Part 3 about Mr Grass is posted!

Go to the end of "The Story That Grows!"

errata

If you read the story about the old man's question, I have changed a bit at the end that was not quite accurate. Thanks.

For the Foodies ~ a Puzzle!

This is a posting with the requirement that if you read it, you must post a comment.

But there is a caveat!
(No, not fish eggs! That is caviar. Something different.)

If you already know what this is, can you kindly NOT post?
Let the ones who don't know leave a comment.

Thank you.

If you are in the know, and you feel you must post,
you could taunt the uninitiated, I suppose.

What is this??

One interesting part of the packaging here is the spout at the top
with the screw cap ~ like a tube of toothpaste.

When you figure it out, post the comment.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......

Can't figure out, eh? Don't know Cyrillic letters??

Okay, here is a hint:
Below is another picture of something in the same category~
same kind of packaging and often used in the same context, but not always.

What is this??

And what is this?

Please, post your comment!!

HINT:  Once I heard of a poor man who came to America from a Southeast Asian country. He still had not learned how to read English, but he worked hard so that he could buy something to eat. He walked up and down the aisles in the grocery store, and he examined all the boxes, cans, bags, and packages with beautiful colored pictures of food on them. He was most interested in a large can, about 8 inches high, and 6 inches in diameter. It seemed to be the best choice because it had pictures of fried chicken, corn fritters, and apple pie on the label. He selected this one because it held the promise of an entire meal. He was sure that it was a good choice because the can was heavy. He knew it was completely full because it didn't slosh or rattle when he shook it. He took it home, opened the lid, and was utterly surprised to find it contained only a wretchedly tasteless white fatty goo. He had been fooled by the pictures on the label! It was a can of Crisco.

Mr. Grass -- a Story That Will Grow

Mister Grass ~ Part 1

Hi kids!

On the day Grandma came to stay at my house, I was just a head.

O

(NO hair.)

But Zhenia took good care of me:
           
              ~ She soaked me in water!

                     ~She put me in the sunny window!

                              ~She waited patiently for the water and the sun!

Ha Ha!!

' ' '

O

A little bit of hair!

What do you think will happen next??

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mister Grass ~ Part 2

Hi kids!!

Two days have gone by.
It is very cold in Moscow, but it is sunny in my window.

Have you been wondering what Mr. Grass has been doing?

                              Is he growing?

                                                   Hmmmmmmmm?

                                                                      We need to see.

Here is what he looks like two days later!!

                                   ' ' ' '                       | | | |

He used to be like this:     O      then:        O



What will happen next??

I have a question for you to think about:

Do you think he closes his eyes at night?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mr. Grass ~ Part 3

Here we are on the sunny window sill where Mr. Grass likes to sit.

Hmmmmmmm

                      What do we see here?

                                                Can we see Mr. Grass today?

Is he hiding?

                       Come out, Mr. Grass!

                                                   Do you see him today?

Let's look again, and this time, call out:

MR. GRASS!  MR. GRASS! WHERE ARE YOU??

Do you see him now?

No?

But I am guessing that you can see someone else!

Who do you see today?

Hi Miss Kitty! How are you today?

                     Are you sitting in the sunny window sill this morning?

                                                  Have you seen Mr. Grass today?

Miss Kitty thinks that we should look more carefully in the next picture,

because she has seen him this morning. Look again!

Do you see Mr. Grass now?

                                   Is he hiding?

Ask him to come out:

                                    
                                  Come out, come out, Mr Grass!!

Ha ha! Now we can see him!

My my, Mr. Grass has so much hair today that pretty soon, he will need to get a hair cut!

                    What are you doing today Mr. Grass? 
                    Are you having fun? 
                    Where are your friends?

Mr. Grass has two friends swimming by!
They need some names. Can you name them?

Fish 1 is ________________________ 

and

Fish 2 is ________________________!

We need some stories about Mr. Grass,
            and Miss Kitty,
                   and Fish 1
                          and Fish 2.

Let's play HIDE and SEEK!!

                  Who should hide first?

                               Fish 1 says, "I will hide first!"

Can you see Fish 1? I think you can.

And Mr. Grass has found him too!

                                            Now Fish 2 takes a turn to hide.
                                            Who can find him first?
                                            Can you find him before Mr. Grass does?

  

There he is!

Now it is Miss Kitty's turn to hide!

Now Miss Kitty is hiding,
and Mr. Grass finds her because he climbs

and

high             looks

up                               down

         way                                               to find her.

Mr. Grass found Miss Kitty because she has such pink wiskers!

Now Mr. Grass takes a turn to hide!

Do you see him? Do you think that Miss Kitty sees him?

Miss Kitty cannot see Mr. Grass because she is looking in the wrong direction!

Which friend has found him, Fish 1 or Fish 2?

I think that Mr. Grass has such long hair that it is too hard for him to hide now!

Maybe you can play hide and seek with your baby!
Peek a boo is a fun game! ~ Love, Grandma

Walking on Ice ~ Part 1

Ice is a tricky thing.

I may think that I'm doing fine, and then one missplaced step--
                    and a foot slidezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....
                              and
                      jerkkkkkkkk!!!!!

Irina, the dear sister who locks her arm in mine, keeps me upright!

              Count on it--not too often, but just a tiny bit--
I help keep her up when she has a tiny slide.

We all know who the clumsy one Is, eh?

She reminds me of the wonderful verses about this matter:

Ecclesiastes 4:12 says,

And while a man may prevail against the one, the two will withstand him;

And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Actually, for three of us to link arms and walk on the sidewalk together is not bad, but it might block traffic because we still walk just a bit more slowly than the experienced Russians. You know who is keeping things at a sedate pace probably.

Ha ha. I always thought of myself as the quick one. And just to slide off for a moment on the stream of consciousness, I used to always wonder why does the Lord judge just the quick and the dead? What about the slow and the living, or the good and the bad, or the beauty and the beast, or the fickle and the feeble, or the slippery and the strong?

Irina reminds me of the wonderful verses in Exodus about the standing boards in the tabernacle:

And         you
shall      make
the     boards
for           the
tabernacle of
acacia wood,
standing   up.
Ten      cubits
shall   be   the
length   of    a
board,andone
andahalfcubits,
the   width   of
each      board.

If a board is one and a half cubits, it means that it is only half of a whole unit (three!). Every believer is a half unit needing to be matched by another to form a complete unit for God's building.

I am finding that I need the others.

And speaking of skating on Ice as I walk, do pray for me that I will be filled with the Lord and mingled with Him so that I can go in and go out among God's people here in the wonderful, all-fitting humanity of the Lord.

Do you see what I mean?? Thanks!

Getting Out the Door

February in Moscow in the coldest month of the year. It seems that the Russians have it figured out--unlike the Texans. In the winter in Irving we used to put a coat on in the morning (and maybe a hat and some gloves), but by noon it had warmed up, and the kids would forget to bring all the coat stuff home in the afternoon after school. So the result was that when it was cold in the morning, we always went without enough on to really be warm, even in those mild winters.

I will describe how to be warm.

This is typical of what I wear in the office, so I put it on and come out of my room to eat breakfast with the sisters.

Then it is time to leave, so I go to my room, and I put these things on under my clothes.

Then I go out to the hallway where all the coats are hung and the boots are stored, and I put these things on.

Yes, I know it looks like I have four hands, but what I am trying to show here is that since it has gotten below freezing, I wear glove liners under the leather gloves.

Then we go outside as quickly as we can because as soon as all this stuff goes on, it's too hot for indoors.

As soon as we are outside, the snowy cold greets us, and the coat with the fur lined hood, the scarf, the two sets of gloves, and the boots make me feel warm and comfortable.

Here are the sisters. We have all dressed enough to be warm.

Here is a picture of the snow on the walk to the building where we work.

This is a good day, because there are some days when there is more ice than snow. We link arms, and it is so helpful--we don't slip as much. I would have thought that it would be more likely that I would slip and bring both of us down, but the other sister helps me to stay standing. Amazing.
Here is a picture of one place where there is a yellow building on the left:

And snow covered bollards going down a street on the right of the sidewalk:

Then we get to the building, and as we open the first set of doors, there is a blast of hot air to greet us. It feels nice because our noses are just a bit nippy. We greet the guard and go up the elevator to the third floor.

By the time we get there, we are starting to get just a bit too warm, so it is nice to take off the coat with the hood, the scarf, the boots, and the two sets of gloves.

We do this in the coat and boot room. We can hang the coat on the rack, and there is a bench to sit on to take the boots off. The shoes that I wear in the office are left there from the day before, so I put them on over the socks.

But I am still warming up too much, even with the coat off, so I go straight to the lavatory to take the under layer off.

This stuff is not needed. I switch to regular hose that go with my shoes.

Then I emerge wearing my regular clothes.

When we go to lunch, we stay in the building; there is a nice cafe there. So I stay in these clothes all day long.

Then it is time to reverse the process.

I go to the lavatory, and put these things back on under the regular clothes.

Then I go to the coat and boot room, and I get these things on for the walk home.

As soon as the coat with the hood, the scarf, the boots, and the two sets of gloves are on, it is time to go down the elevator and out the door, because I get too warm rather rapidly.

We say good-bye to the guard, and walk out of one set of doors. Blowers are blasting warm air, and then we open the next set of doors, and the wind is blowing refreshing cold air, and snowflakes are gently falling. It is fun to be out in the cold because it is warm inside all the layers of clothes.

This Texas gal is really enjoying the coldest month of the year in Moscow!

"Is Not Thine a Captured Heart?" ~ Part 1

This morning Zhenia (who speaks Russian and English) and Gayaineh (who speaks Armenian, pretty good Russian, and a little bit of English), and Arla (who only speaks English) spent time early this morning to pray over some verses and to sing. We did it in at least two, but I'm pretty sure in three languages*. It was very sweet. For three-language juggling, the point we were impressed with is pretty deep. We enjoyed so much that for the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose, we must live a life of consecration by having a change in our concept of value. The life of consecration, the life of giving ourselves as a vow to the Lord, is the issue of the change in our concept of value. Oh, the Lord is so worthy, so we hold Him above all else. First Peter 2:7 is the verse we prayed over together:

"To you therefore who believe is the preciousness;
but to the unbelieving,
'The stone which the builders rejected,
this has become the head of the corner.'"

This wonderful verse follows the phrase:

"rejected by men
but with God chosen and precious."

So as we gave ourselves to this lovely, precious One, there was such a sweetness and a sense that nothing is better, more reasonable, or preferable than loving and treasuring Him.

I had spent some time looking at the last chapter of Leviticus since I had woken at 5:00 and had to do something quiet while others were still asleep, so here is what I found in the footnotes to the verses:

The offerings are types of Christ. To present an offering to God indicates that we realize we cannot do anything to please God; hence, we offer Christ to God as our replacement that we may be accepted to God.

A vow is a bit different. Leviticus is a book on what God has done for our enjoyment, so it ends with God's aspiration that we vow to devote ourselves to Him. God has done everything for us, and now He needs us to enjoy Him. At the end of Leviticus, God expresses His aspiration and expectation that we vow to devote to Him whatever we are, whatever we have, and whatever we can do. The purpose of this devotion is that we would enjoy the Lord in all that He has purposed for us.

Then after we had prayed together, it was still dark outside, so we had time before breakfast to sing a hymn in three languages, which is so sweet--one of my favorites:

Hast thou heard Him, seen Him, known Him?
Is not thine a captured heart?
Chief among ten thousand own Him;
Joyful choose the better part.

     Captivated by His beauty,
     Worthy tribute haste to bring;
     Let His peerless worth constrain thee,
     Crown Him now unrivaled King.

Idols once they won thee, charmed thee,
Lovely things of time and sense;
Gilded thus does sin disarm thee,
Honeyed lest thou turn thee thence.

What has stripped the seeming beauty
From the idols of the earth?
Not a sense of right or duty,
But the sight of peerless worth.

Not the crushing of those idols,
With its bitter void and smart;
But the beaming of His beauty,
The unveiling of His heart.

Who extinguishes their taper
Till they hail the rising sun?
Who discards the garb of winter
Till the summer has begun?

'Tis that look that melted Peter,
'Tis that face that Stephen saw,
'Tis that heart that wept with Mary,
Can alone from idols draw:

Draw and win and fill completely,
Till the cup o'erflow the brim;
What have we do to with idols
Who have companied with Him.

So as we finished the hymn, it was then time to get busy and start the day.

This is all in a context of the fellowship through the weekend. The college-age young people had finished a week-long training, and two young sisters had shared with us at lunch on the Lord's Day about their time of sharing with one another, praying for one another, and giving themselves with a vow to the Lord to enjoy Him in a thorough way by getting into the Word daily, praying, and contacting the Lord. One of the young people is the dear one on the left.

The meeting that morning had been a reminder that when we see the highest peak of the divine revelation, out of that flows the life practices that intensify our enjoyment of the Lord. So daily we call on Him, pray-read the Word as the Spirit, always rejoice, unceasingly pray, and give thanks for all things, not quench the Spirit, and highly regard prophesying because this builds the church. If we have really seen the vision, this is the result.

So a day of serving with the sisters took place...of which I have not had time to digest how to explain how that is going, but the last two days have been very profitable. At the end of the day, Gayaineh and I were exhausted, so we laid down and took a nap while the house was quiet for a little while. Here is a picture of Gayaineh.

Here is a picture of a young sister named Ilena who came to the Tuesday night home meeting and brought with her Sonya, a girl who grew up in the easternmost parts of Russia near Japan.

Sonya came from a Moslem town and a Moslem family. Seven years ago she came to work in Moscow, but before left home, she had told her parents that she was not satisfied with Islam and was interested in knowing about Christianity. Of course, they were very much against that. After she had been working in Moscow for about four years, her mother and two other women in the village back home apparently had the same dream on the same night, and as a result, her mother had a word for Sonya: "What you are about to do is good." Well, Sonya got saved, and evidently her mother had given her blessing to it--at least inadvertently. Then she came to her job at the cafe with a big smile on her face, and everyone knew that she was very different. She had brought a big cake, plopped it on the table, and announced, "I am ready to receive your congratualtions because this is my birthday and I have been baptised." I think she works in a cafe where a lot of Moslems work and eat. They would mock her, and one girl told her that in her village, if someone got baptised, they would be stoned. But for Sonya, the family seems to be resigned to her enthusiasm. Recently her sister was in labor, and the family was told that she and her unborn twins would probably all die. So Sonya got on the phone and called every Christian whom she knew and asked them to pray. She comes from a very small village, so everyone knew what was going on. The mom delivered the twins; however, one of the babies is not doing very well, and we prayed for him. The father has not been saved, but maybe he is wondering what will happen now. Not only so, she told us that when some of the ones in her village are in need, they ask the Christians to pray because their prayers are answered. Sonya has a Moslem friend here in Moscow who was curious, then prayed, and then was wondering about getting baptised, but Sonya and the believers she knows were warning the friend that she had better be sure about it before she gets baptised, because she could be putting herself in some danger. The friend did get baptised, then went back home, met a boy who is Moslem, and now things are not going very well, so we prayed for the friend. Then we sang some hymns to the Lord, and we ended up singing the hymn we had started with this morning. Very very sweet. Then we read some about Exodus 4.

________________________

*Now for a short note that is a bit of shift in tone. (The * means that there is the need for a footnote here because the story that goes with the * doesn't go with the context above.) I have learned how to say Amen in two more languages. Pretty good for this monoglot! Amen in Armenian is pretty easy; it is "aw-men." But in Russian it is "I mean." And here is where the funny story starts. One time several came from Russia, and as they were being shown around the campus in Anaheim, a sister was saying, "I mean, I mean." The brother who was explaining things eventually figured that she was too overwhelmed to explain for herself what she meant, but was trying really hard to get started. So now the sisters here have a small joke that one will say, Amen, Amen (I mean, I mean), and the other will say, "Yes, I know what you mean." ha ha??