Craig and Debbie Rayner

Our first visitor, Alice Keen.

As we arrived in Kazakhstan we were aware of the three things that we had been told to do by dad. The first was come with the Y-family, a group that is constantly asking the question "Why not?" Our second was to come and work with Tien Shan International School. This school is registered as a Christian school in Kazakhstan, which means that we suddenly have words in our newsletter that would not normally be in general use. The third thing was that we were to learn to speak Kazakh. You would think that speaking Kazakh in Kazakhstan would be a foregone conclusion, but no. Kazakh is now the official language, but mixture of people groups means that Russian is the street language, and you will hear Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Uyghur and other dialects of the Turkish root language that covers this part of the world. Logistically, we are struggling with clashes of schedules between the two teams, Y and Tien Shan, but the plus is that the school employs some local Kazakh language teachers, and we have lessons in Kazakh for free whilst at the school.

Wow, an amazing month, January flew by! We are settling in to life here, getting to know the teams that make up the work with both our team and the school. We are both learning tons in my roles at the school. Have seen answers to some of our chats from last year, very excited!

The first was one of the students from last year, he was the one I worked with, We often told the story about his confusion over the place in food with relationship to the MD, He was genuinely confused about grace over food and he did not have any understanding that the MD can speak to him! Anyhow he got past that and the class rejoiced with him as he joined the family! He became so hungry for the Word that he was constantly reading. He has now left the school, his passion is hockey and he was accepted into a hockey school in North America, the coolest thing is that when he was back for Christmas, he met one of the teachers and told him, " I am the only believer in my school" and he is seeing his whole school as his place to shine! wild eh!

The second was for the disabled orphanage, I had seen such a need for a physio to come and people to work in the orphanage to teach them how to love the kids. Well on a visiting team from Germany arrived the week after we did, there was a physio and a nurse, and they have not only set up programs for the kids they also taught local staff in the orphanage how to carry them out. The rising hope especially for one of the boys who before could not sit up, who is now eagerly stating his dream to walk! He can now sit on his own. So thankful! I have promised to keep the team posted as I will go and be part of the Tien Shan team who visit the orphanage each week.

Tien Shan International School is the Christian school we are working at in Kazakhstan and our roles have been carved out just for us. Craig is the overall IT guy with servers who do not talk to each other, a database to get up and running, and a new set of teacher rooms that needed cabling and computers set up. He is running hard to see the database up and running before the start of the next school year in July 2010. Debbie is working with the secondary principle who has been covering for both the secondary vice principle, the elementary vice principle and the director. By the end of the week everyone will be back except the vice principle of secondary and then… In March the registrar goes on maternity leave and the principle of elementary leaves for furlough. So I have had the job of helping to learn as many roles with or without training as I can. Everyone is being very gracious with me, and I am on a steep learning curve. There was a rumour going around that I might turn into a principle, that is not true I am officially the executive administrative assistant. We are working with some great teachers and students who are making decisions about where they will serve, equipping them is part of the reason we love the school. The community is full of life and shines in the community.

Y family member with a German school member.

The Y family is about to start a school. All members of the Y-family are required to attend this school as they join the family. This is the third school of this type that the team will be running. It is much cheaper for locals than the school we attended last autumn (fall) in Colorado. The difficulty is that even though much cheaper, the cost puts many off coming and benefiting from the time with dad. The team leader from Germany describes this school as a "bubble of love", and for many people this bubble allows them to reach a place where they can truly see the reality of themselves, others and dad for the first time, and in doing so, build a life sustaining foundation to stand on. We would love to involve you, our reader in this process. Please let us know if you would like to support this school, with chats or funding. We will be helping out in a number of small ways.

Contact Details

Phone:
Australian Phone: +61 (0)2 6100 3637 This phone number connects with my Skype account and has a messaging service.

Our E-Mail Addresses: and

Current (Kazakhstan) Postal Address:
10a Basenova St
Almaty 050060
Republic of Kazakhstan

Please ensure that any parcel that you post to us is marked as NCV (No Commercial Value.) Parcels with value are often held for ransom.

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Contact details were last updated on the 18^th December, 2009.