My brother and sister-in-law get wished "Fertility and Motherly Love" by their Russian friends.

My brother Basil and his wife Edith (her Russian friends call her ‘Edit’) travel to Russia about twice each year for Campus Crusade For Christ. They have a team of Russian Christians setting up meetings with ‘teachers, professors, Educators of all kinds’ for their trip into various regions of Russia. I say various regions, because Russia spreads nearly half way around the globe (world). From Moscow airport to where they were at Lake Baykal this last trip, was a seven hour plane ride and still many miles to the Pacific coast yet from there. It appears on the map it would be another three hours by plane to the Pacific coast of Russia.

They landed at Irkutsk on the shores of lake Baycal which is located directly north of Mongolia. Russia is hungry to get back to Christianity and governments are asking Campus Crusade to teach a curriculum to their educators of Christian ethics of -“Love and Kindness for others”. Basil and Edith are dedicated to their mission of bringing this love and kindness to Russia and I urge them on to even greater achievement.

During these trips in the last fourteen years since brother Basil retired as a high school gem teacher, he and my sister-in-law Edith have been to Russia more than twenty times and can count hundreds of Russian teachers who have accepted Christ and the Christian life.The new friends they make and the old who become the Russian work teams have given, and given and given again the most popular souvenir of Russia, the Matryoshka (Babushka Doll) or a similar object of craftsmanship.

MATRYOSHKA - Was a very popular name for a peasant girl before the revolution that brought Communism to Russia. The name of the doll comes out of the name Matryona for motherly person. Matryona is derived from the word Mater in Latin for mother.

So out of all of this the doll has taken on the symbol of motherhood and fertility.

The outside largest doll is the mother and each similar or different doll nesting inside are her family, which extends the motherhood and fertility theme into a reality of nesting or stacking dolls.

There can be as little as three in a nesting or as high as twenty dolls stacked inside each other.

The one in the middle does not open and is considered the newest baby.

Artistry and the hand painting of these wonderfully beautiful dolls brings out the brightness of the souls of Russian people. The dolls are all hand painted in bright oil paints, each colour dried before another added. When oil painting is complete, the whole set is glossed with a lacquer finish that makes them shine. See the reflections from the plastic top on our sitting room table.

The Matroyshka was first inspired in Russia from similar type painted objects from Japan and began being made as early as 1890. The craftmanship and eye for beauty has come forth in all colours and ideas you can imagine, The stacking dolls are also sold in plain, unpainted wood for you to give your own flare for art a whirl.

The Traditional MATROYSHKA or BABUSHKA DOLL has become the most popular souvenir of all Russia.

Babushka is a three cornered scarf that is tied around the head like a hat using two of the corners. Babushka has also become the loving name given to an old grandmother.

There are hundreds of variations all in splendid bright colours or brilliant themes.

Themes include

- Stacking Santa Clauses

- Russian Presidents

-American Presidents

-Cats, Dogs or Horses and/or

-Momma, Papa, Jr, Sis, bro, sis, etc. etc.

The dolls are made from wood of the linden tree (basswood) dried two years to give it stability. This wood is also quite strong but light weight. They can be made with other woods but most are of linden wood.

I have given you pictures of some of the various that brother Basil and wife Edith have had given to them. They don’t buy them but come home every time with two or three or more. Edith says, “Good thing they are light weight”.

Please enjoy these pictures and pray for the wonderful ministry that is bringing Russia back out of Communism and into Christian Love again.

It is truly a miracle what is happening from this missionary work. Hundreds and yes even thousands are becoming Christian believers from their efforts.

I pray in the name of Jesus for them and All Peoples to let Love shine like the littlest of babushka/Matryoshkas of Russia in our hearts.