Victories in Russian

I have achieved some amazing skills right before going home where I no longer need them. An American named Dave is here helping us finish the apartment repairs, and he wanted to buy fabric softener and a special instrument to remove the wallpaper. He explained the instrument as "a roller with spikes to punch holes in the wallpaper." Complicated enough in English, and I didn't know the word for either roller or spikes.

I told Vera, "Dave wants a liquid that you put in laundry to make it soft" and she understood that, phew. They sent me and Max, who has had one semester of Russia, to the little "home products" store to buy fabric softener, see if they had a spiked roller, and if not, ask where we could find one. Which means we'd have to ask for directions, understand them, and follow them.

The conversation between me and Max was something like this:

"Well, those bottles with kittens and babies on them are definitely fabric softener. Which one do we want?"

"Probably the strongest, since we're trying to destroy wallpaper."

"I'd guess the one without pictures of kittens and babies is the strongest."

"But if it doesn't have kittens and babies, it might not be fabric softener. I think it's floor cleaner."

"OK then, kittens or babies?"

"Kittens are cheaper, let's go kittens."

I ask the woman for a bottle of that stuff on the far left. Success one.

Then we look around. There are only sponge paint rollers and one roller in a box.

"Maybe that has spikes on it. Let's ask if we can see inside the box," suggests Max.

"I'm almost positive that is a roller for shoe polish, because everything else in the case with it is shoe polish." We laugh at how Dave would like rolling shoe polish all over the wall.

"OK, here's my strategy. I'm going to read on those paint rollers what the word for 'roller' is. Then when we go to the other store, I'll be able to ask for 'a roller with sharp things on it.'" I figured it would be whatever word that all the paint rollers had in common. But I couldn't see them close enough (these little stores keep everything behind the counter so that foreigners have to learn how to say the word for everything before they can have it).

I asked the woman in Russian if she knew where they sold instruments for removing wallpaper. She said if we turned right, there was a shop just around the corner called something very difficult like "mstrOKE." I kept repeating this sound as we went around the corner, hoping I'd recognize it. I couldn't picture how it would be written. I had this nagging feeling that it was the Russian pronounciation of something in English."Do you remember what the store was called?" "something 'oak' - sorry I wasn't listening."

The sign around the corner said "Master OK." Then we laughed. "Oh, it's 'master' and 'OK'!" "Stupid Russian lady," said Max kindly.

Inside I saw clearly printed that a roller was a "rolik." I asked for a rolik with teeth to take off wallpaper. The man said he had roliks with teeth for doing something else I did not understand, and we said that would be fine. We took a beautiful spiked metal roller and a bottle with kittens on it home, where Dave said they worked better than anything he had in America.

I am so amazing.

back from Moscow

I had a wonderful time and visited a lot of museums with my friend Katya. The work there is going gangbusters with English club, Spanish club, the Alpha Course, and a church plant. I definitely miss that place.

praise about Katya

On the vacation Vera and I discussed my doing something with Katya and we went to the aquarium together and then bought food and went to a movie. She asked me, "why are you doing this with me? I am bad." I was floored. I've been trying to do good for her for so long and not finding anything I could do, and I had given up hope, and tried to just avoid her, and then tried again because avoiding her wasn't serving Vera, and this was so much grace. Maybe if it had happened like in a moralizing story book where K is mean and E responds with kindness and K melts I'd feel like, aren't I amazingly Christlike? But this was just my inability and Katya's inability and grace. Which is what it still is, every day. Thank you for praying, I know that's part of this.

Then Vera assigned her to write her life story, and she read it to me. I didn't expect her to, but she finally shared with me. She made me stare at a jar of peanut butter the whole time she read it cuz she said she couldn't read it if I looked at her - it was so funny.

Nothing is hopeless. Praise God that He is alive and doing things!

going to Moscow

I have tickets traveling with a group going to a church conference. I leave Thursday night and arrive in Moscow Friday morning, and I return Sunday night to Monday morning. I will be staying with a missionary I knew before and visiting friends there.

Poem

My King of Thorns

Why did it have to be a crown
Of thorns pressed upon His head?
It should have been a royal one
Made of gold and jewels instead.
It had to be a crown of thorns,
Because in this life that we live
For those who would seek to love,
A thorn is all the world has to give.
– Michael Card

I know that you are hurting me
Because someone else hurt you;
I feel like they pierced you with thorns
And the thorns went through you
And they stick out the other side,
Pricking all who would try to get close to you.

And I see my King crowned with thorns;
The hurtful words passed around the world
Go into Him and do not come out again,
Melted away in His love and pain.

I can’t let myself hear your barrage of criticism
Or I’ll start to believe I’m ugly and stupid and worthless.
I feel like you are giving me a hedge of thorns
And hidden in its center is the one true word
That I should hear and change, the real reason you resent me,
But it hurts too much to dig through thorns with bare hands
And find it.

“That is not your job,” says my King. “It is her job to tell you.”
So I grab His hand and walk towards you and ask you,
“Have I sinned against you? Are you angry at me about something I can apologize for? And if not, please stop treating me like you hate me.”
We pull some thorns up. I think they’ll grow back.
But maybe we got some by the roots. Love believes all things.

I can’t move tonight
I’m lying here paralyzed, surrounded by walls of bristling thorns.
And my King reaches into the thorns and pushes them away
So I can walk through.
And I know for certain that I am beautiful, precious, and forgiven,
Or He would not have such bleeding hands for me.
And for you.
For you.
You.

How beautiful you are, my Thorn-King! How I love you!
We shall walk together in a smooth and flowering world
When you have taught us the bloody price of love.

I'm Back

- this is the fall break vacation week for the school kids and Gulia is with Olya and Pastor Sasha. I'm trying to spend time with her and with Kristina, my other friend from an orphanage.
- Galina wanted to come to church with me but got sick. Pray God will protect her from everything that would prevent her, and that she will come and plug in and grow.
- I'm trying to go to Moscow to visit friends my last weekend - pray God provides the right travel companion.

Big Change: Katya M, a girl from Lucy's home on her second year of the program, has been sent to live with our home to help with the more difficult Katya B I've been living with and any new girls that move in. Pray for our relationship. It's a huge help to have her around, but I need to get a vision for helping her too.

Pray for my relationship with Katya B. She's at camp for the break, a "Encounter with God" trip that we're hoping really benefits her. I'm getting busier and busier as my time remaining here gets smaller and smaller, and I've seen her very little. The more I avoid her, the easier it is to want to keep avoiding her. Things may be better (see poem) but I haven't had enough time with her to even see. Pray God will give me love for her and the right way to express it, and the bravery to not just hang out with people who do not hurt me.

Pray for a large group of kids from another dormitory that are now hanging out with us.

On Saturday I perform a worship dance for an assembly of the family homes, orphans and graduates, and many unbelievers. Pray for these popular gatherings every Saturday, and praise for the many kids who want to come to us. Last week Lucy shared her testimony.

Pray for a third Katya, a young single mom living with an abusive brother. She doesn't want to stop smoking to live in our program, and we'd have to find space for the little girl too. But she is attending church and really connected with Pam, and we had her for a night when her brother was drunk and really enjoyed her. I asked prayer for this girl my first week and didn't think I'd ever meet her.

Another big change: Another American college student, Max, is now living at the boys' home.

Olya, the girl who disappeared and I was so upset about her, returned, read my letter, said hello, and has disappeared again. I now have a cell phone number that so far hasn't worked. Pray for her and a possible phone call and maybe meeting!