We Bought a Farm: Russians in my Kitchen

My life, to me, feels quite normal. But when I say it out loud, people look at me like I have six heads. 

Like when I say, “Our Russian friends, Ivan and Uliana, were in the neighborhood in-between truck driving gigs and asked if they could stop in for the day and do some work in exchange for laundry and a kitchen.”

It comes out just all natural. But the response from my friends is always: “Seriously?”

So they came. But we had ballet, and JB had to work so I just left them on the farm. They are running line and cleaning up paddocks and cooking us crepes and doing laundry and petting the dogs. 

I suppose this isn’t altogether normal? But it’s our life. I keep telling God, “No more people. That’s enough.” But in the same breath I tell God “Thy will” and He says, “More people.” And so when they text or call I say, “Come on over.” And usually they bless me as much as we bless them. 

We asked that our farm would be a place of refuge and respite for anyone who needed it. Over thirty volunteers have since called our farm home for days or weeks or months or years. Tijmen and Jacob and Anni and our Russian friends are regulars now. 

And I listen. I keep listening. I’ve given up telling God what I would prefer. He always shows himself and makes it perfectly clear. 

Thy will.