Please PRAY for Galina and Katya:
- that I would know how much time to spend with them
- that I'd know which church to invite her to
- that Galina would go to church with me and meet other believers and really connect with some
- that she would not be snatched into any cults or deceptions
- that her daughter Katya would be opened to God as well
- that God would use both my last month with Katya, email correspondance in future, and other believers in her life
Friday, October 26, 2007
"the chocolate game" - try this at home
this is the funniest, most bonding game! we placed a bar of delicious Russian chocolate and a knife and fork on the floor, and you had to put on a coat, hat, scarf, and gloves, and with the knife and fork eat as much chocolate as you can before the next player, who has been furiously rolling a die this whole time, rolls a six. As soon as he does, he takes the coat from you and the next guy gets the dice, and he hopes he gets a bite before the next guy rolls six. It's fast-paced and furiously frustrating - I didn't get a single bite! Aargh!
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Prayer requests
- For litle Marina, who now won't acknowledge that she knows Lucy or anyone from her former family when they visit the dorm.
- For three Natashas, a Katya, Vika, Kolya, Lyosha, and Kseniya who went on a field trip from the dorm to the palace in Pushkin with us on Monday.
- for the American pen pals I have introduced to writing to Kristina and her class.
- for my Thursday night visit to Galina, an acquaintance from America, and her daughter Katya.
- for Masha and Natasha, two girls I met in the park who want to stay in touch and find out more about America.
- For three Natashas, a Katya, Vika, Kolya, Lyosha, and Kseniya who went on a field trip from the dorm to the palace in Pushkin with us on Monday.
- for the American pen pals I have introduced to writing to Kristina and her class.
- for my Thursday night visit to Galina, an acquaintance from America, and her daughter Katya.
- for Masha and Natasha, two girls I met in the park who want to stay in touch and find out more about America.
Friday, October 19, 2007
How I drank 8 cups of tea in one day
I got up and made myself breakfast. It was very cold and there was nothing else to drink, so I had a cup of tea and went to teach my English class at the seminary. We had an interesting conversation about how Russian culture is more emotional.
Afterwards I had lunch in their cafeteria, plov and tea and cookies. They all eat first and then drink tea. Vera told me they are taught that your stomach will rot if you eat and drink at the same time. I still can't eat without drinking anything, it gets all dry in my throat, so I had a cup of tea while I ate and another one while the other people did.
Usually I meet with my friend Sasha for mutual language practice after lunch, but she couuldn't do it so I went across the street to the seminary students' communal apartment to visit Olga, the pastor's wife and the friend of my Gulia. She was home all day cuz baby Matthew had a cold, and they were building an amazing city out of toys. She said, "Hello! Play with him a moment and I'll make tea." Which means, "we can sit and talk about what's going on in your life," so I didn't protest. We had a long conversation about everything from the problems in their church to giving to beggars to relating to Yuliya and Katya to plans for Gulia to her post-partum depression, and I drank two more cups of tea.
I decided to wait for her sister Nadia to come from her college of psychology, so I studied while she put Matthew down for his nap. Nadia was late so I went and drank another cup of tea while she did dishes, and she told me about her husband's salvation story and her experiences in college. Then Nadia arrived, bearing milk and cake "for tea."
I declined this one and just had the cake and some milk while we talked. Then Pastor Sasha came home and so I gave in and had tea and he told me about their trip to evangelize in the villages this weekend, his father's ten years in prison, the difference between real Russian Orthodoxy and what most Russians believe, why he found it easier to work with American missionaries then Korean ones ("American culture is Protestant, but Korean culture is Eastern and Christianiy is new and there are lots of problems" - so interesting).
Then I went home to meet our guest, Larry from America, the supporter who bought this apartment. We had dinner and tea, and then showed him pictures of the repairing and redocarating process, then had more tea, and then he played the guitar. He played "Starry Night" about Van Gogh's suicide, only about Jesus.
"I think that now I understand
What you tried to say
They didn't listen then, they did not know how,
Perhaps they will listen now."
I was just thinking about the orphans we can't reach, those who don't want help, and the endless people on the metro. I have started looking at their faces as they sail by on the escalator, instead of their flashy clothes, and thinking, "the faces of people God loves." They are beautiful faces.
"It doesn't really fit," Larry told me. "I need to change the line, 'you took your life, as lovers often do.' Van Gogh killed himself after being kilted by a woman."
"Oh really? I thought it was talking about Jesus laying down His life, you know, 'no greater love has any man than this...'"
"That's it! That's the lyric, 'you gave your life, as lovers often do.'" And he started to cry. "You've ruined it for me. I don't think I'll ever be able to sing that again without crying. He loved us so much! You know, before I started coming to Russia, I cried at my wedding or if I hit my thumb with a hammer. But now something has been opened inside of me, I cry a lot more."
"Me too," I said. "Today on the metro I saw a woman reading a zodiac, and I almost started weeping because she was so lost and it hurt me."
I love it here. It's like you take all this tea and melt a little piece of your soul off and share it together in the cold.
Afterwards I had lunch in their cafeteria, plov and tea and cookies. They all eat first and then drink tea. Vera told me they are taught that your stomach will rot if you eat and drink at the same time. I still can't eat without drinking anything, it gets all dry in my throat, so I had a cup of tea while I ate and another one while the other people did.
Usually I meet with my friend Sasha for mutual language practice after lunch, but she couuldn't do it so I went across the street to the seminary students' communal apartment to visit Olga, the pastor's wife and the friend of my Gulia. She was home all day cuz baby Matthew had a cold, and they were building an amazing city out of toys. She said, "Hello! Play with him a moment and I'll make tea." Which means, "we can sit and talk about what's going on in your life," so I didn't protest. We had a long conversation about everything from the problems in their church to giving to beggars to relating to Yuliya and Katya to plans for Gulia to her post-partum depression, and I drank two more cups of tea.
I decided to wait for her sister Nadia to come from her college of psychology, so I studied while she put Matthew down for his nap. Nadia was late so I went and drank another cup of tea while she did dishes, and she told me about her husband's salvation story and her experiences in college. Then Nadia arrived, bearing milk and cake "for tea."
I declined this one and just had the cake and some milk while we talked. Then Pastor Sasha came home and so I gave in and had tea and he told me about their trip to evangelize in the villages this weekend, his father's ten years in prison, the difference between real Russian Orthodoxy and what most Russians believe, why he found it easier to work with American missionaries then Korean ones ("American culture is Protestant, but Korean culture is Eastern and Christianiy is new and there are lots of problems" - so interesting).
Then I went home to meet our guest, Larry from America, the supporter who bought this apartment. We had dinner and tea, and then showed him pictures of the repairing and redocarating process, then had more tea, and then he played the guitar. He played "Starry Night" about Van Gogh's suicide, only about Jesus.
"I think that now I understand
What you tried to say
They didn't listen then, they did not know how,
Perhaps they will listen now."
I was just thinking about the orphans we can't reach, those who don't want help, and the endless people on the metro. I have started looking at their faces as they sail by on the escalator, instead of their flashy clothes, and thinking, "the faces of people God loves." They are beautiful faces.
"It doesn't really fit," Larry told me. "I need to change the line, 'you took your life, as lovers often do.' Van Gogh killed himself after being kilted by a woman."
"Oh really? I thought it was talking about Jesus laying down His life, you know, 'no greater love has any man than this...'"
"That's it! That's the lyric, 'you gave your life, as lovers often do.'" And he started to cry. "You've ruined it for me. I don't think I'll ever be able to sing that again without crying. He loved us so much! You know, before I started coming to Russia, I cried at my wedding or if I hit my thumb with a hammer. But now something has been opened inside of me, I cry a lot more."
"Me too," I said. "Today on the metro I saw a woman reading a zodiac, and I almost started weeping because she was so lost and it hurt me."
I love it here. It's like you take all this tea and melt a little piece of your soul off and share it together in the cold.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Looking Foolish, Seeing Grace
I have now looked stupid in front of so many people I will never see again, I can just start laughing about it any time I want to.
There was the time I walked a whole block waving my arm behind my back trying to find my other sleeve.
The time standing in line that I dropped a bag of cookies but had my hands too full of milk to pick them up again, so I just moved them along between my feet like a penguin.
The time the clerk asks me to make exact change and I completely blank out as to understanding what amount she wants, so I just hold all my coins out for her to pick some.
The time I swiped my metro card and then got stuck in the turn stile and lost 14 rubles and ten minutes waiting for the card to work a second time.
The time I got stranded in an Estonian train station and couldn’t not cry.
The time I walked the wrong direction to check-out in the tiny confusing supermarket and was accused of shoplifting.
Dostoyevsky is sitting outside the grocery store, larger than life and granite. I want to just stop and talk to him for awhile, because I’m sure he doesn’t believe I was trying to shoplift. I’ll tell him that I had lived on this street for nearly two months before Vera pointed out to me the sign that says, “”The Brothers Karamazov was written in this building.” I’ll tell him I nearly fainted. I’ll ask him how he ever thought of such a work on this street, that I’d have written “how not to get run over at the traffic light outside my window.” Was it so very different? I’ll ask. Or did you just know how to look at it differently?
Then there was the time I had a box of shoes and two bags of clothes and I bought bread and milk and forgot to ask for a bag (they cost an extra three rubles), and the clerk wouldn’t sell me a bag after she’d rung up the food. So I tried to put half the clothes in with the shoe box and the food with the clothes - and out on the sidewalk the bags broke and there was me kneeling on the sidewalk, clothes and milk and bread spread out around me, laughing and trapped.
I had an overwhelming sensation that I needed the good Samaritan to walk by at that moment, and that God would send him, that everything was fine. Because I couldn’t stay in the middle of the sidewalk for the rest of my life for lack of a plastic bag, and I couldn’t do anything else. I felt like I was outside of my life watching a funny movie. And that God who forgave sins and parted seas couldn’t overlook the matter of a bag, and must have a bag from eternity past prepared to give me, a bag that He’d get to me somehow.
So I looked up, and there was a woman pulling a grocery bag out of her purse. “Wait, Sasha,” she said to her little boy. She held it open and I piled the clothes and groceries and broken bags into it. It felt as strong as the hand of God. “Thank you,” I said. She smiled and walked away. Then I started to cry for gladness, that the good Samaritan had stopped and I had seen her. That she had seen me, and seen what I was feeling, and known what she’d have wanted another to do for her, and done it. It was so very beautiful, I saw the whole world with hope that grace and compassion are still at work in it.
And when I go back to America, the first time a cashier thoughtlessly piles my groceries into free plastic bag after free plastic bag, I am going to kiss her.
There was the time I walked a whole block waving my arm behind my back trying to find my other sleeve.
The time standing in line that I dropped a bag of cookies but had my hands too full of milk to pick them up again, so I just moved them along between my feet like a penguin.
The time the clerk asks me to make exact change and I completely blank out as to understanding what amount she wants, so I just hold all my coins out for her to pick some.
The time I swiped my metro card and then got stuck in the turn stile and lost 14 rubles and ten minutes waiting for the card to work a second time.
The time I got stranded in an Estonian train station and couldn’t not cry.
The time I walked the wrong direction to check-out in the tiny confusing supermarket and was accused of shoplifting.
Dostoyevsky is sitting outside the grocery store, larger than life and granite. I want to just stop and talk to him for awhile, because I’m sure he doesn’t believe I was trying to shoplift. I’ll tell him that I had lived on this street for nearly two months before Vera pointed out to me the sign that says, “”The Brothers Karamazov was written in this building.” I’ll tell him I nearly fainted. I’ll ask him how he ever thought of such a work on this street, that I’d have written “how not to get run over at the traffic light outside my window.” Was it so very different? I’ll ask. Or did you just know how to look at it differently?
Then there was the time I had a box of shoes and two bags of clothes and I bought bread and milk and forgot to ask for a bag (they cost an extra three rubles), and the clerk wouldn’t sell me a bag after she’d rung up the food. So I tried to put half the clothes in with the shoe box and the food with the clothes - and out on the sidewalk the bags broke and there was me kneeling on the sidewalk, clothes and milk and bread spread out around me, laughing and trapped.
I had an overwhelming sensation that I needed the good Samaritan to walk by at that moment, and that God would send him, that everything was fine. Because I couldn’t stay in the middle of the sidewalk for the rest of my life for lack of a plastic bag, and I couldn’t do anything else. I felt like I was outside of my life watching a funny movie. And that God who forgave sins and parted seas couldn’t overlook the matter of a bag, and must have a bag from eternity past prepared to give me, a bag that He’d get to me somehow.
So I looked up, and there was a woman pulling a grocery bag out of her purse. “Wait, Sasha,” she said to her little boy. She held it open and I piled the clothes and groceries and broken bags into it. It felt as strong as the hand of God. “Thank you,” I said. She smiled and walked away. Then I started to cry for gladness, that the good Samaritan had stopped and I had seen her. That she had seen me, and seen what I was feeling, and known what she’d have wanted another to do for her, and done it. It was so very beautiful, I saw the whole world with hope that grace and compassion are still at work in it.
And when I go back to America, the first time a cashier thoughtlessly piles my groceries into free plastic bag after free plastic bag, I am going to kiss her.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Vasilitsa
the little girl who cried when I put her down at the pre-orphanage placement "hospital shelter"
Gary, Pam, Kolya, Misha, Lucia
Gary and Pam are American counselors, Kolya Russian counselor, Misha boy in the boys' family home, Lucia Russian counselor.
Prayer for Vera’s Decision about Katya
The only way Katya can continue to live here full time, despite being still a minor, is if Vera adopts her. Vera is able to do this, only now she has to decide if she’s willing to. After this she can’t say, “respect me and my children or I will take you back to the orphanage.” Vera has given Katya a long list of improvements in her behavior before the day of deciding, but afterwards she doesn’t know what she’ll be like. And she is “tired of having this spiritual war in my home."
Weekend in Komorova, “The Father’s Love”
I have been visiting the Vineyard church, and they had a church retreat this past weekend in the countryside by the bay. I wanted to go and Vera decided it would be good for Katya, whom she has been trying to get to make good friends instead of sitting at home, so she told her she had to go and to find five positive things to say about it. One of the deaf guys (Lyosha that I told you about coming to church) and the sign language interpreter came too.
I didn’t have a very relaxing time because I was feeling responsible for Katya being there, and as the only person she really knew responsible to hang out with her and help her meet people. I kept facing these kinds of questions: When she walks out in the middle of a worship service, should I go after her and invite her to come back? Or order her to come back? Or let her go? When everybody else is socializing and I want to be with them but she is sitting alone watching TV should I go watch TV with her or try to get her to come back or just do what I want to do?
Otherwise it was a beautiful time. We walked by the sea and played Dutch Blitz and fed horses and went to the Banya and had a baptism and praised and prayed together. The seminar was on the topic of the Father’s Love, and the speaker talked about how Jesus’ power came not because He was God but because He lived as a human being who knew the Father, and His Father “loved Him and showed Him everything that He does.” Then he spoke of how hard the enemy works to destroy people knowing and believing and experiencing that, through sin and lies and earthly fathers that fail, and how different kinds of fathers give different misconceptions about God, and how to release and forgive your earthly father and turn to your heavenly Father. It was very powerful and a lot of people were crying.
The speaker said to imagine your earthly father was standing before you, and to tell him how he had hurt you and that you forgave him. Here I write a tribute to my father. I realized in that moment that I have nothing to forgive, not because my father was perfect, but because he never wronged me without asking me to forgive him before the sun went down. And this is so blissfully simple and attainable, yet the effect is the same as if you had been perfect, and I have no regrets except that I did not spent every minute of the last 19 years appreciating you, as I appreciate you now that I am far away.
I didn’t have a very relaxing time because I was feeling responsible for Katya being there, and as the only person she really knew responsible to hang out with her and help her meet people. I kept facing these kinds of questions: When she walks out in the middle of a worship service, should I go after her and invite her to come back? Or order her to come back? Or let her go? When everybody else is socializing and I want to be with them but she is sitting alone watching TV should I go watch TV with her or try to get her to come back or just do what I want to do?
Otherwise it was a beautiful time. We walked by the sea and played Dutch Blitz and fed horses and went to the Banya and had a baptism and praised and prayed together. The seminar was on the topic of the Father’s Love, and the speaker talked about how Jesus’ power came not because He was God but because He lived as a human being who knew the Father, and His Father “loved Him and showed Him everything that He does.” Then he spoke of how hard the enemy works to destroy people knowing and believing and experiencing that, through sin and lies and earthly fathers that fail, and how different kinds of fathers give different misconceptions about God, and how to release and forgive your earthly father and turn to your heavenly Father. It was very powerful and a lot of people were crying.
The speaker said to imagine your earthly father was standing before you, and to tell him how he had hurt you and that you forgave him. Here I write a tribute to my father. I realized in that moment that I have nothing to forgive, not because my father was perfect, but because he never wronged me without asking me to forgive him before the sun went down. And this is so blissfully simple and attainable, yet the effect is the same as if you had been perfect, and I have no regrets except that I did not spent every minute of the last 19 years appreciating you, as I appreciate you now that I am far away.
I'm back!
I was in the countryside at a church retreat Friday - Sunday, and I was sick Monday - Wednesday, so I've been silent for awhile!
Monday, October 1, 2007
Beautiful Things
On Saturday I went to see Gulia with Pastor Sasha and Olya and two-year-old Matthew, and their friends Kostya and Tanya. We bought two fried chickens and took her to the beach for a picnic. It was so beautiful. I will remember this forever. I didn't realize how much I've been in the city until I was out of it - I felt like I could eat the trees!
She was so happy to see Matthew she paid very little attention to the rest of us. But after we took a bunch of pictures on the beautiful white sand, she wanted to take some too, which was like her old self. They so feel like a complete family when they're together. I think I'd do anything to bring this about.
One of the deaf boys, Lyosha, came to church with Sveta the translator (I later found out he'd been at a morning service and the afternoon service). They were sitting in front of me and she was helping him read the songs on the overhead and sign the words. I wondered what it was like to have only four other people that you could communicate with. I wondered at what age he learned a sign for "God" and what it meant within that world of four people, if it was a joke or a swear word or a history lesson or a mystery, if he had wondered about it, if anybody had ever signed to him or he'd ever thought of anything like what he was signing now: that God loved him, cared about him every moment, made him, died for him, gives life.
Sveta had told me she didn't know how long he'd stay, but he stayed for the whole thing. She signed the sermon, but it was a complex one about what the Old Testament temple worship symbolizes for us,that would require a lot of explanation if you had never heard of the old testament and temple. Lyosha signed back to Sveta a lot - they were just talking and talking about something in that message, I have no idea what. I saw that an advantage of being deaf and speaking sign language is that you can talk all through church and not disturb your neighbors. He looked very serious and moved.
Sveta is on the team of people who prays for anyone who wants after the service, and Lyosha went up and they laid hands on him and prayed, and he closed his eyes and stood there, although he couldn't hear the prayers. Maybe he could feel them.
I want to see God move with power and reach into Lyosha's silent world, and place Gulia in the family that's waiting for her.
You know what to do.
She was so happy to see Matthew she paid very little attention to the rest of us. But after we took a bunch of pictures on the beautiful white sand, she wanted to take some too, which was like her old self. They so feel like a complete family when they're together. I think I'd do anything to bring this about.
One of the deaf boys, Lyosha, came to church with Sveta the translator (I later found out he'd been at a morning service and the afternoon service). They were sitting in front of me and she was helping him read the songs on the overhead and sign the words. I wondered what it was like to have only four other people that you could communicate with. I wondered at what age he learned a sign for "God" and what it meant within that world of four people, if it was a joke or a swear word or a history lesson or a mystery, if he had wondered about it, if anybody had ever signed to him or he'd ever thought of anything like what he was signing now: that God loved him, cared about him every moment, made him, died for him, gives life.
Sveta had told me she didn't know how long he'd stay, but he stayed for the whole thing. She signed the sermon, but it was a complex one about what the Old Testament temple worship symbolizes for us,that would require a lot of explanation if you had never heard of the old testament and temple. Lyosha signed back to Sveta a lot - they were just talking and talking about something in that message, I have no idea what. I saw that an advantage of being deaf and speaking sign language is that you can talk all through church and not disturb your neighbors. He looked very serious and moved.
Sveta is on the team of people who prays for anyone who wants after the service, and Lyosha went up and they laid hands on him and prayed, and he closed his eyes and stood there, although he couldn't hear the prayers. Maybe he could feel them.
I want to see God move with power and reach into Lyosha's silent world, and place Gulia in the family that's waiting for her.
You know what to do.
Changes!!
Wow.
My English class of two students is going up to EIGHT! Everybody who has free time wants to audit it and learn some English!
We're rearranging: Lena and Kolya, the boys' home counselors, and Lucia, the other girls' home counselor, are going to combine and run the other girls' home. Pam and Gary, the American couple, with the help of Max, an American student coming soon, are running the boys home and taking the deaf boys.
I'm meeting a teacher named Natasha for my first Russian lesson tomorrow.
My English class of two students is going up to EIGHT! Everybody who has free time wants to audit it and learn some English!
We're rearranging: Lena and Kolya, the boys' home counselors, and Lucia, the other girls' home counselor, are going to combine and run the other girls' home. Pam and Gary, the American couple, with the help of Max, an American student coming soon, are running the boys home and taking the deaf boys.
I'm meeting a teacher named Natasha for my first Russian lesson tomorrow.
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