A turning point...

Part two of the three:

With the beginning of a new year (2013) also came the beginning of a new stage. January began to change and things were starting to get better.  I was able to communicate better, be more independent, and I was starting to find my niche in the city and with work.  In November of 2012 I was out of Russia for an extended time due to visa problems and during that time I truly missed it and was looking forward to being back.  That for me, was a marker in my transition from the struggling stage to where I am now.  Things continued to improve and I started to be more interested in understanding this country and culture I was living in.  I knew so little about this place.  I began to learn and understand the history and saw how it still affects them today.  There is so much history here and while it isn't always pretty, there is a beauty and resilience that surrounds this culture that people over look at times.  

Winter finally gave way to spring (in May) and it was like overnight the sun returned and the trees were bursting with green.  Like the melting of the snow and the blooming of spring, the Lord had slowly been changing and melting my heart.  I began to find beauty in the smallest things in the city.  I began embracing all the things that used to frustrate me and while I was still being rejected by people when asking if they wanted to read the Bible, I wasn't so defeated by that anymore and I would just pick up and move forward.  I was still praying for one girl to disciple and there would be two who would last a short time, but there would soon be one who I would be able to disciple long term.

Out of the past 12 months there is one week that stands out the most.  One incredible and life changing week.  I was invited, along with 2 other people i work with, to help with an english camp in a small city in Siberia. Leading up to this week I had a feeling that something big might happen and my vague prayer had been for the Lord to show me something that week.  After a surprisingly fun 24 hour train ride, a day in a large city and a 4 hour drive we made it to the city we would be working in.  This is also where I saw firsthand the beauty of the Russian countryside.  That was also the coldest summer camp that I had ever been to and the mosquitoes were on a plague scale.  The camp sat on a river (hence the mosquitoes) and had some of the most beautiful sunsets I'd ever seen.  I was fortunate to have a great class and spent time with some great people and most importantly shared freely and unashamedly about God with theses people.  It was this week that the Lord confirmed my calling in life and over the remaining summer I would see it reconfirmed and see the Lord work in ways I never would have imagined.  The Lord had to let me struggle for that first year for me to see and know His plan for me (as of Now, God can change my plan if he wants) in terms of the next step.

The first few months I felt like I was just hitting a wall and then all of a sudden the wall came crashing down.  There were still hurdles to face during 2013 but overall those 12 months were a time of growth, enjoyment, and discovering new things about this city and ways to reach it.  The biggest thing I learned in that year was that sometimes the Lord will ask us to do something and we can say 'yes' and He will then close that door;  because sometimes all He really wants is to know if we are willing.