November 23, 2006

In a quick summary of how our trip was, I suppose it
would be tiring…But I suppose that is quite
typical of people traveling to the other side of the
earth. I was glad to socialize for a little while
with the flight attendants… We traveled from
Calgary to Frankfurt, Germany, flying directly over
England on the way… that was cool. Then from
Frankfurt, we flew to Moscow…Immediately it
reminded me of Wuhan…very little English, wet
and humid (it was raining a bit), and a lot of big
communist style buildings. I had been in a bit of
panic for a while as I was desperately needing a
washroom. I never found one for a couple hours. The
Moscow terminal #2, in other words, the
uninternational flights, was very crowded and
congested. There was one bathroom on the far side of
the building…We were on the other side with a
thousand Russians going to and fro and standing or
sitting nearly anywhere you could think people could
sit… I’ve been so used to going to waiting
areas where there’s always a lot of room and
everything. I wish I had taken a picture of the
crowds there… It reminded me of China. See here
in North America everything is very individual
centered… in China and Russia, the individual
isn’t important… Only the group. In
groups of that many people there you cease to be
‘important’ … you become just
another number or statistic. Anyways, it was a strange
sensation all over again.
When we finally landed in Krasnoyarsk, it went from
the near Zero degrees we had experienced in Moscow,
and it suddenly dropped to below -20. WHooo! That
was a difference! We had to wait a good while out in
the cold for the building to open where they were
going to put our luggage. Oh, and speaking of
luggage… we found out in Moscow that the weight
limit was a lot different than any of the other
airports. They only allow 20kg per person…
total… for all of one’s luggage. In
short, it would have cost us another 1400 American!!!
God provided huge for us and we were able to get off
with paying only $500 of that. It still was painful
but we had to remember that this is God’s
money… He will take care of everything.
Anyways, we finally were able to get our luggage and
we loaded up to the hilt, a couple of vans. The girls
went to stay with Ronada. She was glad to have them,
and I was glad I didn’t have to stay there as
she had a cat… Quite a playful cat though…
Bandito enjoys string a lot.
Us guys are staying in an apartment. It’s real
nice here and I’ve got a lovely mat on the
floor. It’s real good!  Anyways,
we’ve got to go and shop around the corner.
Keep on praying that God will have His way. Have a
good one!
Grace and Peace
~Brother J