A walk in the Park

In the evening the atmosphere on my street changes.  It goes from everyday business of getting to school, work and the store to a more family friendly atmosphere.  Across the street from my apartment there is a little park where people go to gather and sit on one of the many benches and mingle.  Tonight I walked through the park and around the street and enjoyed the cool fall evening. The parents are out walking their babies in strollers, kids are playing on one of the many playgrounds, a group of boys have a game of soccer going.  

As you walk past the apartments you'll see old ladies wearing coats and head scarfs sitting outside the entrances of the buildings on benches talking and watching the world go by.  Some sit with stoneless faces until a mom and her baby pass, then their face lights up and they begin talking to them. Old men sit and talk and argue about different things.  Dogs bark and run and children chase after them. 

The sound of children playing fills the air.  The train rumbles by just beyond a set of apartments.  People come and go on the buses and the faint sound of car horns is in the distance.  The weather is changing and fall is here.  The trees are changing colors, the temperature is dropping, children are bundled up in coats and hats and slowly but surely dogs are beginning to wear jackets.  

  

Хохловка (The Wooden Village)

Last weekend we went with a group of people who had attended english school back in August to Хохловка.  This 'museum' is located outside of the city and is a village of old wooden houses that were all made without using nails.  It was a fun day spending time with people and getting to know some of the girls that were in my class better and to see what things were like many years ago.  Yes it was the end of August but it was chilly, the weather is getting cooler.

Russian living: White nights

What are white nights? White Nights is the time in the summer (June-July) where there is a short time of total darkness.  At the hight of summer the sun is either out or hovering on the horizon for the majority of the time.  Never fully setting.  Even at 3 am the sky is lit slightly by the sun.  These long days are a stark contrast the the long dark days of winter.  I have learned that you can be out until 11 pm and think that is is only 8pm or earlier because it is so bright outside.  It has taken some adjusting to and learning to go to sleep when you bedroom is light.  A little trick that we learned was that reynolds wrap over the windows will help keep the light out, or if you have thin curtains like our apartment does you can just throw an extra sheet over the window.  It is almost impossible, it feels like to go to bed anytime before midnight, as even at midnight your room has the brightness of twilight (that is with the lights out and shades pulled with a sheet over the window).  I am soaking up as much sunlight as possible as I know that soon I will surrounded by darkness.  Earlier in the summer I was walking back home around 10 pm and there was a really bright rainbow above my apartment building.

The following pictures where taken after 10:00 pm from my apartment window:

The days are beginning to become shorter.  It is starting to get dark around 10:30.  We still have some time left of these long days but soon the days will become colder and the sun will start to slowly disappear.

Russian Living

I thought that I would start a series entitled "Russian Living".  Over the next year and a half I will use this series to give you an inside look at what it is like to live in Russia.  Most things that I write deal mainly with the ministry side of living and working here.  I want to add to that and give more of an everyday nitty gritty look into life here.  Part of my goal with this blog was to show people the whole picture of living and working overseas.  It is my plan that you as the reader will get a better understanding of what culture is like here.  I hope you enjoy this new series.  If you have any questions feel free to leave a question in the comments section and I will try my best to answer them.

English Camp follow up

We have all recovered from camp and we sent the team from Texas back home.  It was a great week and a great encouragement having this team from Texas here.  A few people from camp have expressed interest in reading the Bible with us and some have even joined us for church the last two Sundays.  While camp may be over the work is just beginning.  Please pray that the people we met will continue to be interested in meeting with us and reading the Bible and ultimately that they would come to know the Lord.

English Camp 2012

The past couple of weeks have been crazy.  Layna and I spent two weeks in Moldova waiting for our visas to get approved and mailed back to us in time for English camp.  We knew we would be cutting it close but in our original estimation we thought we would only have to wait about a week and a half for our visas and would be back in plenty of time for camp.  Well that wasn't the case.  Since we had to mail them back to the states for different reasons it took a couple days for shipping.  We were thrilled to hear that the visas had been approved and that they were being shipped back.  Upon looking at the tracking information we saw that our passports wouldn't get back to us until Wednesday July 7.  That meant that they would reach us after camp started.  But the Lord provided and we got our passports earlier.  They arrived Monday in the mail and after frantically texting our supervisor and checking flights, we booked a flight back to Perm the same day.  We packed our bags and within a few hours of receiving our passports we were on a plane.  We arrived back in Perm on Tuesday morning at 5 am.  We caught a taxi back to our apartment, quickly repacked, showered and caught a quick nap and then left our apartment at 9:30 am Tuesday.  We were running on little sleep.  We met the group of campers and the team from Texas (this team consisted of two families and three other volunteers) at the local church and loaded the bus and headed for camp.  There were about 50 people in all.  The campers ranged in ages from 15-36.   

We had a great time at camp.  We all taught classes on America (history, traditions/holidays, idioms, sports, superstitions, etc) and spoke lots of english.  The team from Texas introduced the campers to different American food in a cooking class.  That seemed to be the favorite class.  

Learning how to make BBQ chicken sandwiches

Icing the 4th of July cupcakes that they learned to make

Some campers and Layna posing for the camera.
Tanya, Lena, Rasheed, Layna, and Kostya

Day 2: Learning how to make chicken Enchiladas 

A lot of our time was spent talking over tea or sitting on the dock and talking and hanging out playing games or swimming in the river.  We got to know the campers and just talk to them and hear about their lives and share about our lives and faith.  Each night we sang camp songs and songs that I remember singing in sunday school and then would listen to a short topic.  On the last night we had a talent show and the campers seemed to really enjoy it.  Overall it was a great time and we all had fun. 

Two of our Camper preforming a skit with two members of the Texas Team.

Debbie and Dave preforming "Green Eggs and Ham"

Sonya and Elizabeth preforming a song.

It was great getting to work with this team from Texas.  There church has been partnered with us for many years and they continue to come back and work with us.  We were able to meet some great people and it is our prayer that we will be able to continue to get to know some of these girls during our time here.  There have been some that have expressed interest in reading the Bible.  Pray for the campers and that they would seek the Lord and would be willing to meet with us to read the Bible and learn more.

Making crafts with Debbie

Learning about American History with Dave

Getting ready for announcements 

Preparing to play Ultimate Frisbee

Sonya and I on the bus ride back to Perm after a fun time at Camp

Provisions

Yesterday was just one of those days.  It wasn't because of the pouring rain, in fact I don't mind walking in the rain and with my rain boots and umbrella I was good to go.  Instead it was a combination of many things. Small little things that all seemed to happen at once.  The frustration of not being able to communicate or the look people give you when they can't understand what you said, the frustration of recognizing the words people say but not being able to understand the translation or remember what the word means, getting splashed by cars and buses as you wait to cross the street (and are standing a good five feet from the curb), your credit card not working in a store, the post office being closed when the hours on the door say it should be open and finally the ticket lady on the bus kicking everyone off the bus three stops from your house.  It was just one of those days where frustration seemed to out number the success.

One of the good things that happened that afternoon was that I did find a cafe where you can get a good cup of coffee for only 40 rubles (a little over $1) compared to the 145 rubles (about $5) that has a nice area to sit and get work done.  I have passed this cafe multiple times as I have walked up and down this street in the weeks past but never went in.  Well yesterday I went in to escape the massive downpour and was pleasantly surprised.  Needless to say I will be visiting this cafe again in the future.

After a frustrating afternoon I came back home to decompress.  As I was lying in bed that night I was thinking that if I were to do this full time as a career (I have no idea if that is Gods plan) I couldn't do it alone.  As I was thinking that God reminded that He is all that I need.  He is my provision.  It was as if God was saying "Am I not enough".  BAM! There it was, the smack in the face that I needed, the punch to the gut.  How could I forget that? It is only by God's grace that I am even here.  At the end of the day He is all that I need and I forgot that.  It is through His strength and power that I will make it through these next two years and it is Him that works in the lives of the people we meet here.  I am just his tool that he uses to plant the seed or harvest the fields.  He is the one that makes things grow.

1 Corinthians 3:6
"I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow"

It is through Christ that all things are possible.  So even when the days are frustrating and challenging God is providing me with all that I need.  He is in control and will forever be.