nobody's business but the Turks

I just got back from the small town of Artik today.
Our team was split and I went w/ 5 other on a 2 hour marshutka (little buses that I am quite familiar w/ by now) to the town.
The weather was quite arctic (yea, yea, I know. It's a horrible joke, but I am my mother's daughter) , but we managed to stay warm by living next to the space heaters they provided for us. We stayed in the church and were involved in quite a bit of ministry including:
youth services, sunday school, church service, and boarding school program.

It was seriously one of the biggest highlights of the entire outreach for me. The pastor had quite the sense of humor and would tell us several jokes...however, relating to Armenian humor is quite another thing and we found ourselves "sympathy laughing" several times.

I have still not seen Mt. Ararat and am sad about that. I guess I probably did see it since it was clearly visible on our ride to and from the village, but I didn't know I was able to see it...someone on my team told me he saw it after we had already gotten back today...grr.
Artik is high in the mountains and the ride there was so, so beautiful= snow covered moutains surrounded us.

Tomorrow at approximately 5pm we will leave for Turkey...I am in awe of that. We will be traveling by bus (and NOT a sleeper bus) for 2 days, so I am mentally preparing for that.
At least I will be relatively clean. We did not have anywhere to bathe in the church in Artik, so we went to a sauna in town where we could take hot showers for free if we bought lunch from the cafe next door...it had been nearly 6 days since I had been able to bathe! (the last time had been in Tbilisi!) I am getting used to being a dirty girl, though I long for my clean days again...all in good time, eh?

more from me from Turkey if I get the chance, otherwise you will be hearing from me from the warm climate in Isreal...how I long for warmer days!
~michelle/moosh/hannah