kaz it was great

Let’s give ya a Kazakhstan update…

Kazakhstan was O’hana’s second ATL month. To give you a recap of what ATL means, it is a month when we ask the Lord what He wants us to do every single day. In the mornings the team would meet together and ask the Lord for words and visions of what He wants us to do that day. 

For three weeks we stayed at an amazing hostel in Almaty. We had bunk beds that had curtains to close yourself off to the world whenever you wanted–this introvert was in heaven. There was also an adorable cat named Archie at the hostel who was our entertainment committee. We had so many conversations with the guests at the hostel. Some of the people live there full time, some just short term. I loved the hostel environment and just the natural curiosity in conversations about what you do with your life and where you are from. It was also just such a homey atmosphere. We lived about a 35 minute walk from our favorite grocery store that didn’t like giving change back (I didn’t get it). We also had a creek near our hostel that I would walk too and I also made friends with the minimart lady and helped her with her English and I could practice my Russian. 

The girls loved going to coffee shops and making friends there and some of the guys ventured off to join Team Reckless to help out with Young Life. We also helped out once a week at an English club, board game night, and connected with ministries making so many new friends. 

Kazakhstan is well developed. There is an underlying racism feel although the locals would share against it. Being a country once “owned” by the USSR, the Russian and Kazakhs may or may not be friends. You are free to believe what you want—Islam, Christian, atheism—but you can’t try to convince others to believe in it. 

This was a month I felt more myself. I had to have some hard discussions with some people and really get bold and brave in certain situations. But it was a good month overall and I started applying what I had learned the last two months.

The end of the month we traveled across the border to Kyrgyzstan and the guys on Team Ohana and Team Agape joined up for man-istry ATL month and us girls on those teams joined up as our own team for the month…intros and team name coming asap! 

Check out the Kaz youtube vlog linked below if you want a visual! 

Also—-after my monthly people come in…I AM FULLY FUNDED!!! More info coming about this soon (;