As we left the big city of Novosibirsk, where one and a half million people live, we were told to watch for these little huts and garden spots. We were told that the government gave families these garden spots so they could grow food. The people build small houses on their garden spots and then look froward to coming to the country during summer vacation from school. Sounds like even grown-ups have summer vacation from work. There the family live and work in their gardens during the warm summer months, then they are back to the city for the long cold winter. Everyone loves these long summer days at the "Dasha", the summer home, except the teenagers who would rather be in the action packed city.

We saw a few of these cemeteries along the road. There are fences around each individual grave. We need to learn more about cemeteries, they are all outside of the city and there are strong beliefs about where to have them. We"ll have to say more later when we understand better.

Lots of beautiful farm land between Novo and Tomck. The soil was a rich black color that looked like it could grow anything in abundance, weather permitting of course.

This is the bridge coming into Tomck. So far we have seen very little of our new home, but like what we have seen so far.

After two days of training it was off to our field of labor which is a city of 500,000 people about a 4 hour drive from Novosibirsk called Tomsk.  Tomsk is a university town with a small branch of the church.  This will be our home for the next year.  We are excited to be here and are looking forward to meeting the people in this area.