Things I learned during the winter

Since winter is almost over I thought I would share a just a few things that I have learned this winter. With the changing of the seasons also comes a new learning curve and this winter brought a new wave of weather and learning.  Here are a few things that I have learned so far this winter:

1. You have to learn to walk on the constantly changing terrain of packed snow/ice on the side walks and roads.
2. Breath through your nose, not through your mouth.  Apparently it is better for you.  Some days your nose hair does freeze when you breath, but that is better then the coughing that happens when you take a deep breath of cold air.
3. Your scarf will also double as a face mask and yes you will look weird with only your eyes showing but at least you are warm.
4. Somehow the women here still look really fashionable in their winter outfits and their high heel shoes. I just look like the Michaeline man.
5. You will slip and slide as you walk.  Sometimes you will fall but you just get back up and keep on walking, just at a slower pace.
6. At the right temperature the snowflakes look unreal and are so vividly beautiful that you can see every tiny detail on each unique snowflake.  Just a reminder of how awesome God is.
7. On some days your legs and face will go numb after five minutes, that is ok, you will warm up later. Just keep moving, you will be fine.
8. It will not snow once the temperature drops below a certain point, but this means that it will be sunny with blue skies.
9. Don't walk close to the buildings.  Some of the icicles hanging from the buildings are massive and are known to kill people every year in Russia.  So take the warning from the mom in A Christmas Story when she says "Those icicles have been known to kill".
10. Not all thermal pants are created equal.

The Funeral

We stood in the back, squeezed between six other groups of families and friends mourning the death of their loved ones. The candles in our hands lit,  our heads covered in scarfs, and the priest reciting different prayers from a book (chanting then followed each prayer) and performing the traditional funeral ceremony.  The caskets lay in the front as the immediate family surrounded them.  Our friend Angela's grandmother had died last weekend and we went to support her at the funeral.  This is the first funeral that I have attended since being here, and this was also the first non-believers funeral.  What do you say to someone who's loved one just died and they weren't a believer?  All the encouraging words or sayings weren't appropriate.  So we told her we loved her and were praying for her, because that is all we could do.  We couldn't tell her that her grandmother was no longer suffering or that she was in a better place, because her grandmother wasn't a believer.

Funerals in this culture are different.  In a culture that values the group above the individual I shouldn't have been surprised when the priest was doing a group funeral for Angela's grandmother and six other families.  Being at Angela's grandmother's funeral was a reminder of just how many lost people there are here in this city and country.  Not only here but around the world.  So be in pryer for Angela and her family as they go through the grieving process and that during this time their hearts would be turned to the Father.