them to make sure they are good quality.  

The other day as we were walking out of the meat house in the bazaar, we noticed some exceptionally good ground beef.  Sometimes we choose not to buy ground beef at the bazaar, but this looked like some of the best ground beef that both Vicki and I had seen.  I find it kind of funny that ground beef would catch my eye and I would be excited.  We decided to go ahead and purchase 4 kilos (8 pounds) in order to make spaghetti, lasagna, and hamburgers for next week.  The seller had to run across the way and get some more ground beef (which looked as good as the first).  This was cooked and put aside to be combined with tomato paste and juice and some spices in order to make the sauce for the lasagna.  

Lasagna noodles can now be purchased here, so this makes our job a lot easier.  Due to the busy schedule when the delegation is here, we will probably put the lasagna's together a couple days early and either refrigerate or freeze it until it is needed.  

It was fun to go to the bazaar and see the cheese seller that still remembers me and others that I have bought items from before.  With those that I knew, I had to explain why they hadn't seen me in a while.  With those that I didn't know, we had to convince them to speak Kazakh (not Russian) and then explain why we know Kazakh, how long we have been here and all the other info they wanted to know.  Despite the fun of seeing those I knew and meeting new sellers, about an hour at the bazaar is enough for me and I was glad to return home.  

I hope you all have a wonderful week!  We are hoping for some sunshine since we have had an unusual amount of rain here these last few days and we need the sunshine to dry the clothes and bedding hanging on the line and around our house.