Bekah's Journey Begins

Very early last Wednesday morning, David, Nastya(from Bekah's host family) and Valera, the Foundation driver, were at the airport to pick up Bekah Gibson.

Bekah is a young, 23 year old student from Treveca Nazarane University, where she is completing her Master's degree in Counseling. We have known Bekah since she was about eight years old and are so excited to have her here for a few weeks. She has had numerous international mission experiences, so this is nothing new to her. However, in an email she wrote to us just before she came, she told us, "there is a mystery in my heart about Kyrgyzstan." Perhaps God will reveal that mystery to her while she is here.

Nasta, left and Bekah....a 5:30 AM arrival at the Bishkek airport. Bekah will be staying with Nasta and her mother, Elenya, who is vice-president of the Foundation. They live in an apartment just above us.

We wasted no time in putting Bekah to work. After a little rest following her thirty hour travel trip, she joined us at the Tokmok orphanage, where we teach English twice a week. While here, she enthusiastically agreed to handle both the English lessons and crafts with the kids. I just get to go and love on the kids and she gets to do the work.

Each youngster took their turn at introducing himself to Bekah.

Victor is one who captures everyone's heart when they come to the Tokmok orphanage...actually all the children do!


A game of "around-the-world" with the English alphabet.

On Thursday, we just began working with the kids at the Orlovka orphanage on lifebooks. We are so excited to be able to do this with them. Bekah will work with the same three girls twice a week as they record important information about themselves, their families and their history in a book they can keep.



Bekah will work with these three youngsters for the next two weeks as they write their lifebooks.

This is the first time the children have had the opportunity to work on the lifebooks. Last year, Lynn and Ruby Johnston trained the staff on this needed tool. They have been wanting to do it since that training and are so appreciative of the time given to help them accomplish it.


Friday, we had the opportunity to join the Foundation people at the mountain camp for a weekend retreat. It was a fun time for all of us and gave Bekah a chance to meet many more people. She speaks Russian and that has been so helpful for her to connect with kids and adults, alike.

David shares with the Foundation staff at the weekend retreat.

Natalia, our translator (and much more than that) and Bekah are becoming good friends.

A game of water ballon volleyball....

...we lost

in the mountains...

We have planned many activities for Bekah while she is here, but they are only plans. We want most of all for her to hear from God on what He wants her to do, to see, to hear, to experience.

Thanks for sharing our journey....