My little sister

Can't believe she's all grown up...
Very openminded and friendly...
Very innocent...
And fun!

He that hath given Him a voice is He that hath given a voice
unto all things, that they may praise and glorify Him.

BahÃullÃh

Last Friday we had some friends over for prayers and a simple dinner. They brought so much love and happiness with them, besides their good appetites and funny jokes:) We had some prayers, then we ate delicious food, played guitar and sang, and played some games in the end. People stayed very late and for me it was a good sign that they really had a good time and didn't want to leave. The group was diverse, not everyone is on this picture though. We had some friends from India, Philippines, Singapore, United States and Bolivia, and of course I was there and I am from Kazakhstan:) Picture was made by Amir's cousin Quddus.

Family

I finally felt what it's like to have a family in the Holy Land. At first, when I arrived, I witnessed so many of my friends having their parents, brothers, sisters, in-laws coming visiting them while they are here, and I never even could imagine myself on their place:) It was impossible for my family to visit me due to their financial situation. So it would remain inside of my heart as a wish for fulfillment of which I prayed tirelessly. Finally, when I and Amir decided to get married here my family started talking about coming for our wedding. They really strained all their efforts and with some help they made it! I rejoiced in happiness of being able to visit and pray in the Holy Shrines with them, especially at such an important period of my life! It was amazing! Amir's father was able to come too and stayed with us for another 3 weeks after my folks were gone home. He had an opportunity to volunteer at different departments and visit the Holy Shrines often. It was so nice to have him and be able to share the experiences of the Holy Land with him. After he was gone, we felt lonely for sometime but then life of service has taken over us with all its challenges and joys and we finally could feel what it's like to be married and be alone with each other. Few weeks after we got good news of Amir's cousin coming and serving here for 18 months. This guy brought back the feeling of an extended family to us and we were very happy to welcome him here. And yet few other weeks later Amir's immediate brother Jamal arrived to serve here as well:) I feel like all my prayers were answered and if before I was all by myself, now I have two brothers and a husband serving by my side. I cannot explain how wonderful it is to feel that:) I am so excited and happy! Jamal arrived yesterday and will stay here for 18 months. In 5 months we will be gone and hopefully this half of my family will be able to visit another half in Kazakhstan when we'll join them. I am so grateful that I married someone who values family so much. I think this is one of few things we have in common in our cultures. I just love it:) And, if we are to follow Bahaullah's words of "...all men be as one kindred and one family...." how will we know what's it's like if we don't have a model to look at, if we don't value our own families?

Same and New

Faranak in Peter's Office
Meeting NEW staff that weren't here at her time
Chatting with Quality Control section

Wow, i just noticed that we look so colorful! You can see my mouth is busy chewing chocolate:)

Faranak used to work in the SAME office two years ago. She left the World Centre, happily got married and had a baby. Now she came back for pilgrimage with her NEW family:) It was so nice to see you, Faranak, although we didn't get a chance to see your hubby and a baby. Your presence in the Office even though for few brief minutes brought back so many nice memories to me. When Sahba asked you how does it feel to be back, you said that things are NEW but in some ways are the SAME. I must say i felt the SAME way about you. Marriage and maternity changed you a lot in a good way, i could see NEW Faranak in front of me, but in some ways of course it was nice to still see SAME Faranak that used to serve here with us:) Thank you for dropping by and for yummy chocolate (i had two pieces!). And thank you to Lessan for pictures:)

Devotional gathering

Intone, O My servant, the verses of God that have been received by thee, as intoned by them who have drawn nigh unto Him, that the sweetness of thy melody may kindle thine own soul, and attract the hearts of all men.
(Baha'u'llah: Gleanings, Page: 295)

Devotional gathering at Shadman and Radostina's place was such a delight! Their home is a "home" indeed, full of love, harmony and unity. They are the newlyweds who invited few people to say some prayers. It happened to be Amir and mine two-month anniversary as well:) Hard to imagine more meaningful spending of time with friends than prasing the Almighty together. The company was lovely, very joyful and divers! Outside the World Centre such gatherings are held all over the world with purpose of introducing people to the act of worshipping God and inviting them to study the creative word of God in study circles.

Summer in Israel

Games on the sand - Omid and Ulviyya
Games with the BBQ grill - George, Amelia and Tamila

Cooling down in a shade
Lunch time!
Arnold and Canan - enjoying their time...

Looking at my last posts seems like we don't do anything but swimming in a sea this summer:)
Yes, last weekend we went to the Dor beach which is "a tiny beach town located 8 miles north of Caesarea just south of the Carmel mountain range. It was occupied early by the Canaanites and Phoenicians (www.geocities.com/soho/lofts/2938/histcult.html). Dor was important for the shellfish, which were used for the manufacture of Tyrian purple. Some evidence exists for this being the place where the Philistines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philistines) began in Israel." Here we go, even a beach turns out to be a historical place, that's life in Israel:). It's one of those places after which i don't enjoy the public beaches in Haifa. it's private, clean, waves blocked, clear water, with soft fine sand. So far i've been there on weekends when it was quite crowded and still enjoyed my time there. Now i am thinking of going on a week day or even better at night when i suppose there won't be many people. Looks like Arnold and Canan love this beach as they were the organizers both times i went there. If you are in israel during summer Dor beach is highly reccomended. Pictures courtesy of Tamila Zeinalova and Pash Afaridan.

Sjona is married

the girl from Chile that I replaced in our office got married. I am so happy for her:):):)

Dinner at Cesaria

Amir is contemplating on marriage life after seeing a bride and a groom passed by...:)
Sunset - a little more... Enjoying the sunset...ah...beautiful....
The food is delicious
Salad is simple but very yummy...

Beautiful evening...

Flowers of one garden

Beautiful flowers in the garden of life and faithful servants of the Blessed Beauty Samarih and Quddus got married last weekend. Samarih used to be my flatmate:)

Camping in Tiberias

Around 30 people went last weekend to camp on the beach of the sea of Galilee . We swam in the sea which was quite wavy that night, witnessed a gorgeous sunset and had some fun playing games, singing songs and doing yoga exercises under the starry sky:) Pictures courtesy of Tatyana Satpayeva and Patria Aquino.

Happy birthday, mama!

My sister wrote a beautiful poem for our mom. This is just a part from the poem, sorry my clumsy translation:) Мама... Сколько тебе мне нужно сказать.
Мама... Твои руки к сердцу прижать.
На себе ощущать твой усталый взгляд,
И понять, что твои глаза говорят.
Теплей и нежней твоих рук не найти -
Всегда они могут тебя спасти,
И сердце с волнением бьется в груди,
Чтобы выразить все, где слова мне найти?

Mama… how much I would love to tell you.
Mama…to hold your hands by my heart.
To feel your tired gaze on me,
And understand what your eyes are trying to tell me.
Your hands are the warmest and tenderest,
And they can save you any time.
My heart is bitting with excitement-
Where can I find words to express myself?

Tanya and Ilya

First Day of Ridvan

Home cinema

One of my good friends compared a life before marriage to watching a TV set that has a black and white image with some interference. And then she continues that marriage life is like having a colored three-dimensional wide screen home cinema. Of course this is something very subjective and individual but I found this comparison quite neat. I think married life opens up this world from a different perspective on many things and in all aspects, spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical (wow, that makes it a four-dimensional cinema!) given there is love, harmony and unity in a family:)

Zhenya's birthday

Yesterday was a birthday of my close friend Zhenya, a.k.a. Dj. 9 May is also a Victory Day that is celebrated by all former Soviet Union Republics, it's been 61 years since Soviet Union beat (thank you, Leila -- see comment) Hitler in 1945. That is why children born on this day during Soviet time usually are named like Victor, or Victoria, or anything else containing the word Victory in different Soviet languages. Zhenya's real name in Kazakh sounds like Djenisbek, djenis - is victory, so, here you go, see the connection?:) We went to a Japanese restaurant Litchi and had a blast. We were the only ones on the second floor, some of us could even run around and play duel (6 years old Ilya and 29 years old Nuri). All of us ordered different dishes and kept trying from each others' plates, it was so much fun! The food was delicious! It was my first time there, and definitely not the last:) I am posting a picture of Zhenya not from yesterday, but the one I used for the email inviting everyone to celebrate his birthday. He is always like on this picture, with big smile and kind eyes, I mean ALWAYS. ONE HAPPY CRAZY GUY, happy birthday!

Do you like corn soup?

I loooooove corn soup, the way our cook Manu makes it, yummy! Despite of wide variety of soups we have in Russian culture, I have NEVER tried corn soup before coming here. Last night was the night for trying to cook it myself using the recipe I found on Internet. I must say it appeared to be much easier than I expected. It turned out quite well for the first time, not as good as Manu's one, but I am learning...:):):) In any case, Amir's biggest excitement was about me actually cooking for him for the second time since we got married as all this time he was the one feeding me with his delicious Philippino dishes:)

My Green World

Since I have known Amir, everything around me assumed kind of a green character. He works in the gardens and loves everything related to plants. Our new little flat is full of different pots with a lot of flowers and trees, real and bonzais that he grows himself. I am loving it because never before I was so much exposed to nature in my own flat. I can say we are having a little garden in our living room, too bad there is no balcony to put them all on fresh air. He is so patient with them, keeps the windows open to get some breeze, trims them and waters them on time, makes sure those of them that need a lot of light get it, and gets so excited and happy when they are doing fine and start to bloom:) Amir loves to keep some fresh flowers in our bedroom and every morning we decorate our bed with some dried roses' petals . It is interesting to watch Amir doing all this and finding myself enjoying this green and healthy environment more and more. Yesterday I even remembered about plants' reaction to the classical music and now want to experiment by playing some music from Austrian and Italian classical schools and may be some romanticism music as well and see which one they will prefer:)

Dinner last night

Last night we had a wonderful dinner with friends who helped us to organize our day one month ago:) Almost all of them could come except for Mara and Mark who, I think haven't checked their email as they were on pilgrimage for 9 days just before that. We truly missed them, but, nevertherless had a lot of fun. I cooked Russian Borsh (beet root and cabbage soup), a vegetarian version of it, Russian salad "Sunny" with crab sticks, and some Russian style mini sandwiches which we call "buterbrody" (roll your "r" while trying to say the word). Amir cooked Pansit, an Asian style noodles, Chinese spring rolls FROM SCRATCH! They were soooooo yummy! He also fried some fish- and shrimp-balls for a snack. We had a watermelon for dessert with some tea and cookies. We finally tried to use our coffee set that was given to us as a wedding gift, it was fun, as I have never made coffee before on the reason that I don't drink coffee:) Everything turned out so well, and it happened that we did this dinner on 6 May, which is one day away from our 1 month anniversary, and, it was Amir's first cousin's birthday who just came here three days ago for a 18 months service. He is such a sweet guy, his name is Quddus. I was so happy to meet one more family member of Amir after tatay (Philippinos call father "tatay" and mother "nanay").

Hopeful...

When I see a man shedding tears,

I see in it his strength,

the strength to be sincere and genuine,

to recognize his weaknesses,

to be able to be detached from what others say,

to be able to express his true self,

to state that there is something much mightier and powerful than a human being
and that a human being is able to briefly touch upon its essence

by learning how to love,

by making mistakes, fall down and stand up again,

by dealing with life's everyday tests ever hopeful for a better day,

by praying to Him,

by admiring little silly things that surround us,

by respecting women and not only that, by supporting them and admitting that we are equal, that human soul really doesn't have a gender and in God's eye we are His children with the same worries and joys, with the same abilities to be strong and week at times.

I have seen men shedding tears a few times in my life,

but whenever I see it

I never think about him as a "girly weak creature",

I ADMIRE ...

Dinara and Kanat

My dear friend from back home, Dinara, got married the next day i did, on 8 April. She sent me her picture and i was so excited that decided to share this news with bloggers:) She looks so happy and beautiful.

Behi's photography

honey, have some cake:)
gorgeous sisters Mandu and Emem
friendly handshake
singing away
let me look at your earring
very nervous Amir
i am going crazy
much pleased Serghei
Happy Pash
ALWAYS happy philippinos:)

sitting in one armchair and playing Maryam and Ruzanna
beautiful Kara
sleeping father and listening father-in-law
" HALLO", said Thobeka
"hmmmm, how else can i help", Stephanie's thinking
Behi takes unusual pictures, in particular, he likes faces and little details like noses, eyes, ears. etc. He is also very good at capturing moods and characters of people.