A Little blogging

I'm in the midst of an insomnia episode and so while everyone else sleeps I thought I'd blog a bit.

First, on our trip to Sheki, yes I did have a million blankets on top of me but I also got additional blankets so the rest of the family could be warn, too. I was bitterly cold. The kind of cold that only those on blood thinners understand and I needed to get warm. The boys and Tim stayed as warm as I did and did not go to bed without blankets. I just wanted to get that off my chest.

We apparently have too many electrical items in our house now. The other night we were without power and water. When we woke up the next morning we were still without power and when our house cleaner called we still did not have power. We called the landlord and it appears we had literally fried the wire into our house and he would have to fix it. It is unclear to us because of the language barrier whether or not we knocked out the power to the entire neighborhood or if several things happened when the power went off. The school is looking into a voltage regulator for us and hopefully that will keep everything running smoothly. In the meantime we are using electric things very carefully and sparingly.

We have electricity now and water and hot water for that matter. All of these things at the same time. It's kind of an exciting thing. We haven't had all of those things at the same time in a while.

We still have not received any of the Christmas packages. With the snow in the US and the snow here I think that things are really, really backed up. One of the bummer things about not getting those packages yet is that Tim and I both have medicine in one of the packages...so hopefully at least that one will make it soon.

While I'm thinking about it. We don't seem to be able to really respond to the posts without responding through this blog. If you'd like to send us e-mail we could respond to something privately. Our email addresses are tim, heather, jt, or joshua@ulrichsoverseas.com. We love email, especially the boys.

It's quite the treat here so far to have very good fresh fruit and vegetables available. Last night we had a cioppino soup, as only Tim could do justice. It was made of fresh onion, tomatoe, cabbage, carrot, peppers (a couple of kinds) potatoes, fish and it was amazing. We go to the fresh vegetable market over the weekends and then have our house keeper chop up part of the the fresh items on Monday and then the rest on Wednesday or Thursday and then Tim makes the most wonderful and amazing foods for us. Those boys have yet to really appreciate that but their bodies will one day.

I can't think of much else going on. We are blessed and we are thankful everyday for this experience. I started Confirmation with the boys the other day. That are so interested in learning about the Bible. I feel so very fortunate that is the case and I'm going to try and milk it for all it's worth. We've been studying in the book of Luke and it was very fun to talk about the authorship and date of that Gospel and then relate it to our lives over here today. As you all know we went to Sheki and Kish a couple of weeks ago. Well the date given as the latest that the Kish church could have been established was 60 AD. The date generally settled on for the writing of the book of Luke is 60 AD. It was fun to have first hand experience to relate to the Bible. Hopefully that was good for them, too. What a privilege to worship Jesus. For people here to come to know Jesus they have to give up a lot. Being Muslim is a way of life and a heritage. To become Christian here is to give up family and heritage. We simply do not know how blessed we are to have religious freedom and a Christian heritage in the US. I pray that will always be the case. While studying about the church in Kish I learned that Islam was introduced to Azerbaijan as recently at the last 1800's. Prior to that it was a Christian area. Makes you take pause and think about what is and what could be.

We love you all!