Fun with Russian

The longer we live here in Russia the more certain Russian words become permanently ingrained in our vocabulary to such a degree that we sometimes even forget the English word. Before we moved here I had heard of that happening and often thought it such a strange thing. “How could someone actually forget a common word in his or her own native tongue?” I would ask myself. Now I’m beginning to understand. Take for instance around our house. We go to the store about every other day for food, and so a grocery list is constantly being added to. Here’s a sample of what a typical list might look like.

-Milk
-Eggs
-Farsh
-Vegetables
-Smetana
-Diapers
-Slivki

Now, unless you speak Russian, I’m certain that some of those words were unfamiliar to you, particularly the words “farsh, smetana” and “slivki.” What make it even more interesting is that these words are normally written using the Russian letters, so the list actually looks like…

-Milk
-Eggs
-фарш
-Vegetables
-сметана
-Diapers
-сливки

So what are these mysterious objects? Well, they’re really nothing strange. “Farsh” (фарш) is simply ground meat. It can be any kind of ground meat like ground beef, pork or even chicken and turkey. Yet the word has become ingrained into our vocabulary to such a degree that the other day when I was talking to a friend back in the States I couldn’t think of what to call it in English. To us it’s just “Farsh.”

“Smetana” (сметана) is simply sour cream. Over here it tends to be a bit more soupy than typical sour cream one finds in the States, but it can be bought in different percentages, and most people prefer it in the liquidly 15% form. If one buys it in the 40% it’s basically identical to American sour cream. But again, for some reason we’ve simply come to call this substance by it’s Russian name.

Finally there’s “slivki” (сливки). This is simply cream, very similar to “half-and-half.” It is sold in different percentages of creaminess also. The 11% kind is basically identical to half-and-half, and the 44% is pretty much like heavy whipping cream. I’m still clueless as to why the smetana comes in increments of 5% creaminess and slivki in increments of 11%. I’m sure there’s a reason for this, but as a friend warned me, “Don’t ask such questions, you’ll live longer.”

There are lots more words that have entered the word bank that I could describe here if I had time. But here’s just a few more…

chai (чай) – tea (chai is simply regular tea, not the Starbucks version of chai)
shkaf (шкаф) – a closet or cabinet
syr (сыр) – cheese
yolka (ёлка) – Christmas tree
kolyaska (коляска) – baby stroller
shapka (шапка) – cap or hat
probka (пробка) – a traffic jam or blockage

So one of these days if we’re ever talking to you and suddenly a strange and unusual word slips out you’ll know why.

Missionary Isaiah

Several weeks ago Thomas asked me to write about an interaction that I had, so here goes…

We’ve begun visiting some other churches in town in order to broaden our ministry a little bit. One of the churches actually has families with young children. We were really excited to meet some other kids!

For those of you who don’t know, we keep Isaiah in the service with us. This started out as a necessity because most churches here don’t have nurseries; but now it has become our preferred habit. We really like having him sit with us in church. Because we had been taught to sit still in church by our parents, we knew that we could teach Isaiah to do the same. We didn’t know how long it would take, but it has paid off, and he (usually) sits through our church services very well! Not to compare, of course, but the other children at the church that we attended were, well, crazy. They pretty much did whatever they wanted to do during the service. The pastor just kept on preaching, though; I think that the people were fairly accustomed to the way the children acted.

After our first visit there, we started attending a Bible study with this group of believers on a semi-regular basis. At one of the small gatherings, the dad of some of the kids at the church told me that after seeing how Isaiah sat and listened during church and folded his hands for prayer, he and his wife decided that their kids could do that, too. So they started to teach them.

The next time that we were at this church, we noticed a huge difference in their children! They really did sit quietly and obey very well; and the mom and dad were “on top” of their behavior. But don’t worry, they are very loving and affectionate parents.
We were encouraged that without even specifically trying, we had been able to show this family what we had been taught from the Bible by our parents (good job, Mom and Dad x 2!). In some ways, this means that our parents are missionaries, too, you know.

Please pray for the Christian families here, they are few.  They have not had the benefit of Christian parents to teach them for generations and generations as often has happened in America.  But they are teachable, and they want their children to know God.  Please pray that we will have opportunities to help them learn what we have learned.  Please pray for the body of Christ to grow through families.