I taught my first Beginner's English class on Thursday. I had two middle-aged pastors, and the one's wife will be joining us next week. I taught them the alphabet, subject and object pronouns, and the verb love so we practiced "He loves her, they love us," etc. I divided the alphabet up into letters that are identical in English and Russian, those that sound different but look the same, those that look different but sound the same, and those that are entirely different. They got it really fast. I know that only works cuz I know their language. Then we memorized 1 John 4:19 "We love Him because He first loved us." For the pronouns we pointed at each other in different combinations and said, "he, she, we, you, they" until they could do it without looking at the paper.
I ate lunch with the seminary students in their cafeteria and two are interested in helping the mission I work with! This is such a God thing - I felt like He really gave me all the ideas, and also that He put me in this place where I'm blessing them and they're blessing me.
I got to see the ballet Swan Lake last night!
Prayer and Praise:
- We're trying to get permission for Tanya to move out of the dorm and into our home sooner than three months, but now
it's coming out that she is afraid of going to church.
- Natasha has been invited - pray for her decision!
- We could get documents for Kristina to come on weekends, but Katya doesn't like her. This is so hard. I love Katya. I love Kristina. I don't want Katya to make Kristina's weekend miserable. I want to get Kristina plugged in with people who will be here longer than Dec 1. I want to figure out what Katya is resenting about Kristina and deal with it somehow. I find myself concealing from Katya when I visit Kristina. Oh help God!
- Now two Russian girls and one British woman want to help our ministry - pray we can schedule a meeting for them.
- Lucia and Vera have a very different approach to new girls. Lucia says to treat them like princesses, buy them ice cream and keep verifying that you love them and want them and think they're beautiful, get them to visit and build a strong friendship before mentioning the rules or attending church. Explain church is a fun concert where everybody loves God and we need you to help us. Anything to not scare them away, and not associate it with their negative preconceptions. Vera says if she was invited to a home she would want to know up front what she was in for, and that there is no point in having girls come for a few months, find out about work and boundaries and then leave. They can make that decision up front. And so she explained to Natasha the whole policies, why she loves God and wants her girls to learn about Him, how much work the girls must do and how she wants to help them, why she believes not having sex before marriage is best for her girls, what a family is about and what they're trying to give them. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I've heard in a long time. But Lucia is afraid it has scared Natasha away. Pray for the relationship between Vera and Lucia through this, for the best balance to emerge, and for Natasha to not be scared away.
- Vika came to Swan Lake with us along with her boyfriend. They were so absorbed in each other that we didn't really bridge to them in any way and I was going to give this one up, but at the very end I found out she's trying to teach herself English and maybe would want to meet with me for that.
- On Saturday I'm going to see Gulia together with Olya and Sasha for the first time
- On Sunday at home my little sister is getting baptized without me!
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