Monday, January 29, 2007
Jesus is my Superhero
We're alive and well...for the most part...in England, just east of Wales. AJ has been a little sick lately, and I've been struggling a bit with an occasional cough. We had a crazy bit of time in the Moscow area for those who have been wondering what all happened...
We were 3 hours late getting to Moscow because of a snowstorm... and so we arrived, it was the same reason that our contact who came, 3 hours late, broke to us the news that we had no vehicle anymore... the one we had asked to be there took off to make more money. That's life.... sigh... so we were there in the airport for about 4.5 hours before we left... and we had to pay him 4000 rub. to take us halfway across town... (that's 150 american)... and then when we arrived to pick up our freight, they REcharged the same price we had paid to ship it... it was a 'holding fee'...sigh... then we were dropped off in a dark winter alley with three big german shepherds that were spying us out...The door of the building was frozen, so we couldn't get in... it was midnight...the buildings all around were abandoned... and we to simply hope this other driver would show up so we could pay him 3000 rub....But it worked out and we arrived at the airport...
We were told that at most at the airport in Moscow that it might cost us 1500 American... When we got into line we found out that they had upped the price of overweight luggage (anything over 20kg per person) and that meant if we were to leave with anything it would cost us 6000 american.
Needless to say, we didn't do that. God worked it out so that an offical from the airport came to talk with us when the way was shut. We combined what money we had (because we couldn't take any more money out on the team card that day...due to other issues...) So we delved into our debit funds and came up with enough...2000. But we're here now and safe.
God definately has been watching over the team... all the details. The little ones and the ones of huge proportions. He truly is everything we need.
But wow... I was almost a nervous wreck for a while... I was all trippy for a while... God was so good. In our desperation he got us through... We had no other way we could have come here with our equipment... but God worked it all out...wow...It was like watching a mountain disappear...crazy...!!!!
Praise God... and thank you all so much for your prayers... we had only had 2 hours of sleep in 2.5 days ... but God helped us hang in there... Hopefully I'll be fully recovered soon. :)
We did our first English program today. Two of them for children in a school. It was a lot fun. heh... I'm really looking forward to the rest of the time we're here... it's just too bad that I'm still so tired... I hope all the sleep I can get will last longer in the long run and be worth it in the end.
There is always something going on and so it's too bad that I've not been able to update things here so much.
Keep praying that God will be at work here... I'm eager to see what He wants to do here. Take care!
¬Brother J
We were 3 hours late getting to Moscow because of a snowstorm... and so we arrived, it was the same reason that our contact who came, 3 hours late, broke to us the news that we had no vehicle anymore... the one we had asked to be there took off to make more money. That's life.... sigh... so we were there in the airport for about 4.5 hours before we left... and we had to pay him 4000 rub. to take us halfway across town... (that's 150 american)... and then when we arrived to pick up our freight, they REcharged the same price we had paid to ship it... it was a 'holding fee'...sigh... then we were dropped off in a dark winter alley with three big german shepherds that were spying us out...The door of the building was frozen, so we couldn't get in... it was midnight...the buildings all around were abandoned... and we to simply hope this other driver would show up so we could pay him 3000 rub....But it worked out and we arrived at the airport...
We were told that at most at the airport in Moscow that it might cost us 1500 American... When we got into line we found out that they had upped the price of overweight luggage (anything over 20kg per person) and that meant if we were to leave with anything it would cost us 6000 american.
Needless to say, we didn't do that. God worked it out so that an offical from the airport came to talk with us when the way was shut. We combined what money we had (because we couldn't take any more money out on the team card that day...due to other issues...) So we delved into our debit funds and came up with enough...2000. But we're here now and safe.
God definately has been watching over the team... all the details. The little ones and the ones of huge proportions. He truly is everything we need.
But wow... I was almost a nervous wreck for a while... I was all trippy for a while... God was so good. In our desperation he got us through... We had no other way we could have come here with our equipment... but God worked it all out...wow...It was like watching a mountain disappear...crazy...!!!!
Praise God... and thank you all so much for your prayers... we had only had 2 hours of sleep in 2.5 days ... but God helped us hang in there... Hopefully I'll be fully recovered soon. :)
We did our first English program today. Two of them for children in a school. It was a lot fun. heh... I'm really looking forward to the rest of the time we're here... it's just too bad that I'm still so tired... I hope all the sleep I can get will last longer in the long run and be worth it in the end.
There is always something going on and so it's too bad that I've not been able to update things here so much.
Keep praying that God will be at work here... I'm eager to see what He wants to do here. Take care!
¬Brother J
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Friday, January 19, 2007
A Contrasted life...
January 20, 2007
Well, we’re still alive and kicking over here in UlanUde. It’s been very interesting being here. We recently came back from a two day trip to some villages nearby. We had a couple programs, one at an orphanage and one at a ‘house of culture’ in a village of 2000 people. There we saw a strange contrast…those who had a future and a hope… and those who didn’t.
John, right when we arrived at the orphanage to set up began to speak with a little boy who was smiling away…He rolled up his pant leg to show John that his leg had been scarred. ‘My mother did this to me.’ He said. ‘And when my father got home he killed my mother for it. Now my father is in prison… But he was RIGHT for doing that, wasn’t he?’ John didn’t really have a response to that…
On the other hand, you have completely different responses to the same kind of thing. We stayed with a grandmother (bAHbushka) in the village for two nights. It was a nice size for a home there. It overlooked a beautiful little valley that had a fresh spring, and large trees and hills. Oh, it was beautiful. Her husband had built that house, but he was only able to live in it for 6 years. A day came where he went hunting with some other men. Her husband told them where it was safe to shoot, and where it wasn’t. One of the men ignored his warning and when he came to find the animal he had shot, to his horror, it was her husband. He was 38 at the time. It’s strange. When people were telling her to press charges and to make him pay for what this man had done, she refused. She told them, that putting him in prison to pay for the mistake would hurt his family that much more… And he needs to be there to care for them.
When one of her sons was 28, he shot himself.
Her life has been full of hardships and grief and pain… Yet she found strength to go on. She found her strength in Jesus…though she may not have completely understood it at the time.
You see, her father, when she was growing up, was a Christian. But they didn’t have a bible or anything. But he was a God fearing man, and he taught his family the Lord’s prayer and other simple little ditties. She had to put her hope in God… He was all she had for sure.
But she is very very thankful for everything she has. She doesn’t have much… but to her, she is very well off. God has blessed her with a home, he has given her comfort. She has grandchildren now… And she is more than glad to know that Jesus is her Saviour.
For all these people here in Russia. It is so very hard. Life is rough. And especially in this area that is very Buddhist, it’s just part of your accumulated sins from previous lives…You have to pay your debt.
It’s frustrating… Jesus is here…right in front of them when they need him, but so many walk the other way. However…there are a few who see the light. And once they are set in their decision to follow him, nothing…not even death has any power over them anymore. People full of Christ truly are full of his power to accomplish whatever God has set out for them. I want to be like that…I want to have that much of Jesus.
Well, we’re still alive and kicking over here in UlanUde. It’s been very interesting being here. We recently came back from a two day trip to some villages nearby. We had a couple programs, one at an orphanage and one at a ‘house of culture’ in a village of 2000 people. There we saw a strange contrast…those who had a future and a hope… and those who didn’t.
John, right when we arrived at the orphanage to set up began to speak with a little boy who was smiling away…He rolled up his pant leg to show John that his leg had been scarred. ‘My mother did this to me.’ He said. ‘And when my father got home he killed my mother for it. Now my father is in prison… But he was RIGHT for doing that, wasn’t he?’ John didn’t really have a response to that…
On the other hand, you have completely different responses to the same kind of thing. We stayed with a grandmother (bAHbushka) in the village for two nights. It was a nice size for a home there. It overlooked a beautiful little valley that had a fresh spring, and large trees and hills. Oh, it was beautiful. Her husband had built that house, but he was only able to live in it for 6 years. A day came where he went hunting with some other men. Her husband told them where it was safe to shoot, and where it wasn’t. One of the men ignored his warning and when he came to find the animal he had shot, to his horror, it was her husband. He was 38 at the time. It’s strange. When people were telling her to press charges and to make him pay for what this man had done, she refused. She told them, that putting him in prison to pay for the mistake would hurt his family that much more… And he needs to be there to care for them.
When one of her sons was 28, he shot himself.
Her life has been full of hardships and grief and pain… Yet she found strength to go on. She found her strength in Jesus…though she may not have completely understood it at the time.
You see, her father, when she was growing up, was a Christian. But they didn’t have a bible or anything. But he was a God fearing man, and he taught his family the Lord’s prayer and other simple little ditties. She had to put her hope in God… He was all she had for sure.
But she is very very thankful for everything she has. She doesn’t have much… but to her, she is very well off. God has blessed her with a home, he has given her comfort. She has grandchildren now… And she is more than glad to know that Jesus is her Saviour.
For all these people here in Russia. It is so very hard. Life is rough. And especially in this area that is very Buddhist, it’s just part of your accumulated sins from previous lives…You have to pay your debt.
It’s frustrating… Jesus is here…right in front of them when they need him, but so many walk the other way. However…there are a few who see the light. And once they are set in their decision to follow him, nothing…not even death has any power over them anymore. People full of Christ truly are full of his power to accomplish whatever God has set out for them. I want to be like that…I want to have that much of Jesus.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Wowzers Trousers
Well, look at that! Here we are, over halfway through January and into our last little bit here in Russia. It's amazing that the time has gone by so fast. It's too bad, and then again, it's great to know that it's less time to see everyone back home again.
We just had a big outreach program tonight... over 300 came out and I suppose it was the biggest crowd we've had so far. It was really encouraging... But more so, I was glad we were able to share the gospel with them. Here it usually is a long time before a Buryat becomes a Christian simply because the whole worldview of the Bible is very different from the worldview that people here have grown up with and it takes time for them to learn to believe only one or the other. Most may think you can be both a Buddhist and a Christian... it's different. As it is, friendship, love and trust go a long way... but everything takes time.
Thank you all for your prayers.
It's been exciting here... lol, and cold. Yesterday we were out at a village that it was cold enough in the hall we were in that when I was singing, whifts of fog would brush along my glasses' lenses. That was interesting. lol.
Alas... this is Siberia... and now that we're further south, it's sunnier and colder. Weird.
Have a great day everyone!
Take care!
We just had a big outreach program tonight... over 300 came out and I suppose it was the biggest crowd we've had so far. It was really encouraging... But more so, I was glad we were able to share the gospel with them. Here it usually is a long time before a Buryat becomes a Christian simply because the whole worldview of the Bible is very different from the worldview that people here have grown up with and it takes time for them to learn to believe only one or the other. Most may think you can be both a Buddhist and a Christian... it's different. As it is, friendship, love and trust go a long way... but everything takes time.
Thank you all for your prayers.
It's been exciting here... lol, and cold. Yesterday we were out at a village that it was cold enough in the hall we were in that when I was singing, whifts of fog would brush along my glasses' lenses. That was interesting. lol.
Alas... this is Siberia... and now that we're further south, it's sunnier and colder. Weird.
Have a great day everyone!
Take care!
Monday, January 08, 2007
New Land
Monday, January 8, 2007
It’s a bit of a shock to the system today… we have a day off… A day where the only thing really that we’re supposed to be doing is having some orientation from the head missionary here in Ulan Ude, John Wicker. They met us on the train when we arrived a couple days ago. John, Sharron, his wife and his children, Heather-Ann, Matthew and Heidi. Another couple in this area is Leif and Jamie Gustafson. They have been getting us to where we need to be and filling us in on the quirks of this area. Here the population is half Buryat.(boor-ee-at) They remind me so much of the Native People of Canada. Lol, and some even laugh exactly the same! They have fun games and jokes, love to walk and to hike. It’s really great being here. Yesterday we did a program for the local church here. It’s very small, but we sure filled it!
We did a full program set up in an area about 8’x6’… wow… that was a squeeze. That morning I was very sick… blah… But as the day went on I felt a lot better. After the service I met another Sasha who played guitar and Bryce went on to teach him some new chords. This was when we met Elizabeth . She’s a SEND missionary from Germany . She’s doing our registration stuff today if she can. Apparently she’s a master at getting out of problems. John said that she can get off with a warning from police if they catch her going the wrong way down a one way street, and run into a police car when she doesn’t have her license… she says, ‘I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again…’ and they let her off…(I doubt that ever really happened…but I do hear that most things that she gets off with, John always gets in trouble for…but that’s how the law works here sometimes)
Last night after the church meeting, we went to a service in the home of Shannon . She’s the equivalent of Olga if she had been born in the US . But now that I’ve met her…she reminds me a little more of someone else… hmm… Anyways, she was very excited to have us there and so we did little bits of program material and I helped play background guitar for their Christmas songs in Russian… That was fun. ^_^ Apparently we’ll see more of those youth in the next little while. Almost all of them were Buryat. Come to think of it, even the lady who comes in here to cook for lunch and supper is Buryat.
It’s different here. There’s more Chinese influence here. In fact, there’s even a Chinese restaurant on the end of our block… that was surprising.
I’m still very uncertain of what we will all be doing here in the next little while despite our schedule. What I mean is, it’s a little different trying to think of what to expect here. Elsewhere we’ve been in Russia , people have not been very ‘spiritual’…but here, it seems there’s a lot influence from Buddhism and other religions. Pray that God would break down the strongholds and that these people who are truly searching… the ones who are tired of life will hear about the Creator. Jesus.
We’ll see what happens.
Thank you to everyone who is praying…we had a problem free time getting here and God has kept us safe.
We played a couple games last night that were a lot of fun… electricity (you have two lines of people who hold hands behind their backs… on one end is a bottle… on the other a guy with a coin. When he flips the coin and it was heads, the person standing there watching would squeeze the hand of the person next to them… eventually the hand squeezing gets to the end and the person at the very end grabs the bottle. If they get it, then the team rotates one member to the other side. To win, you have to get back to where you started….) That was fun… other was this hand tapping game where you sit in a circle and have you hand on the knees of the people on you left and right. When someone taps their hand, you have to keep tapping and go around the circle. The trick is that if you double tap, then the direction changes… and if you flinch to move your hand, then that hand is out. Eventually you get down to two people… I actually won that game with both my hands still good… that plain shocked me… lol. While I was there I figured out a way to say something is really great….’Superr Ochin Herrisho’…which means (Very, Very Well) As far as Russian goes… it’s being very redundant… like if you were to ask someone if they would like butter for buttering your buttered toast…same kind of deal… Anyways, it’s truly a treat to add some Crazy Canadian to the Russians here who for many of them haven’t felt free in nearly ever. It really is something else to see them laugh. It’s fresh…and it’s new to many of them… I think it’s because it’s fueled by a deeper joy…
I love you all! Thank you for your prayers!
Keep your focus on Jesus!
Grace and Peace
~James
It’s a bit of a shock to the system today… we have a day off… A day where the only thing really that we’re supposed to be doing is having some orientation from the head missionary here in Ulan Ude, John Wicker. They met us on the train when we arrived a couple days ago. John, Sharron, his wife and his children, Heather-Ann, Matthew and Heidi. Another couple in this area is Leif and Jamie Gustafson. They have been getting us to where we need to be and filling us in on the quirks of this area. Here the population is half Buryat.(boor-ee-at) They remind me so much of the Native People of Canada. Lol, and some even laugh exactly the same! They have fun games and jokes, love to walk and to hike. It’s really great being here. Yesterday we did a program for the local church here. It’s very small, but we sure filled it!
We did a full program set up in an area about 8’x6’… wow… that was a squeeze. That morning I was very sick… blah… But as the day went on I felt a lot better. After the service I met another Sasha who played guitar and Bryce went on to teach him some new chords. This was when we met Elizabeth . She’s a SEND missionary from Germany . She’s doing our registration stuff today if she can. Apparently she’s a master at getting out of problems. John said that she can get off with a warning from police if they catch her going the wrong way down a one way street, and run into a police car when she doesn’t have her license… she says, ‘I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again…’ and they let her off…(I doubt that ever really happened…but I do hear that most things that she gets off with, John always gets in trouble for…but that’s how the law works here sometimes)
Last night after the church meeting, we went to a service in the home of Shannon . She’s the equivalent of Olga if she had been born in the US . But now that I’ve met her…she reminds me a little more of someone else… hmm… Anyways, she was very excited to have us there and so we did little bits of program material and I helped play background guitar for their Christmas songs in Russian… That was fun. ^_^ Apparently we’ll see more of those youth in the next little while. Almost all of them were Buryat. Come to think of it, even the lady who comes in here to cook for lunch and supper is Buryat.
It’s different here. There’s more Chinese influence here. In fact, there’s even a Chinese restaurant on the end of our block… that was surprising.
I’m still very uncertain of what we will all be doing here in the next little while despite our schedule. What I mean is, it’s a little different trying to think of what to expect here. Elsewhere we’ve been in Russia , people have not been very ‘spiritual’…but here, it seems there’s a lot influence from Buddhism and other religions. Pray that God would break down the strongholds and that these people who are truly searching… the ones who are tired of life will hear about the Creator. Jesus.
We’ll see what happens.
Thank you to everyone who is praying…we had a problem free time getting here and God has kept us safe.
We played a couple games last night that were a lot of fun… electricity (you have two lines of people who hold hands behind their backs… on one end is a bottle… on the other a guy with a coin. When he flips the coin and it was heads, the person standing there watching would squeeze the hand of the person next to them… eventually the hand squeezing gets to the end and the person at the very end grabs the bottle. If they get it, then the team rotates one member to the other side. To win, you have to get back to where you started….) That was fun… other was this hand tapping game where you sit in a circle and have you hand on the knees of the people on you left and right. When someone taps their hand, you have to keep tapping and go around the circle. The trick is that if you double tap, then the direction changes… and if you flinch to move your hand, then that hand is out. Eventually you get down to two people… I actually won that game with both my hands still good… that plain shocked me… lol. While I was there I figured out a way to say something is really great….’Superr Ochin Herrisho’…which means (Very, Very Well) As far as Russian goes… it’s being very redundant… like if you were to ask someone if they would like butter for buttering your buttered toast…same kind of deal… Anyways, it’s truly a treat to add some Crazy Canadian to the Russians here who for many of them haven’t felt free in nearly ever. It really is something else to see them laugh. It’s fresh…and it’s new to many of them… I think it’s because it’s fueled by a deeper joy…
I love you all! Thank you for your prayers!
Keep your focus on Jesus!
Grace and Peace
~James
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
January 1, 2007
Snovem Godem! Happy New Year! We were up until 5am this morning bringing in the new year with the Church here in Lesisebirsk. We wouldn’t have survived at all except that we were able to have a nap yesterday afternoon for a few hours. That and I slept for 2.5 hours in the van. Apparently Janelle and I were conversing in our sleep. And she was having a very strange dream about me drawing a beard on her face.
The team is all starting to recover from all the stress of travel lately. It was a good time here despite some of the difficult times. We’re starting already to mentally prepare ourselves for going to Ulan Ude. Bruce, who has been with us the whole time will be staying in Krasnoyarsk. We’ll on the train for near 27 hours. To think of traveling still fills my heart with a little dread. There’ll be 6 of us and a whole lot of equipment. *sigh*
Oh, and for everyone who has been praying for our health, my wrist is still a ‘thorn in the side’ sometimes. It is getting better, but it’s slow recovering. It’s not hindering my work here in the slightest… but it is annoying. ^_^ Coralie who had been feeling a little ill the last while is doing much better. Otherwise, we’re all doing very well!
It’s hard trying to sum up all the things you’ve seen and heard and experienced all in short blog entries. There is a good deal of overload that occurs when you’re trying to take in all of Russia at once!
Last night for New Years we arrived and visited for a while until they started a drama. It was a cross between the story of the little match girl who was having a hard time selling matches, Father Frost (Santa Claus at New Years) and the Christmas story. Very strange and abstract. As such it was very enjoyable as I often enjoy things a little out of the ordinary sometimes. Right in the middle of the drama, they broke things up and got us to all go and eat. I remember eating a lot of orange slices and trying some raw red fish. As far as fish goes, it was pretty good fish! Unfortunately, I still have a very difficult time appreciating the flavor of fish…therefore I didn’t a whole lot of it. Never the less, it was a great meal. This was followed by people handing out sparklers… Those metal sticks that you might see on birthday cakes sometimes? We all had one of those and we went from person to person, sparkler to sparkler lighting the room up here and there until the countdown was over. Then we went as a big crowd outside and started to shoot off fireworks. We saw some going off to our left, and some off to our right, and our folks were sending them right overhead. It was quite extraordinary to watch…to think we were watching fireworks all over town, in Russia. In the snow. Weird.
We did some music and drama in pieces for the rest of the ‘morning’ after that until about 4. We were able to go to bed by about 5:30. Now it is morning, and you’re all caught up for this moment. I wish I had time to tell you about all the other strange things that happened.
I will leave one with you…When we returned from that big trip, us guys went and slept for a few hours. When we woke up, no longer than 5 min later, a couple ladies came into our flat and started to tell us things in Russian. They thought they had the wrong flat… they were looking for Igor…We told them that he was out and then they started talking in Russian again. They didn’t understand much of anything we told them and vice versa…Even though we used gestures… I don’t they were the gesture type. What one of them did say was that she lived in that flat, and then she turned and said, ‘Go!’… I started to grab my bags and move them out of my room into the living room. Soon she understood that she had said that incorrectly. She came back and with a chuckle said, ‘I go.’… that made more sense. I had figured they came there to see Igor and to change or get something for New Years. Later that night, I found out that I was right. She had left some of her things there and had come to get them. Never the less, us guys were so confused for a morning. There is nothing stranger than waking up and finding a couple ladies walk into your apartment who try to tell you things that you don’t understand… or then again… being a couple ladies and walking into a flat you are familiar with and finding 4 guys who can’t speak staying there. Truly life is strange sometimes. But it’s the strangeness that lets us enjoy the things that are a little more normal… *_^
Go with God! Spogum!
December 30, 2006
Today was one of those stupid awesome days. Or awesome stupid days…. Whatever you want to call it. We had a rough start with the team… it was a long trip to a small town Yenesisk… It reminded me of Northern Saskatchewan as far as the people went… but it was a lot like the Yukon from 29 years ago. Crazy.
We did a program at an orphanage and we gave everything we had, and wow… it wasn’t pretty… That really discouraged me… But today went well over all. God is working… But as a reminder for myself, PRAY FOR VAELERA!!! He gets discouraged over the lack of fruit…spiritual fruit… But wow… it was great to hear both his and Alexi’s testimonies… that was all we needed for God to snap us out of our tired frustration.
Don’t worry… We’re still giving all we have… God will be all we need.
December 29, 2006
We’re heading to a ferry right now. We got to Lessisabirsk safely despite the crazy roads and we were able to push another guy out of the snow… that was fun! The time here with Pastor Roma, Igor and Leanna has been great. All us guys stayed with Igor and his roomy in a rented flat. But even though we’d be getting back at 10 or later, he’d run over to the ladies’ drug rehab center and grab Leanna who was from Moscow. She understood a bit of English, and what she did know, she knew very well. Apparently she hadn’t had to use her English in 6 years so she had forgotten some words. We had a great time talking with them and we’ll see them again on New Years.
The spiritual battles here again have been fierce. Pastor Roma, for our first program had asked a army guy… I don’t remember his rank, but I know he’s in charge of a large amount of the military training in the area. Anyways, it was his responsibility to let people know about our first program, and only 15 showed up in a auditorium in City Hall made for 200. God still worked though, because now Pastor Roma has a chance to lead this army guy to Christ. Pray that that will go well.
In the afternoon we headed out to do a program in the school. Unfortunately, the psychologist of the school caught wind of our program and went into a fury about how we shouldn’t be allowed to be there. She called for the school security to come keep an eye on us, and so there was this big guy watching us. We never had a clue at the time, but he had a hard time with us because we walked on in, 4 of us bigger guys. I for instance walked up to this guy who was supposed to be looking real big and tough to watch for anything fishy was eying me so I walked up to him and gave him a big ‘Zrast-vutye!’ (hello) to wish he was caught a bit off guard and replied with a weak hello of his own. Anyways, when we started bringing in stuff that psychologist met us on the stairs and wouldn’t let us pass and we were sure we were going to be kicked out. But then someone else came to our rescue. Another teacher I think, and then the way was open. So we went in and did our program and then had a second one. It went really well. But meanwhile there was a lot going on. The lady throwing this fit went to her office and began to write out a letter of complaint to give to the city Judge. When Roma asked what she was doing she told him and then added, ‘When he gets this letter you’ll never be allowed in here again to spread your religious propaganda!’ He told her, ‘You don’t even know if we are. Come see for yourself. Then you can write your letter.’ So, for the second program, she sat at the back and began to write her letter of complaint. Our program was anything but preachy, and I’m sure she had a hard time finding things we were doing wrong. In any case, afterwards, she left in a huff and went to argue with the other teachers and James L.
The short of it was that God gave James L. the right words to say that completely destroyed the arguments that she had. She had complained that our program had no knowledge in it. But James argued that there were many things they could get out of it… despite that she wouldn’t let us speak freely about God. We were teaching that love is powerful and we should by love, and with love for each other. When we live for ourself, we ruin our lives. Sometimes we need help from others. She argued that we should have talked more about the trees that Canada has…James argued that there was time for questions, and they didn’t want to know about the trees. They wanted to know about why we had come all the way to this town, way out in the middle of nowhere. We wanted to teach them things that could help their life long after we had left.
Anyways, in the middle of this, the teachers showed up and were wondering why she was trying to ruin this great program that was put on… and then the kids came out and asked her why she was trying to stop the program that they had enjoyed. So she said, well, then I’ll do a seminar about how to get a man for you girls. Then they cut her off and said, ‘We don’t care about that… how come you think your programs are so much better. You have to try and ruin ours?!’ Anyways, soon she couldn’t take it and went off to finish writing her letter.
It was then that the vice-principal came out. She had been watching our whole program. She was very blunt. ‘So what if you taught about turning to God when nothing else works…if our psychologist tries to send that letter, I’ll fire her. I really liked your program.’
God rules!
That was a taste of what God is doing. Pray that God continues to have his way!
December 26, 2006
Well, we’re heading for Lesosebirsk…I’m not sure if that’s how you’d spell it, but it’s about 5 hours north of Krasnoyarsk. I don’t know what to expect up there except that I’m sure it’ll still cold. That’s life here…and we just hit a big pothole…This van we borrowed from Chad is taking quite a beating. Hence, ‘Sorry Chad’ has become one of our primary sayings here on the road. *BANG* ‘Sorry Chad’…You get the idea.
Well, we’ll see what the north brings… that and New Years. Apparently, they stay up all night… and all next morning
Snovem Godem! Happy New Year! We were up until 5am this morning bringing in the new year with the Church here in Lesisebirsk. We wouldn’t have survived at all except that we were able to have a nap yesterday afternoon for a few hours. That and I slept for 2.5 hours in the van. Apparently Janelle and I were conversing in our sleep. And she was having a very strange dream about me drawing a beard on her face.
The team is all starting to recover from all the stress of travel lately. It was a good time here despite some of the difficult times. We’re starting already to mentally prepare ourselves for going to Ulan Ude. Bruce, who has been with us the whole time will be staying in Krasnoyarsk. We’ll on the train for near 27 hours. To think of traveling still fills my heart with a little dread. There’ll be 6 of us and a whole lot of equipment. *sigh*
Oh, and for everyone who has been praying for our health, my wrist is still a ‘thorn in the side’ sometimes. It is getting better, but it’s slow recovering. It’s not hindering my work here in the slightest… but it is annoying. ^_^ Coralie who had been feeling a little ill the last while is doing much better. Otherwise, we’re all doing very well!
It’s hard trying to sum up all the things you’ve seen and heard and experienced all in short blog entries. There is a good deal of overload that occurs when you’re trying to take in all of Russia at once!
Last night for New Years we arrived and visited for a while until they started a drama. It was a cross between the story of the little match girl who was having a hard time selling matches, Father Frost (Santa Claus at New Years) and the Christmas story. Very strange and abstract. As such it was very enjoyable as I often enjoy things a little out of the ordinary sometimes. Right in the middle of the drama, they broke things up and got us to all go and eat. I remember eating a lot of orange slices and trying some raw red fish. As far as fish goes, it was pretty good fish! Unfortunately, I still have a very difficult time appreciating the flavor of fish…therefore I didn’t a whole lot of it. Never the less, it was a great meal. This was followed by people handing out sparklers… Those metal sticks that you might see on birthday cakes sometimes? We all had one of those and we went from person to person, sparkler to sparkler lighting the room up here and there until the countdown was over. Then we went as a big crowd outside and started to shoot off fireworks. We saw some going off to our left, and some off to our right, and our folks were sending them right overhead. It was quite extraordinary to watch…to think we were watching fireworks all over town, in Russia. In the snow. Weird.
We did some music and drama in pieces for the rest of the ‘morning’ after that until about 4. We were able to go to bed by about 5:30. Now it is morning, and you’re all caught up for this moment. I wish I had time to tell you about all the other strange things that happened.
I will leave one with you…When we returned from that big trip, us guys went and slept for a few hours. When we woke up, no longer than 5 min later, a couple ladies came into our flat and started to tell us things in Russian. They thought they had the wrong flat… they were looking for Igor…We told them that he was out and then they started talking in Russian again. They didn’t understand much of anything we told them and vice versa…Even though we used gestures… I don’t they were the gesture type. What one of them did say was that she lived in that flat, and then she turned and said, ‘Go!’… I started to grab my bags and move them out of my room into the living room. Soon she understood that she had said that incorrectly. She came back and with a chuckle said, ‘I go.’… that made more sense. I had figured they came there to see Igor and to change or get something for New Years. Later that night, I found out that I was right. She had left some of her things there and had come to get them. Never the less, us guys were so confused for a morning. There is nothing stranger than waking up and finding a couple ladies walk into your apartment who try to tell you things that you don’t understand… or then again… being a couple ladies and walking into a flat you are familiar with and finding 4 guys who can’t speak staying there. Truly life is strange sometimes. But it’s the strangeness that lets us enjoy the things that are a little more normal… *_^
Go with God! Spogum!
December 30, 2006
Today was one of those stupid awesome days. Or awesome stupid days…. Whatever you want to call it. We had a rough start with the team… it was a long trip to a small town Yenesisk… It reminded me of Northern Saskatchewan as far as the people went… but it was a lot like the Yukon from 29 years ago. Crazy.
We did a program at an orphanage and we gave everything we had, and wow… it wasn’t pretty… That really discouraged me… But today went well over all. God is working… But as a reminder for myself, PRAY FOR VAELERA!!! He gets discouraged over the lack of fruit…spiritual fruit… But wow… it was great to hear both his and Alexi’s testimonies… that was all we needed for God to snap us out of our tired frustration.
Don’t worry… We’re still giving all we have… God will be all we need.
December 29, 2006
We’re heading to a ferry right now. We got to Lessisabirsk safely despite the crazy roads and we were able to push another guy out of the snow… that was fun! The time here with Pastor Roma, Igor and Leanna has been great. All us guys stayed with Igor and his roomy in a rented flat. But even though we’d be getting back at 10 or later, he’d run over to the ladies’ drug rehab center and grab Leanna who was from Moscow. She understood a bit of English, and what she did know, she knew very well. Apparently she hadn’t had to use her English in 6 years so she had forgotten some words. We had a great time talking with them and we’ll see them again on New Years.
The spiritual battles here again have been fierce. Pastor Roma, for our first program had asked a army guy… I don’t remember his rank, but I know he’s in charge of a large amount of the military training in the area. Anyways, it was his responsibility to let people know about our first program, and only 15 showed up in a auditorium in City Hall made for 200. God still worked though, because now Pastor Roma has a chance to lead this army guy to Christ. Pray that that will go well.
In the afternoon we headed out to do a program in the school. Unfortunately, the psychologist of the school caught wind of our program and went into a fury about how we shouldn’t be allowed to be there. She called for the school security to come keep an eye on us, and so there was this big guy watching us. We never had a clue at the time, but he had a hard time with us because we walked on in, 4 of us bigger guys. I for instance walked up to this guy who was supposed to be looking real big and tough to watch for anything fishy was eying me so I walked up to him and gave him a big ‘Zrast-vutye!’ (hello) to wish he was caught a bit off guard and replied with a weak hello of his own. Anyways, when we started bringing in stuff that psychologist met us on the stairs and wouldn’t let us pass and we were sure we were going to be kicked out. But then someone else came to our rescue. Another teacher I think, and then the way was open. So we went in and did our program and then had a second one. It went really well. But meanwhile there was a lot going on. The lady throwing this fit went to her office and began to write out a letter of complaint to give to the city Judge. When Roma asked what she was doing she told him and then added, ‘When he gets this letter you’ll never be allowed in here again to spread your religious propaganda!’ He told her, ‘You don’t even know if we are. Come see for yourself. Then you can write your letter.’ So, for the second program, she sat at the back and began to write her letter of complaint. Our program was anything but preachy, and I’m sure she had a hard time finding things we were doing wrong. In any case, afterwards, she left in a huff and went to argue with the other teachers and James L.
The short of it was that God gave James L. the right words to say that completely destroyed the arguments that she had. She had complained that our program had no knowledge in it. But James argued that there were many things they could get out of it… despite that she wouldn’t let us speak freely about God. We were teaching that love is powerful and we should by love, and with love for each other. When we live for ourself, we ruin our lives. Sometimes we need help from others. She argued that we should have talked more about the trees that Canada has…James argued that there was time for questions, and they didn’t want to know about the trees. They wanted to know about why we had come all the way to this town, way out in the middle of nowhere. We wanted to teach them things that could help their life long after we had left.
Anyways, in the middle of this, the teachers showed up and were wondering why she was trying to ruin this great program that was put on… and then the kids came out and asked her why she was trying to stop the program that they had enjoyed. So she said, well, then I’ll do a seminar about how to get a man for you girls. Then they cut her off and said, ‘We don’t care about that… how come you think your programs are so much better. You have to try and ruin ours?!’ Anyways, soon she couldn’t take it and went off to finish writing her letter.
It was then that the vice-principal came out. She had been watching our whole program. She was very blunt. ‘So what if you taught about turning to God when nothing else works…if our psychologist tries to send that letter, I’ll fire her. I really liked your program.’
God rules!
That was a taste of what God is doing. Pray that God continues to have his way!
December 26, 2006
Well, we’re heading for Lesosebirsk…I’m not sure if that’s how you’d spell it, but it’s about 5 hours north of Krasnoyarsk. I don’t know what to expect up there except that I’m sure it’ll still cold. That’s life here…and we just hit a big pothole…This van we borrowed from Chad is taking quite a beating. Hence, ‘Sorry Chad’ has become one of our primary sayings here on the road. *BANG* ‘Sorry Chad’…You get the idea.
Well, we’ll see what the north brings… that and New Years. Apparently, they stay up all night… and all next morning
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Potential Whatevers
Twas the night before the night before Christmas,
and all through the apartment...
the guys ate ice cream...
Well, that's what we've been doing tonight. We're here until lunchtime of the 26th and then we're heading up into more northern Siberia for a while. Then we'll return to Krasnoyarsk here on the 2nd of January. Then on the 5th we'll be heading to Ulan Ude, just next to Lake Baikal. It should prove to be quite the adventure!
Okay, I'll try again...
Twas the night before the night before Christmas
and all through the flat
all the boys were all eating
Until we were all fat
On ice cream and sausage
Pilmeenee* and bread
And fighting off sleep so that this could be read
I hope all are well, as we have been here
Likely next time I write you
Will be sometime next year
Thanks for stopping by the blog here today
May God’s grace and peace be with you always
Well, work hard for God and remember us here
And Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year!
*Pilmeenee is spelled phonetically for the use of pronunciation. It is like a small perogie that has some meat, usually pork, inside. It is similar to the Chinese wonton, but smaller. It is one of the commonly eaten types of food that are common to Russia…We ate it almost everyday on our first week here… O.o
.
We were down by the river today looking at ice sculptures... it's a big deal here and you can see them everywhere downtown. It's quite spectacular. Thank you all for the emails and comments... I love you all, and I sincerely hope you have a great Christmas back home. Here we're going to be celebrating Christmas twice. Jan 7th too.... :D Anyways, Merry Christmas and Take care everyone! Thanks for readin the blog!
Grace and Peace
Brother J
December 22, 2006
The start of a new day…yesterday was our very last program day for about 5 days which we’ll spend enjoying a North American Christmas and recovering from the last while of programs. I’m personally hoping to rest my wrist. Way back when we were pushing a car that had been stranded near Bogotol I’ve been having a bit of trouble with my wrist…Not serious…but annoying. It’s like if I had sprained it…I just can’t lean on it or bend it very far… Still prayer for our team’s health in general would be appreciated.
I had a really good time with Zhenya this evening. He plays guitar and basically just as well as I can. He’s been learning North American church songs and doing them transliterated…So we were able to sing along with some of them and it was a really great time of sharing songs and music. He doesn’t often get to play guitar since nobody around here owns one. That is too bad for there are a large handful of guys who would love to play guitar more if they had the chance. It really is great how much fun we had…I think I ate too much bread just before bed though…lol, it’s these late snacks they give us… *sigh* But the cheese spread is just so good!!!
It has been really good to see how much God has been working…Everywhere we turn we see God doing something great. And yet… strangely in all that God is doing it’s possible to feel alone. I’ll be missing my family this Christmas…it’s the first one away from home. Well, my immediate family. So to all, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.
From Russia with Love
~James
December 21, 2006
To ARMS TO ARMS! ‘Tis been a battle of sorts here in recent times. For the last three days we have had programs in places where we are to make no use of ‘propaganda’ of any kind. Which means, ‘You cannot speak of Jesus’. So most of the programs we did were mainly concerts to keep the people interested. Right at the end however, we played ‘One Way’… Jesus, you’re the only one that I can live for. The kids loved it, and we’d always catch a few who were dancing along with it… some were even singing it! In fact, yesterday at a college we were asked for an encore, and so we played Awesome God for them. Truly God is awesome that He has brought us into these places that for so very long have been absolutely closed to the Church.
We’ve been spending the last few days in a city named Dubinina. The church here is seemingly young. Most of the church leaders have been Christians for less than a year! It’s incredible the passion that they have. The director of Children’s programs in the area is named Zhenya (Zh = J in bonjour)…He was saved somewhere in the last 5 years I believe… I remember him talking about 2001 being a key year for him. Each of the people is an amazing testimony of what God can do with a person’s life. Most of the guys that we’ve worked with, less than a year ago were near the end of their life because they were doing so much with drugs. But God has completely turned them around. In Canada so often I’ve found my spiritual life kind of … complacent. Average and meh… But you can’t do that here. If you were to try to live life in the middle here, you’d get dragged right out of the church by your own mediocrity. Here you must be on fire for God if you want to do anything for Him. I sometimes imagine what Canada could become if we were as on fire for Christ as are the Christians here…. Wow…. It’s strange… our being here has given them a fresh potential in the area. Many places that they normally could never go into see our team from Canada and say, ‘Great! I never knew the church did anything good! Sure, come on back!’ Most people around here have been brought up thinking that the Baptists were some kind of small cult. But now they’re beginning to see, not only that we’re a lot larger than they thought… But also that within the Church, Russia’s people will find their only hope for their existence…the only way… the One way… Jesus.
Oh, how I need to be desperate …. We need to be desperate to see God work. This is a battle… And we have everything we need to win. We just need to ask for the help. We need to look past the simple physical problems and see that there is so much more at work right now. May God ignite in all of us a fresh passion from the Holy Spirit for the lost. May today be found fresh for you!
Grace and Peace
~Brother J
December 17, 2006
Well, we’ve arrived after getting delayed/lost for an hour… We’re in a fairly large town here and we’ll be here for about…4 days I believe and then we’ll be heading back to Krasnoyarsk… It’s hard to believe that in just a short while, it’ll be Christmas. We had a good service at the church that we had been staying at. I was a bit grumpy though as I didn’t get enough sleep… I have the foreboding feeling that it’ll happen again too. It’s actually after midnight… so it’s the 18th now… crazy. Speaking of crazy, I’ve come to the conclusion that Mexican movies are crazy as well…
It’s strange… though I know very little about the couple where Bryce and I are currently staying, it does indeed seem slightly Mexican… I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because this is truly the most simplistic home I’ve seen yet. I was grumpy again this evening… Bruce and Olga were talking with Bryce and I… and it was in one of those moments that I felt very…alone. Alone and different. I strongly dislike moments like that… Because it makes me feel very small and useless. I hate feeling useless. Oh well… I realized it was like Sam in the Fellowship of the Ring. He’s not useful, and most people overlook him. It doesn’t seem like he could play a signicant… if any part at all… in the story. As it turns out, Sam is who keeps it going in the end when all hope fades. Perhaps… perhaps I was born for a moment. Just in order so that when that one day comes… that one moment that I can truly be useful…that I WILL be … I wonder.
We’re all useful in our own ‘special’ way I suppose. And hey, thanks to all who are saying in your heads, ‘He’s not useless!’… It makes me feel better when your prayers are headed this way. Anyways, I’m gonna let Bryce do some journaling. Have a great night sleep! Farewell and Namarie.
~Brother James
December 15, 2006 (EVENING)
Well, it indeed was another long day… I’m beat. We had a program at an orphanage and then we went out to a village in the area. It was not sure if the gospel had ever come there… There were about 15 people, but always some going and coming. One in particular who would come and go was drunk. He was covered in tattoos, had fairly dark skin and desperately wanted to sing a solo that evening… The audience was not about to grant his request… It really was too bad that man was drunk… He has an amazing story to tell I am sure. He was telling James L outside about how he had been in prison for 17 years and on death row at one point. On his back is a huge crucifix tattooed with some women kneeling on either side. On his front is a huge tattoo of Mary. He was claiming to be a Christian to James and then he wanted to go and get his tarot cards and tell his future… It was very interesting. It’s sad to see what people do to themselves… But what is really amazing is when God displays His power in places that are so bound by sin, Satan and despair. I hope salvation comes to that man, and to all his village there. That would be so awesome! We’ll have to learn what God does one day… I wonder…
December 15, 2006
Last couple days here actually have been ‘relaxing’…we had a later morning and a program later in the day. Pastor Sasha here is the twin of Pastor Andre in that little village area with the snowstorm. Recently I’ve been the klutz of the team. I banged my head on a wall yesterday really hard and it levelled me… and I had only got 5 hours of sleep the night before… so I wasn’t sure if that dull pain was from the wall or from sleep deprivation. Never the less, I did get some better sleep last night. The first night it was very cold. So this time I came prepared with all these extra clothes… and then we didn’t even use them! This time there was heat…. Oi! lol. That’s life. Then in the night I put a blanket against the corner of the wall where my head was because I was sleeping and then I smoked my head on that wall too! So then I rolled over and took Bryce’s elbow to my face… wow… it’s been amazing hitting my head on everything…I can’t wait to get more sleep. The girls I think have arrived which means I should go and have breakfast real soon…
Oh, right now we’re staying in a Baptist church that isn’t finished yet. What’s interesting is that when Bruce was first here, this building was only a dream. Russia for the longest time would make a church meet on the far edge of town in a shack away from people… so the change is absolutely staggering that we are in a LARGE Baptist church, but they were allowed to build it right in the heart of this city of 60 000 people. Go figure! Only God can accomplish things like that.
Praise God that he’s still working! He is still working today! Grace and Peace…
~ Brother J
December 13, 2006
Dima was up at 9 to make sure we had time to shower and to eat. We had a good time saying our goodbyes and then we went to the church to hear Pastor Sasha’s testimony. Apparently he used to be into a lot of ‘healing’… healing by demons… that kind of thing. And he told us the struggles and the story of how he met Jesus. It was really very exciting! It reminded me of both testimonies I’ve heard from Native people from northern Canada who have had spirit troubles…and also of the early church in Acts. He had aquired a huge library of these occultic healing books and certificates, and one day God got a hold of him and he went and burned them all in the back yard… then he gave up all of his former life and wealth and decided to live as a poor worker of Jesus. Wow. It was an eye opener for all of us, and it was hard to let us go.
Now we’re on the road back home. We’ll see what today brings. Take care!
Grace and Peace
~Brother J
December 12, 2006
This became a wonderful day to get out many of those issues that we had as a team built up from just being around each other too much. It was a good venting morning. We spent most the morning doing prayer, personal work time, and putting things right again. It was refreshing and yet strangely draining all at once. In the afternoon we went to a school, with mostly youth attending. It was one of the best programs we’ve done to date. It was really fun to do, and it turned out that all that had stayed at our program could have just gone home, as school was out, but they had chosen to stay. So for those that did stay, we felt very honoured. After I had carried some of the equipment out afterwards, I stopped to look at a curious stained glass art piece in the stairwell. It was of three Russian cosmonauts floating about a deep red sun. In the middle of the sun was a small man with a flower in his hand. It looked like something out of some Greek myth. It was interesting in any case. As I was looking at it, there was this older lady down on the main floor who began yelling. I turned to look and to my surprise, she was yelling at ME! I didn’t know what to do… ‘Uh…’ I muttered…’Yanee, pannee, my-you, Parruski’… Which is basically I don’t understand Russian. She looked at me really funny, and then a young boy, Victor’s son, Victor, had come up the stairs and told the lady that I was one of the Canadians and then grabbed my arm and whisked me up the stairs. I recall seeing the teacher look somewhere between confused and embarrassed. I was for a while too, until I found Olga and James and got them to tell young Victor thank you for saving my life. It turns out that she thought I was Russian and was wondering what in the world I was doing in this school… She wanted to know who I was and why I was there at all. ‘Ha!’ I told James, ‘I’m blending into the culture…. Even with my pompom toque!!!’
It was my triumphant moment for the day.
After we went back to the church where I was given a little teddy for a present to remember them by. I think it’s a Christmas tree ornament. And then Rhys and I finished the song about the duct tape Perspectives bag…to the tune of ‘A little More’ by Skillet. It’s quite interesting, and I hope some of you who want to hear it will get a chance to listen to it.
James and Molly came with AJ and myself to Natasha’s. After a while of waiting, Dima showed up to unlock the flat. We visited for a good long while there drinking tea and eating. It was exciting to hear about how they had grown up. Please pray for Dima… he’s searching but doesn’t really want to be a Christian right now…His mom is a strong believer. After almost all was said and done, AJ and I visited with Dima and Natasha after James and Molly had left. Natasha got out some paper and crayons, and we each drew them a picture. It was really fun, but it left me very tired. Oh, I gave Natasha a cd of some of my songs on it. She was really happy and kissed me on the cheek. Haha, she told me that since AJ and I were sons there now, we were entitled to special treatment. Dima was happy to call me a brother. That was really great. He’s near 30 now and is in the army… it’s weird having a big brother… I’ve always been the oldest until recently… it’s a really strange feeling. But pray for him… He needs the Lord. He needs fulfillment. He’s sick of life in the army…He said that AJ and myself were the first kind faces he’s seen in over a year. Pray for him. We went to bed … sometime before 2. I’m not really sure when we got to sleep.
December 11, 2006
Bogotol the village was called. The Pastor there was Andre…and we arrived for tea, chocolate and to sing them ‘It is Well With My Soul’. From there we went to our first program run by a lady who can speak very fluent French. France French. Indeed it seems like a very romantic language. We had some issues with the sound equipment which got us, moodwise, off on the wrong foot. It was very good though that the kids there were very fond of balloons. We made a bunch of different balloons for each of them and after it all was said and done, they sang us a song. But a song I had heard when I was a kid. ‘Higher, Higher… lift Jesus higher’… That was really special. Unfortunately, because we had to enjoy their wonderful hospitality we ended up being very late for lunch. So late in fact that we came in, prayed, sat down, ate 0-5 bites depending on how fast you could eat the hot stew (Rhys for example ate 0… I on the other hand ate five… but I burnt my tongue…), and then got up, put on our coats again and left. A huge snowstorm had blown in and it was very windy and brought with it, obviously, very much snow. Being it was so stormy, we drove fairly slowly and found a car that had just gone into the ditch.
James L stopped his car and we got out and started trying to help him. When that didn’t seem to be working, we flagged down a big Russian jeep. After a few attempts, including snapping the tether line, we eventually pulled and pushed the car out. Back on the road, we found that now we would be an hour late. So when we arrived in our last program location, a small community hall, we very hurriedly began to set up our equipment. And right in the middle of it, the host lady came in and said that we must stop what we were doing and enjoy some tea, chocolate and cookies. So we did… you dare not argue with a host lady. So, eventually, about 2 and then some hours later we started our program. It went really well. We couldn’t stay a long time afterwards because we didn’t want to get snowed in or anything and we still were hoping to get to the banya. So, in the dark night we followed large trucks down the highway. There was blowing snow everywhere, the snowdrifts were crossing the road, it was hectic and scary driving… But we all made it safely back into town and by 10:30 we were arrived at the local banya. It was nice. Basically to explain the banya, it’s hotter than a sauna, with drier heat, an overall lack of clothing…and leafy branches to thwack yourself with. Obviously there is a girl side and a guy side, so that made things more comfortable. But sweating with 5 other men in a small little room dodging the leafy birch branches that were swinging everywhere was really quite interesting. Oh, here’s a helpful sidenote… If ever you are having a Russian shower… turn off the hot water first. It can get very, very hot and in a very short amount of time. In you are not fast enough you can burn yourself. Just thought I’d let you know that…because it hurts and you don’t want to do that. Anyways, it was a very enjoyable experience. It was wonderful for the pores. That night I planned to go to bed right away.
We arrived home after 12 and so we were sure that our host, Natasha would be asleep. Nope. Turns out that her son had arrived that night from a 3 day train ride. That meant that there would not be an early bedtime. We stayed up for a while and enjoyed more tea and each other’s attempts at each of our strange languages. Natasha’s son’s name is Dima…(deema) and he was really great to talk with, though that night it was a lot shorter than I’m sure he would have liked to visit. Praise God there would be only one program for the next day. *sigh* Yes, in case you were wondering I miss you all back home every once in a while… God has been good. We’ve never had to experience the oppression that people like Pastor Andre have had to deal with. And yet we have the opposite issue. Let us not continue to be complacent…live every life as it were you last moment. You may not get another chance. Grace and Peace
~Brother J
December 10, 2006
Day off day… in theory that is… We went to the Baptist church in the area called ‘Living Waters’. It was a great time. Our team did a couple songs there, and on the spot they asked me to do a song I had written! Crazy! I did ‘Sunshine in the Rain’ as Bruce had been talking a bit about communion and about Bridgrooms and Brides… I was missing my Bride to be back at home. So I did that song because it was about Karina and it was about my Saviour. It was a great time. Afterwards, we visited until around 4… the service had started at 11. At 4 we were sick of sitting around eating… For real, we had been having tea all afternoon with different groups coming in to spend time with us. At 4 we all went outside and we had a snowball fight between Canada and Russia. We were quickly overwhelmed, haha, so some of the fellow Russians helped us out. I got one in the face real hard near the end. lol, it was a lot of fun, and I’m glad we did it. Afterwards we went inside to warm up and… You guessed it… had more food and more tea. *sigh* I was telling the rest of the team… I don’t remember what it means to be hungry. And I’m quite sure if I wasn’t filling my being with food all the time, I’d be losing a good deal of weight with all the walking and stairs and programs that we’ve been doing. But as it is, there’s no end to the food, and so there simply is no way I’ll be able to fit these trousers if this keeps up for much longer!!!
The same gal from the first program we did in the cinemas was there today. Her name sounds a lot like the French ‘vwala!’ …I think it’s the short version of Valintine. Russian language has a LOT of short form names. In fact they found out that my full name here if it were in Russian would be Yakov Blainavich…there was a short form of Yakov too I believe.. but I don’t recall it now. It’s crazy how much a name can change here.
After everything around 5:30pm we started heading back to our billets to relax…except for AJ who wanted to work on chalk art. In fact at 9, he’s still not home here yet. When I got back, Natasha was wanting to feed her dog, Gelda. I figured, sure I’ll come for a quick walk down to see your dog. She asked if I needed a fur hat. I told her I’d be fine with my little cap. I did take the mitts she offered though as I had left mine in the van. Well, the little walk was over 2 kms one way. Through the neighbourhood, out into the edge of the town to where there were hundreds of sheds and garages. I escorted her all the way down attempting to chat in my very very broken Russian. It was interesting. Eventually we turned into a small ‘alley’ which was fairly wide, but all of it was deep snow except for a small footpath that had been packed down. My ears were beyond freezing at this point and so I had pulled them under my hat. (It was because of the wind… the temperature was dropping to near -25 tonight) We walked a ways down this alley until we reached a small wooden gate. She unlatched it and let me come through. It was a garden! Well, I mean, it was still all snow.. But it was a large fenced in garden. Her dog stays there in a dog house and guards the area. Most of the dogs around here are treated a lot different than we would treat them in Canada. They’re treated a bit like semi-tamed wolves. They wander through the streets and through yards, but some are regular pets, and some are completely homeless, and then some are guards on the prowl. Anyways, Natasha stooped down and called the dog…no answer. She poured out all the food she had with her and called again. No answer. So she shrugged and walked away to leave. So I started to call the dog. ‘Here doggy!’…… Curiously, it was answered… I didn’t see her dog… But there was a low growl….*rrrrrrrrr* … I repeated the process several times enjoying the low growl and then we left. About 7 minutes later walking, I heard something coming; walking up behind us. I spun around when it started getting close, and there was a dog! Natasha let out a cry and started to pet the dog that looked a good deal like a german shepherd crossed with some other dog with black floppy ears. It was scared of me, but it enjoyed being with his master for a little bit and then she clapped her hands and sent the dog back home to do guardwork. Strange.
We saw some stars out there on the way back… in fact, I think that was first time I had seen stars since I’d been here in Russia. It had been quite cloudy most of the time we’ve been here. So it was really nice to see them out. They were exactly the same as at home. ‘Zeeovs-dee!’ she said, proudly pointing to the sky. Alas, we made it back and then we went through some photos of friends, family and our travels. Then Natasha went to read a book and I went to journal. And now here we are. AJ returned a sentence ago and then I caught him up with everything I just finished telling you here.
Please pray that Pastor Sasha will be given wisdom in how to go about building a large church. Right now they have a huge building that is next to the church that they’re working on. But Sasha doesn’t know how in the world to work on a building or anything. He just used to sell things. PLEASE pray that God would do something amazing for the church here. Wow. Oh, and for anyone who wants their church to grow? Prayer… that’s what will set in motion. Any age so long that it’s heartfelt. That and small groups meeting to discuss and pray…. Pray….and be at peace!
Brother J
December 9, 2006
Wow… we’re tired. lol, we had only two programs yesterday, but they took a lot out of us… or perhaps it was all the food we had to eat… Whichever…
We did a program in a medical school last afternoon. That was really fun! They were attentive, and we found out after that it was a miracle that they didn’t stop us in the middle of the program. We were forbidden to tell them about the evening program, yet a few of them knew simply because of the massive advertising the church had done for us here. They advertised us on TV! The evening program was actually in the cinema. There was a massive room for about 400 or so. It had a very large stage and we were nervous just being in such a large room. About 120 people came. Something like that. But we were very pleased to find out that many of those who came, perhaps even 60 or more weren’t involved with the church at all and many of the things they heard they were hearing for the first time!!! Praise God that it went well. There were issues. I had a bad cough and AJ happened to pick out the only bad cord to hook up his drums. Yet when push came to shove, God pulled us through despite our potential to fail. My voice didn’t just hold out, it was better at singing than I’ve ever done to this day. AJ noticed that his drums didn’t work at all at the start of one of the songs, but it wasn’t imperative that he came in at that moment. Literally he was able to fix it about 1 second before he came in, and then he came in with a wonderful ring of cymbals. It was wonderful how God provided.
Afterwards, Bryce, AJ and myself were invited upstairs to listen to some other music from a fellow musician who had come to watch us. They went with him when the program was over. The rest stayed to visit with the people still around. I was on my way out and then Olga stopped me. Apparently there was a girl who had wanted to fellowship… that was what Olga said. I’ll have to ask about what else they had talked about. But we had a good visit. She realized quickly how different Canada and Russia are. But as Olga was translating for us, we were able to compare our stories of how God changed our lives and it was really very interesting. Many of the Christians here are first generation Christians, and if there were any other Christians in their family, it was usually their Babushka…Grandmother. I have to hand it to those Grandmothers. It’s a reoccurring story about how these women of faith never let go of what they had been taught when they were growing up, even in the face of the despair that Communism brought.
During prayer this morning I was suddenly reminded of the goodness of Christ… of the wonder of his love. I remembered the struggles we’ve been having, the difficulties… the pain… the fatigue. And out of the blue, I was thankful. It’s these hard times that truly let us find fulfillment in these tasks that God gives us. We can look back at the end of the journey and be glad that we didn’t have it easy. And we can see that he has not let even one of our feet step without his knowledge or guidance. It is so comforting to know that our existence has been choreographed and planned out in accordance with the free will that God has given us. May He remind You of his undying faithfulness. Truly He is more faithful than even the rising of the sun.
Go in peace
Brother J
Friday, December 08, 2006
James Found the Internet!!
Ok, This is Karina on behalf of James...for all those who are wondering...
So James finally was able to connect to the internet some where! He had been saving up a lot of blog entries, and so when he finally had time to be on the Internet, he emailed all his blogs to me. So, the next 6 entries you see posted here are from James and his adventures in Russia!! Enjoy!
~karina~
So James finally was able to connect to the internet some where! He had been saving up a lot of blog entries, and so when he finally had time to be on the Internet, he emailed all his blogs to me. So, the next 6 entries you see posted here are from James and his adventures in Russia!! Enjoy!
~karina~
December 6&7, 2006
Several important things happened on the sixth. We
met up with another Pastor Sasha in a nearby
city…We were supposed to do two programs but we
did 4 instead. I was absolutely beat. Not
sore… just tired. Yoora…our host here in
Nazarova had his 54th Birthday! We had a big meal and
lots of celebrating. He’s a great musician and
singer and has dreamed of making a cd of sorts of
songs for his friends and family for after he’s
gone. I gave him some money for the celebration and
for his dream. I hope it turns out well. He has been
a huge blessing in the last few days. He is so
incredibly on fire for God it is humbling. He’s
been an incredible encouragement to our team…
and as he’s been used by God to help
us…God’s been using us to help him. He
said that though he’s really enjoyed having
other teams come in the past… this is the first
team where we’ve felt like we were brothers.
Connected…in some mysterious way through
God’s Spirit.
While we’ve been here we’ve been able to
go into some schools where when previous teams came
through, they had claimed there was no hall in the
school at all where a program could be done…we
did programs in these halls that weren’t there.
Wow hey?!
One school director this year told Pastor Sasha that
he would rather the students all addicted to hard
drugs than to be exposed to Christianity… pray
for Russia…it’s not near as free as some
of us would like to think.
This morning I was awoken by roosters that live
underneath the floor… that was strange. We had
a few programs today… Pretty typical
stuff… except for this evening… After our
program in an orphanage, they asked if we would like
to stay for part of their Christmas program practice.
Most of it consisted of girls singing and swaying to a
tape on the stereo. There were some boys who must
have been around 11 years old who were trying out
breakdancing moves…. Wow… you need a lot
of muscle to do that…I still think the boys in
China who did backflips off their forehead still
topped them… but it was still amazing. What
made it really ‘interesting’ was that
after this exceptionally flexible gymnastic routine, I
was mentioning to Rhys that it felt a lot like those
characters you see in movies who are invited by some
prince in some exotic place in Arabia or India and
they call out those dancers… that was just the
feel of it…
Right in the middle of that statement, in came 4 of
the teen girls dressed up in very exotic
Arabian/Indian garb, and they started dancing…in
typical exotic style of course… All us guys
could think of was… ‘eye contact…
EYE CONTACT!’…
I think all us guys were surprised to run across
dancing and dress of that kind in the middle of a
smaller town, in the middle of winter… in
Siberia! Weird.
Pray that us guys continue to be strong in resisting
the ‘eye candy’ that tends to be quite
frequent.
It has been a truly amazing time here in the mornings
and evenings with Yoora. God has used him to refocus
our team on what is really important. I hope I can
learn a lot of lessons from just the way he lives his
life. It’s evident that he wants to be like
Jesus.
I want to be like Jesus…
It has been truly amazing to see how one who has so
little can have so much. Joy truly lives here in this
man and his family. You can see it in his
eyes…and he knows it. It’s strange how
often we want to have all these amazing and abundant
things. To have merely enough seems out of the
question… we need a lot. Yoora sang us a song
that basically says: ‘I don’t want an easy
life… make it full of hardships and struggles
that I might be counted worthy of you. All I need is
you with me Jesus. You are enough.’ Truly it
was humbling to hear it… and even Yoora was
telling us that that particular song is a tough bite
to chew… We shouldn’t ask for the
privilege to suffer should we?
Perhaps there is more to life than having a good
job… a great house… a loving family…
a clean bathroom… good hair… food in the
fridge… a fridge at all for that matter…
perhaps all the things that we
‘need’…aren’t….
Maybe all we need is Jesus.
Merely Jesus.
Several important things happened on the sixth. We
met up with another Pastor Sasha in a nearby
city…We were supposed to do two programs but we
did 4 instead. I was absolutely beat. Not
sore… just tired. Yoora…our host here in
Nazarova had his 54th Birthday! We had a big meal and
lots of celebrating. He’s a great musician and
singer and has dreamed of making a cd of sorts of
songs for his friends and family for after he’s
gone. I gave him some money for the celebration and
for his dream. I hope it turns out well. He has been
a huge blessing in the last few days. He is so
incredibly on fire for God it is humbling. He’s
been an incredible encouragement to our team…
and as he’s been used by God to help
us…God’s been using us to help him. He
said that though he’s really enjoyed having
other teams come in the past… this is the first
team where we’ve felt like we were brothers.
Connected…in some mysterious way through
God’s Spirit.
While we’ve been here we’ve been able to
go into some schools where when previous teams came
through, they had claimed there was no hall in the
school at all where a program could be done…we
did programs in these halls that weren’t there.
Wow hey?!
One school director this year told Pastor Sasha that
he would rather the students all addicted to hard
drugs than to be exposed to Christianity… pray
for Russia…it’s not near as free as some
of us would like to think.
This morning I was awoken by roosters that live
underneath the floor… that was strange. We had
a few programs today… Pretty typical
stuff… except for this evening… After our
program in an orphanage, they asked if we would like
to stay for part of their Christmas program practice.
Most of it consisted of girls singing and swaying to a
tape on the stereo. There were some boys who must
have been around 11 years old who were trying out
breakdancing moves…. Wow… you need a lot
of muscle to do that…I still think the boys in
China who did backflips off their forehead still
topped them… but it was still amazing. What
made it really ‘interesting’ was that
after this exceptionally flexible gymnastic routine, I
was mentioning to Rhys that it felt a lot like those
characters you see in movies who are invited by some
prince in some exotic place in Arabia or India and
they call out those dancers… that was just the
feel of it…
Right in the middle of that statement, in came 4 of
the teen girls dressed up in very exotic
Arabian/Indian garb, and they started dancing…in
typical exotic style of course… All us guys
could think of was… ‘eye contact…
EYE CONTACT!’…
I think all us guys were surprised to run across
dancing and dress of that kind in the middle of a
smaller town, in the middle of winter… in
Siberia! Weird.
Pray that us guys continue to be strong in resisting
the ‘eye candy’ that tends to be quite
frequent.
It has been a truly amazing time here in the mornings
and evenings with Yoora. God has used him to refocus
our team on what is really important. I hope I can
learn a lot of lessons from just the way he lives his
life. It’s evident that he wants to be like
Jesus.
I want to be like Jesus…
It has been truly amazing to see how one who has so
little can have so much. Joy truly lives here in this
man and his family. You can see it in his
eyes…and he knows it. It’s strange how
often we want to have all these amazing and abundant
things. To have merely enough seems out of the
question… we need a lot. Yoora sang us a song
that basically says: ‘I don’t want an easy
life… make it full of hardships and struggles
that I might be counted worthy of you. All I need is
you with me Jesus. You are enough.’ Truly it
was humbling to hear it… and even Yoora was
telling us that that particular song is a tough bite
to chew… We shouldn’t ask for the
privilege to suffer should we?
Perhaps there is more to life than having a good
job… a great house… a loving family…
a clean bathroom… good hair… food in the
fridge… a fridge at all for that matter…
perhaps all the things that we
‘need’…aren’t….
Maybe all we need is Jesus.
Merely Jesus.
December 3, 2006
We’re back and it’s morning again in
Krasnoyarsk it was a good time overall. We met up
with Pastor Pasha, who was a good friend of
Bruce’s the last times that he had come to
Russia. With him we met a girl named Nastye…
that’s kind of how it’s pronounced.
It’s short for Anastasia. She came along with
our crew and helped a bit with translation and with
some of Pasha’s songs(She had just got back from
spending 3 weeks in Canada… She wants to attend
school there). The girls really enjoyed having
another girl on the team, and she gave us some insight
into the mind of some of the youth there. I, for
example, have large mitts, a bright orange scarf and a
toque with a pompom on the top of it. Typical
Canada… sort of anyways. It turns out
that there are two reasons to chuckle at my wardrobe.
Pompoms on toques are usually worn only by kids under
5. But in my defence, there are some people now who
are getting with it and have pompoms too! I am not
alone! Anastasia came up to me yesterday morning and
she had my mitts. I told her that they were and she
explained that she had borrowed them because they had
a ways to walk the night before in the cold and she
needed them. Then she added, ‘Oh, and I took a
picture of them and showed my dad and he had a good
laugh.’… lol… it’s the mitts.
They’re these large white skidoo mitts with a
trigger finger. Haha, she said they reminded her of
the Ninja Turtles off of TV. That’s life I
guess.
Rhys, Bryce and myself were able to stay in the house
of Ira (ee-ra) and Natasha her sister. They were fun
to have as hosts, but we had a rough time trying to
communicate. Most of the time we tried to use
gestures and different sounds. They were very kind to
us and we enjoyed staying there. We had an Indian
meal once (I guessed RIGHT!!!) and I noticed that a
particular tapestry in the living room had a very
oriental flair to it and so I inquired as such.
Unfortunately I was told it was Russian… hmm, I
was thinking… it has to be from China… or
at least from near China. Right then Ira came running
back in and got out one English word.
‘Mongolia!’ she said with a large smile.
That made my day… it was nice to have a piece of
China in a room with me again. It felt very homely.
We did 3 programs the first day, and come to think of
it, 3 the day after too. At all of them Pasha did a
couple Russian songs. They’re really catchy.
They’re kind of blues meets jazz meets typical
Spanish. I am hoping to get one of his cds from one
of the churches here in town. Pasha’s one of
those guys that humble you just by being
himself… He reminded me a lot of Pastor Rob from
my school years. It is very evident that God is with
him. He told us jokes and tried pieces of English
here there and everywhere. In fact, he was the only
Russian so far who was able to pronounce Saskatchewan
fairly well! After all the 2 days of programs we as a
team were a little stressed … so we took some
time in the morning to pray and discuss team
issues…After things had settled we realized we
had used up the time we were going to use for sliding
at the hill…(or hills as Divnygorsk is all
mountainous hill type country). We were planning to
go tour the large dam in the area… but we
thought about it a minute, and we all decided we
should go sliding and just enjoy being with our
friends there. So we did! And we had an absolute
blast!!! lol, for Tim and Nathan, missed you guys
here… it reminded me of old times at little Red!
There was a childhood friend of
Pasha’s there who was flying around the area on
a Skidoo, and if we were at the bottom when he was, he
would give us a ride up to the top. That was real
cool. 7 of us loaded ourselves onto a skidoo and a
dogsled tied onto the back and he’d motor it up
to the top… He had to push it real hard to get
it up there. Heh, I don’t think that skidoo was
unused to punishment though… it had no shell and
constantly backfired… I saw him trying to ramp
it up a ditch incline that was covered in rocks the
size of my head… lol, it was quite the sight!
Eventually we had tea at Pasha’s to say goodbye,
and then we had a prayer, packed into the vehicles and
were off to do a children’s program at an
Orphanage. When we arrived, we were greeted by
several of the children… it was really cool. We
went and set up and we finished getting ready for the
34 kids that would be coming… and when they came
in, we knew immediately that we were going to have an
interesting program. Two Thirds of the kids who came
were in their early or late teens. AUGH! lol, then
our cd music and sounds went on the fritz… that
was awkward… but I was sure glad we had a
guitar. We whipped out the guitar and many balloons
for everyone. Anyways, it all worked out… we
had a great time and we finished, came home and
relaxed and went to bed.
But alas! Today is new, we have a program in less
than 2 hours for a youth event. Have a great one, and
thanks for your prayers!
Take care and God bless!
~J
We’re back and it’s morning again in
Krasnoyarsk it was a good time overall. We met up
with Pastor Pasha, who was a good friend of
Bruce’s the last times that he had come to
Russia. With him we met a girl named Nastye…
that’s kind of how it’s pronounced.
It’s short for Anastasia. She came along with
our crew and helped a bit with translation and with
some of Pasha’s songs(She had just got back from
spending 3 weeks in Canada… She wants to attend
school there). The girls really enjoyed having
another girl on the team, and she gave us some insight
into the mind of some of the youth there. I, for
example, have large mitts, a bright orange scarf and a
toque with a pompom on the top of it. Typical
Canada… sort of anyways. It turns out
that there are two reasons to chuckle at my wardrobe.
Pompoms on toques are usually worn only by kids under
5. But in my defence, there are some people now who
are getting with it and have pompoms too! I am not
alone! Anastasia came up to me yesterday morning and
she had my mitts. I told her that they were and she
explained that she had borrowed them because they had
a ways to walk the night before in the cold and she
needed them. Then she added, ‘Oh, and I took a
picture of them and showed my dad and he had a good
laugh.’… lol… it’s the mitts.
They’re these large white skidoo mitts with a
trigger finger. Haha, she said they reminded her of
the Ninja Turtles off of TV. That’s life I
guess.
Rhys, Bryce and myself were able to stay in the house
of Ira (ee-ra) and Natasha her sister. They were fun
to have as hosts, but we had a rough time trying to
communicate. Most of the time we tried to use
gestures and different sounds. They were very kind to
us and we enjoyed staying there. We had an Indian
meal once (I guessed RIGHT!!!) and I noticed that a
particular tapestry in the living room had a very
oriental flair to it and so I inquired as such.
Unfortunately I was told it was Russian… hmm, I
was thinking… it has to be from China… or
at least from near China. Right then Ira came running
back in and got out one English word.
‘Mongolia!’ she said with a large smile.
That made my day… it was nice to have a piece of
China in a room with me again. It felt very homely.
We did 3 programs the first day, and come to think of
it, 3 the day after too. At all of them Pasha did a
couple Russian songs. They’re really catchy.
They’re kind of blues meets jazz meets typical
Spanish. I am hoping to get one of his cds from one
of the churches here in town. Pasha’s one of
those guys that humble you just by being
himself… He reminded me a lot of Pastor Rob from
my school years. It is very evident that God is with
him. He told us jokes and tried pieces of English
here there and everywhere. In fact, he was the only
Russian so far who was able to pronounce Saskatchewan
fairly well! After all the 2 days of programs we as a
team were a little stressed … so we took some
time in the morning to pray and discuss team
issues…After things had settled we realized we
had used up the time we were going to use for sliding
at the hill…(or hills as Divnygorsk is all
mountainous hill type country). We were planning to
go tour the large dam in the area… but we
thought about it a minute, and we all decided we
should go sliding and just enjoy being with our
friends there. So we did! And we had an absolute
blast!!! lol, for Tim and Nathan, missed you guys
here… it reminded me of old times at little Red!
There was a childhood friend of
Pasha’s there who was flying around the area on
a Skidoo, and if we were at the bottom when he was, he
would give us a ride up to the top. That was real
cool. 7 of us loaded ourselves onto a skidoo and a
dogsled tied onto the back and he’d motor it up
to the top… He had to push it real hard to get
it up there. Heh, I don’t think that skidoo was
unused to punishment though… it had no shell and
constantly backfired… I saw him trying to ramp
it up a ditch incline that was covered in rocks the
size of my head… lol, it was quite the sight!
Eventually we had tea at Pasha’s to say goodbye,
and then we had a prayer, packed into the vehicles and
were off to do a children’s program at an
Orphanage. When we arrived, we were greeted by
several of the children… it was really cool. We
went and set up and we finished getting ready for the
34 kids that would be coming… and when they came
in, we knew immediately that we were going to have an
interesting program. Two Thirds of the kids who came
were in their early or late teens. AUGH! lol, then
our cd music and sounds went on the fritz… that
was awkward… but I was sure glad we had a
guitar. We whipped out the guitar and many balloons
for everyone. Anyways, it all worked out… we
had a great time and we finished, came home and
relaxed and went to bed.
But alas! Today is new, we have a program in less
than 2 hours for a youth event. Have a great one, and
thanks for your prayers!
Take care and God bless!
~J
November 30, 2006
Alas, it again is morning and we have 3 programs to do
today. It will be a very busy one no doubt…If I
remember right, we’ll be about an hour and a
half south of here…And the city starts with a
D… Debvenorysk… I don’t know for
sure. City names here are hard. But apparently it
has a huge dam there… that’s why the town
is famous and hopefully we’ll be able to see it
for a while.
Our program yesterday went fairly well. We had some
issues with our drama because we changed a whole lot
in it and then we suddenly switched it completely over
to Russian, so we didn’t know our cues any
more… That led to some of us being COMPLETELY
lost up on stage… heh… that was awkward.
Never the less, we pulled through for the last part
and people there really enjoyed it.
Afterward we were invited out for tea with the Pastor
and some other folks who had been around to let us in
to the large school that we did the program in. The
place we went for tea was actually a drug
rehabilitation center with about 6 people there right
now. It was a bit like a little farm house. We had
cheese, chocolate, pickles, sausage, and of course,
tea… it was really good. And while we were
there, we heard several testimonies about how God
changed the lives of these people who were there. One
of those men had given his testimony during the
program. It was a moving story about how he,
literally, had tried everything to get off drugs and
couldn’t… until he met Jesus. Another
older man there, Nicolae, told us how he had two
divorced marriages and children by both wives but he
had been such a drunk and into so many drugs that he
ended up getting kicked out or just leaving
both… now his kids are grown and he hasn’t
been able to see them… But just very recently,
Nicolae heard about this drug center… there he
learned about Jesus and in the last few months now, he
has been completely drug free! He’s enjoying
very much the new start God has given him.
We would have loved to stay longer to chat with
everyone, but we had to get back on the road. It was
just under a three hour drive… so we ended up
getting home just around 11pm. This morning we have
to be on the road at 10 so that doesn’t leave a
whole lot of time for dilly dally. Anyways,
we’re off and I trust and hope that you are
still praying for God’s work to be
accomplished… Grace and Peace
~J
Alas, it again is morning and we have 3 programs to do
today. It will be a very busy one no doubt…If I
remember right, we’ll be about an hour and a
half south of here…And the city starts with a
D… Debvenorysk… I don’t know for
sure. City names here are hard. But apparently it
has a huge dam there… that’s why the town
is famous and hopefully we’ll be able to see it
for a while.
Our program yesterday went fairly well. We had some
issues with our drama because we changed a whole lot
in it and then we suddenly switched it completely over
to Russian, so we didn’t know our cues any
more… That led to some of us being COMPLETELY
lost up on stage… heh… that was awkward.
Never the less, we pulled through for the last part
and people there really enjoyed it.
Afterward we were invited out for tea with the Pastor
and some other folks who had been around to let us in
to the large school that we did the program in. The
place we went for tea was actually a drug
rehabilitation center with about 6 people there right
now. It was a bit like a little farm house. We had
cheese, chocolate, pickles, sausage, and of course,
tea… it was really good. And while we were
there, we heard several testimonies about how God
changed the lives of these people who were there. One
of those men had given his testimony during the
program. It was a moving story about how he,
literally, had tried everything to get off drugs and
couldn’t… until he met Jesus. Another
older man there, Nicolae, told us how he had two
divorced marriages and children by both wives but he
had been such a drunk and into so many drugs that he
ended up getting kicked out or just leaving
both… now his kids are grown and he hasn’t
been able to see them… But just very recently,
Nicolae heard about this drug center… there he
learned about Jesus and in the last few months now, he
has been completely drug free! He’s enjoying
very much the new start God has given him.
We would have loved to stay longer to chat with
everyone, but we had to get back on the road. It was
just under a three hour drive… so we ended up
getting home just around 11pm. This morning we have
to be on the road at 10 so that doesn’t leave a
whole lot of time for dilly dally. Anyways,
we’re off and I trust and hope that you are
still praying for God’s work to be
accomplished… Grace and Peace
~J
November 29, 2006
It’s not bright, but early this morning. God
let me sleep a lot more last night. I slept for an
hour and a half before bed yesterday… and then I
went back to sleep. I think I got near 9 hours of
sleep at least! That was a big lift as we had prayed
that I could get better rest the next day. We have a
program of sorts this evening. I hope that all goes
well. It’s going to be interesting trying to
get around to all these different places with all this
equipment and only a handful of people. It will be
extremely great to have James and Olga translating for
us. Pray that God moves… We could have a good
program and nothing may happen with the people at all.
God MUST be involved in all aspects. Pray that His
Spirit is with us while we do our programs!
Last evening we went for a quick walk downtown and
were able to enjoy some of the scenery. We went
through a couple of malls real quick as well as an
outdoor market. Again… they very much reminded
me of China. Just how they do the layout and
everything….It was so very familiar. While we
were there we had what I equated to Pork crossed with
a tortilla and a Hamburger… hmm… Perhaps
just a tortilla and a hamburger crossed… after
all, there’s still ham in that equation.
Anyways, it was pork that had been fried and then put
in a flour wrap with sauce, dill, onion and likely
other seasonings. It was different, but it was good.
I’ll try to send up some pictures of our walk
sometime soon. James is the one who took us down
there on the buses… I think that was my favorite
part…though it was also the most congested.
Take care everyone! Keep on praying with us!
~J
It’s not bright, but early this morning. God
let me sleep a lot more last night. I slept for an
hour and a half before bed yesterday… and then I
went back to sleep. I think I got near 9 hours of
sleep at least! That was a big lift as we had prayed
that I could get better rest the next day. We have a
program of sorts this evening. I hope that all goes
well. It’s going to be interesting trying to
get around to all these different places with all this
equipment and only a handful of people. It will be
extremely great to have James and Olga translating for
us. Pray that God moves… We could have a good
program and nothing may happen with the people at all.
God MUST be involved in all aspects. Pray that His
Spirit is with us while we do our programs!
Last evening we went for a quick walk downtown and
were able to enjoy some of the scenery. We went
through a couple of malls real quick as well as an
outdoor market. Again… they very much reminded
me of China. Just how they do the layout and
everything….It was so very familiar. While we
were there we had what I equated to Pork crossed with
a tortilla and a Hamburger… hmm… Perhaps
just a tortilla and a hamburger crossed… after
all, there’s still ham in that equation.
Anyways, it was pork that had been fried and then put
in a flour wrap with sauce, dill, onion and likely
other seasonings. It was different, but it was good.
I’ll try to send up some pictures of our walk
sometime soon. James is the one who took us down
there on the buses… I think that was my favorite
part…though it was also the most congested.
Take care everyone! Keep on praying with us!
~J
November 26, 2006
This was our second day in Russia. It was -20 again
when we woke up at 8:30. We had egg omelets for
breakfast. That was all good. James L.
came and found us this morning and we walked for a few
blocks to the bus stop and then from there we rode
about 10 minutes until we came to our stop. From
there we walked about 5 or 6 blocks… It may have
been longer, but it was around large apartment looking
buildings, a large park that had a nifty path and
trees, benches and a stage…There were long
streets with billboards everywhere … It reminded
me a lot of how China looked while I was there. It
was really interesting to see the look of everything
inspired by communism. I was mentioning to James
along the walk, I really enjoyed having to walk again.
They walk a lot in Russia because of the lack of
money and because most of the time things they need to
be near are close enough to walk. Anyways, that was
something we had to do all the time in China. I
really really enjoyed being able to go for a crisp
refreshing walk. I’m sure there will be days
where I tire of walking everywhere… but for now
I’ll try my best to enjoy the moving around. It
helps a lot that James keeps us from getting lost.
Oh… I was going to mention, I’ve been
trying to get the team to call me something else than
James… everyone calls James L. James…
therefore, everytime they need to talk to him,
I’m up looking around. Rhys has started to call
me Jimbo. Whatever works.
Church was interesting… We sat in the very back
of a theatre type room in a school. Apparently the
church rents it out there. It was amazing. Being in
a country, with a Bible in my hand in a country where
not just Christianity, but God has been outlawed for a
good long while was something very awe inspiring and
humbling. The service actually reminded me a lot of
my home church, the New Life Indian Alliance
Fellowship. It was fairly easy going and had a lot of
testimonies, some accompanied by long songs, poems,
sparse singing throughout the service and food
afterwards.
Our team played through ‘It is Well’ and
were able to introduce ourselves, with some assistance
from Olga, a good friend of Bruce and our interpreter
for a good long while during our stay here. Our first
impressions of her have all been good. She has a good
sense of humor and an amazing gift for language. She
never studied English, but simply picked it up on her
own from reading bits and listening. I know she can
speak Turkish, Russian, and English at least… I
don’t know yet if she can speak any
others… But I do know that she just picked up
Turkish during this last little while. James was
saying that he wishes that he could wishes that a gift
that amazing could simply be purchased!
After the service, the grandmothers were very quick
and getting myself, and later the rest of the team to
drink some tea and eat the cookies and cake put out.
They would toss the crowd in front of us out of the
way and toss us into the gap and made sure that we
left that spot with our hands and mouths full…
lol, we speculated that perhaps they were getting us
to eat because they wished to spare themselves from
hearing our fragmented and simplistic Russian
greetings and clumsy responses. I experimented a fair
bit with trying to figure out what people were saying.
It didn’t go so well. Heh, I had to get one of
the more English people to help me out. The people
there are really interesting… But then I
suppose all people who are any bit different from
myself are interesting… foreign or not…
Interesting. Oh, speaking of English people. I met
another man in church today and I had a really good
talk with him… in English… REAL English.
Over this last month, I’ve met people from
England everywhere I went… in really fluke
situations…at least from a normal perspective.
In fact, I never even realized all these people I was
meeting until Janelle brought it up. I’ve been
pondering if there is some other reason that I keep
running into people from England … even when in
Russia. I wonder what God has got planned out. This
is going to be an interesting time here.
For those who are praying for us, keep team unity in
mind…and for our unity to be founded in nothing
or no one else other that our Savior. There are still
some tensions here and there… personality
clashes etc… But I can’t help thinking
that there is more at work here than mere personality.
Pray that our work here will not be hindered.
Tomorrow we start more ‘orientation’ type
stuff and we’ll go through some of our
programming with Olga. We’re going to be going
all over. I wonder what the kids, youth and adults
will think of our programs and all the stuff in them.
I mean, they won’t be able to understand our
songs for the very most part (we have one song right
now in Russian, but it still needs some work). It
truly is humbling when you can’t even converse
with a 3 year old… and it has nothing to do with
the 3 year old’s grammar…It’s
because you can’t keep up with the kid. Ha, all
I can say to them is Hello, I don’t understand
Russian, and thank you… as well as a few other
simple words, greetings and good-bye. It’s a
tough life. The missionaries have quite a different
life. Indeed the Russian culture is different. And
just some things that we would take for granted can
become very difficult. For example, tonight we needed
some groceries, so AJ and I watched our bags that we
still had with us at the door while the others went to
find the food we needed.
Meanwhile a real tough looking guy showed up. Shaved
head, black leather jacket, a scar on his face…
He was on his way out of the door to smoke and eyed us
down so I said Hello to him… He looked at me
real funny and then walked out muttering a
‘Hello’ back. He returned a little while
after and asked if I spoke English. I said yes and
asked him if he did… nope. He ended up getting
a couple of gals from the store to try and figure out
why I was there… One girl who was had been
working the till came and asked why we were standing
in the entranceway of the store, eventually… and
I do mean eventually… was able to get her to
understand that we were waiting for some of our
friends. I don’t know if they were planning to
kick us out thinking we were bums or something…
But I personally don’t think they were… I
think they just thought we were funny looking or
something and wanted to know why we weren’t
inside, nor outside… We were in the in-between
room. Anyways, whatever it was about, we were being
watched over by someone higher than any could ever
fathom or comprehend. Please pray.
Anyways, I must go get ready for bed… I think
I’m almost used to the time here. Have a great
day everyone… Feel free to email me… but
it may be a while before I’m able to respond.
Grace and peace…
~Brother J
This was our second day in Russia. It was -20 again
when we woke up at 8:30. We had egg omelets for
breakfast. That was all good. James L.
came and found us this morning and we walked for a few
blocks to the bus stop and then from there we rode
about 10 minutes until we came to our stop. From
there we walked about 5 or 6 blocks… It may have
been longer, but it was around large apartment looking
buildings, a large park that had a nifty path and
trees, benches and a stage…There were long
streets with billboards everywhere … It reminded
me a lot of how China looked while I was there. It
was really interesting to see the look of everything
inspired by communism. I was mentioning to James
along the walk, I really enjoyed having to walk again.
They walk a lot in Russia because of the lack of
money and because most of the time things they need to
be near are close enough to walk. Anyways, that was
something we had to do all the time in China. I
really really enjoyed being able to go for a crisp
refreshing walk. I’m sure there will be days
where I tire of walking everywhere… but for now
I’ll try my best to enjoy the moving around. It
helps a lot that James keeps us from getting lost.
Oh… I was going to mention, I’ve been
trying to get the team to call me something else than
James… everyone calls James L. James…
therefore, everytime they need to talk to him,
I’m up looking around. Rhys has started to call
me Jimbo. Whatever works.
Church was interesting… We sat in the very back
of a theatre type room in a school. Apparently the
church rents it out there. It was amazing. Being in
a country, with a Bible in my hand in a country where
not just Christianity, but God has been outlawed for a
good long while was something very awe inspiring and
humbling. The service actually reminded me a lot of
my home church, the New Life Indian Alliance
Fellowship. It was fairly easy going and had a lot of
testimonies, some accompanied by long songs, poems,
sparse singing throughout the service and food
afterwards.
Our team played through ‘It is Well’ and
were able to introduce ourselves, with some assistance
from Olga, a good friend of Bruce and our interpreter
for a good long while during our stay here. Our first
impressions of her have all been good. She has a good
sense of humor and an amazing gift for language. She
never studied English, but simply picked it up on her
own from reading bits and listening. I know she can
speak Turkish, Russian, and English at least… I
don’t know yet if she can speak any
others… But I do know that she just picked up
Turkish during this last little while. James was
saying that he wishes that he could wishes that a gift
that amazing could simply be purchased!
After the service, the grandmothers were very quick
and getting myself, and later the rest of the team to
drink some tea and eat the cookies and cake put out.
They would toss the crowd in front of us out of the
way and toss us into the gap and made sure that we
left that spot with our hands and mouths full…
lol, we speculated that perhaps they were getting us
to eat because they wished to spare themselves from
hearing our fragmented and simplistic Russian
greetings and clumsy responses. I experimented a fair
bit with trying to figure out what people were saying.
It didn’t go so well. Heh, I had to get one of
the more English people to help me out. The people
there are really interesting… But then I
suppose all people who are any bit different from
myself are interesting… foreign or not…
Interesting. Oh, speaking of English people. I met
another man in church today and I had a really good
talk with him… in English… REAL English.
Over this last month, I’ve met people from
England everywhere I went… in really fluke
situations…at least from a normal perspective.
In fact, I never even realized all these people I was
meeting until Janelle brought it up. I’ve been
pondering if there is some other reason that I keep
running into people from England … even when in
Russia. I wonder what God has got planned out. This
is going to be an interesting time here.
For those who are praying for us, keep team unity in
mind…and for our unity to be founded in nothing
or no one else other that our Savior. There are still
some tensions here and there… personality
clashes etc… But I can’t help thinking
that there is more at work here than mere personality.
Pray that our work here will not be hindered.
Tomorrow we start more ‘orientation’ type
stuff and we’ll go through some of our
programming with Olga. We’re going to be going
all over. I wonder what the kids, youth and adults
will think of our programs and all the stuff in them.
I mean, they won’t be able to understand our
songs for the very most part (we have one song right
now in Russian, but it still needs some work). It
truly is humbling when you can’t even converse
with a 3 year old… and it has nothing to do with
the 3 year old’s grammar…It’s
because you can’t keep up with the kid. Ha, all
I can say to them is Hello, I don’t understand
Russian, and thank you… as well as a few other
simple words, greetings and good-bye. It’s a
tough life. The missionaries have quite a different
life. Indeed the Russian culture is different. And
just some things that we would take for granted can
become very difficult. For example, tonight we needed
some groceries, so AJ and I watched our bags that we
still had with us at the door while the others went to
find the food we needed.
Meanwhile a real tough looking guy showed up. Shaved
head, black leather jacket, a scar on his face…
He was on his way out of the door to smoke and eyed us
down so I said Hello to him… He looked at me
real funny and then walked out muttering a
‘Hello’ back. He returned a little while
after and asked if I spoke English. I said yes and
asked him if he did… nope. He ended up getting
a couple of gals from the store to try and figure out
why I was there… One girl who was had been
working the till came and asked why we were standing
in the entranceway of the store, eventually… and
I do mean eventually… was able to get her to
understand that we were waiting for some of our
friends. I don’t know if they were planning to
kick us out thinking we were bums or something…
But I personally don’t think they were… I
think they just thought we were funny looking or
something and wanted to know why we weren’t
inside, nor outside… We were in the in-between
room. Anyways, whatever it was about, we were being
watched over by someone higher than any could ever
fathom or comprehend. Please pray.
Anyways, I must go get ready for bed… I think
I’m almost used to the time here. Have a great
day everyone… Feel free to email me… but
it may be a while before I’m able to respond.
Grace and peace…
~Brother J
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
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
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Here are some pictures of my last days in Canada!
Karina was tired after the Commissioning Service, and a little sad too.
But we were able to have a nice time together...she actually stayed around for a WEEK! YAY!
We walked up to River's Edge Bible Camp to see the mountains and take pictures...and I had actually been there before as a kid! It was crazy!!
Nathan kissed the cat good bye.
Our team got to help at the BIG Foothills Alliance Church in Calgary for their service about Remembering the Persecuted Church.
Family Picture...minus Jenna who wasn't able to miss school.
But Tim and I were able to have some fun and even do some Disco moves!!
Guess what? Siberia is actually warmer than Saskatchewan right now!! Ha ha ha...
More updates to come.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Saying Stras-voo-cha to Babooshkas
Stras-voo-cha! (Hello in English!)
I can hardly believe I'm here in Krasnoyarsk, southern Siberia! God is good and has answered many of our prayers! All of our flights were on time and there wasn't much turbulance at all. Our landing in Moscow was a bit bumpy... it may have been the tarmack! We had just enough time to get from one plane to the next (the longest we waited for our flight was 45 mins in Frankfurt.) When we arrived in Moscow, we made our way through Customs without any problems or questions. We walked over to the luggage carosel and there was every single piece of our luggage! James Lesheid and Chad (SEND missionaries based in Krasnoyarsk) were waiting at the airport with taxis to take us to the domestic terminal 20 minutes away. They were flying with us back to Krasnoyarsk. We were so grateful that they were there to translate for us and help us get all of our luggage through security and the ticket agent. Our luggage was very overweight, even with Chad and James taking some of the baggage themselves. We ended up only paying 1/3 of the overweight costs.
We arrived at Krasnoyarsk airport Saturday morning at 6:00 and walked across the tarmack in -20 degree weather to meet Pasha, Paul and Molly. They had woke up early to come and pick all of us up at the airport. Along the way, some of us were able to sleep on the flights, but we as a team decided to try and stay awake until 9 pm Saturday evening, so we could get our bodies in sinc with Krasnoyarsk time. Janelle and Coralie only lasted until 6:30 pm, who both slept through the night and have been sleeping well ever since. Us guys have been waking up earlier than normal (2,3,4 am), so we're hoping our bodies adjust quickly.
Sunday morning we went to a Baptist church. James Lescheid sat behind us and translated parts of the service/sermon for us. I enjoyed the time of testimony/sharing. People of the congregation shared answers to prayer from the week. It was also Mother's Day here in Russia, so a lady from the congregation receited a lengthy poem. She was very expressive, so we "felt" and understood the meaning of the poem that way. At the very end of the service, our team was introduced and we sang "It Is Well" for the congregation. We then experienced Russian hospitality... the babooshkas pushed us guys straight to the front of the food line and made sure we had chai (tea) and sweets in our hands at all times!
Monday and Tuesday we've had time set aside to practice our material with Olga our translator. She is an amazing lady, only 2 months younger than myself. We've already begun to alter scripts to fit with Russian culture, and we've been relearning parts of our Russian songs. We've realized that we have a lot of work to do before we do our first 2 programs on Wednesday. We are very fortunate to have James L and Olga travelling with us for our entire time here in the Krasnoyarsk area. They are great resources!!
Well, our bedtime is drawing near. Janelle and Coralie will need to be alert tomorrow morning as they try out the Krasnoyarsk bus system on their own for the first time tomorrow. They're coming to the guys apartment on their own...CRAZY!
Prayer Requests from the team:
1. Adjusting and recovering from jet leg
2. School Programs - know who to talk to about coming into the schools and how to communicate gospel truths/virtues
3. Language understanding & learning of culture
4. Creative use of time as we will be travelling a lot and doing numerous programs
Spech-on-eh-noy-che (good night!)
I can hardly believe I'm here in Krasnoyarsk, southern Siberia! God is good and has answered many of our prayers! All of our flights were on time and there wasn't much turbulance at all. Our landing in Moscow was a bit bumpy... it may have been the tarmack! We had just enough time to get from one plane to the next (the longest we waited for our flight was 45 mins in Frankfurt.) When we arrived in Moscow, we made our way through Customs without any problems or questions. We walked over to the luggage carosel and there was every single piece of our luggage! James Lesheid and Chad (SEND missionaries based in Krasnoyarsk) were waiting at the airport with taxis to take us to the domestic terminal 20 minutes away. They were flying with us back to Krasnoyarsk. We were so grateful that they were there to translate for us and help us get all of our luggage through security and the ticket agent. Our luggage was very overweight, even with Chad and James taking some of the baggage themselves. We ended up only paying 1/3 of the overweight costs.
We arrived at Krasnoyarsk airport Saturday morning at 6:00 and walked across the tarmack in -20 degree weather to meet Pasha, Paul and Molly. They had woke up early to come and pick all of us up at the airport. Along the way, some of us were able to sleep on the flights, but we as a team decided to try and stay awake until 9 pm Saturday evening, so we could get our bodies in sinc with Krasnoyarsk time. Janelle and Coralie only lasted until 6:30 pm, who both slept through the night and have been sleeping well ever since. Us guys have been waking up earlier than normal (2,3,4 am), so we're hoping our bodies adjust quickly.
Sunday morning we went to a Baptist church. James Lescheid sat behind us and translated parts of the service/sermon for us. I enjoyed the time of testimony/sharing. People of the congregation shared answers to prayer from the week. It was also Mother's Day here in Russia, so a lady from the congregation receited a lengthy poem. She was very expressive, so we "felt" and understood the meaning of the poem that way. At the very end of the service, our team was introduced and we sang "It Is Well" for the congregation. We then experienced Russian hospitality... the babooshkas pushed us guys straight to the front of the food line and made sure we had chai (tea) and sweets in our hands at all times!
Monday and Tuesday we've had time set aside to practice our material with Olga our translator. She is an amazing lady, only 2 months younger than myself. We've already begun to alter scripts to fit with Russian culture, and we've been relearning parts of our Russian songs. We've realized that we have a lot of work to do before we do our first 2 programs on Wednesday. We are very fortunate to have James L and Olga travelling with us for our entire time here in the Krasnoyarsk area. They are great resources!!
Well, our bedtime is drawing near. Janelle and Coralie will need to be alert tomorrow morning as they try out the Krasnoyarsk bus system on their own for the first time tomorrow. They're coming to the guys apartment on their own...CRAZY!
Prayer Requests from the team:
1. Adjusting and recovering from jet leg
2. School Programs - know who to talk to about coming into the schools and how to communicate gospel truths/virtues
3. Language understanding & learning of culture
4. Creative use of time as we will be travelling a lot and doing numerous programs
Spech-on-eh-noy-che (good night!)
Sunday, November 26, 2006
YAY!!
HI EVERYONE!
I have now crossed the Prime Merridian!! Your today is my yesterday!! I made it to Krasnoyarsk!! Safe and sound!
More updates to come!!
Thanks for your prayers!
I have now crossed the Prime Merridian!! Your today is my yesterday!! I made it to Krasnoyarsk!! Safe and sound!
More updates to come!!
Thanks for your prayers!
Thursday, November 23, 2006
The Journey Begins!
Hello my faithful friends!
I will have some pictures on here soon of my last week of the training I had at VTI. Now, I am actually flying! I departed from the Calgary airport at 5:45 pm. I should arrive in Moscow some time on Saturday. CRAZY!! How am I posting this message while I am airborn? EAZY!! I have a lovely fiance who I can now get to do my dirty work...or...uhhh...who can help me out in that area! -_^ (I love you K!)
More updates to come...
Talk to you later.
I will have some pictures on here soon of my last week of the training I had at VTI. Now, I am actually flying! I departed from the Calgary airport at 5:45 pm. I should arrive in Moscow some time on Saturday. CRAZY!! How am I posting this message while I am airborn? EAZY!! I have a lovely fiance who I can now get to do my dirty work...or...uhhh...who can help me out in that area! -_^ (I love you K!)
More updates to come...
Talk to you later.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
There and Back again...
Well, we had a good trip. We left the training centre here about 2 weeks ago and traveled to Okatoks, Calgary, then to Prince Albert, then Nipawin. After that we went to Drumheller and Bysiker…I don’t know how to spell that… ;)
Here are some of the highlights!
Okatoks: This was a youth event, and our very first program on fall tour. We had a lot of issues with this program… Heh, the projector turned off in the middle of the songs… the laptop froze on a video…we did a song we hadn’t practiced because of a lack of communication… But anyways, everything DID work out really well. We stayed at Dan Schroeder’s place…(He’s the youth pastor). It was a great time being there as they are very very missions minded. It was really great.
Calgary: - Here we did a children’s program in Foothills Alliance Church. That is a BIG church… wowee! We stayed at the Good’s house…Melissa Good was on Karina’s team 2 years ago…
The next day we went to Rhys’ church. They meet in a community hall and it was great to see all the different cultures and peoples that met there. It’s a very ‘cultured’ church :D…This was also the first day I spoke a sermon on tour… that was scary… heh.
Oh, I had forgotten to mention. While we were there, we had a big snowstorm. So we had to drive real slow as to make sure we didn’t run over anyone. It’s absolutely crazy…the weather here in Calgary area. Weird.
After Calgary we did the … 8 hour drive I think it is, back to Prince Albert. It gave us time to listen to some of the Chronicles of Narina by C.S. Lewis on CD. That was fun.
Prince Albert: It was great to be home again. All the guys were staying at my place and it was fun to hang out there. lol, Mom kept spoiling us there... lol, I was always full. It can get really hard to eat all the time!
While we were there we were able to tour NCEM, Northern Canada Evangelical Mission. Dad works there doing a lot of camera and computer work for Tribal Trails...come to think of it, Mom does a good deal of work there too.
Anyways, at NCEM we met up with Tim Gradin, Karina's father. He did an overview of prison ministy and the missionary work with Native people. He's the one who took us to both prisons. heh, he had previously joked about taking me to jail... ;D Mrs. R, (Howard Rensberry's wife) took us into the woman's jail. It was a really humbling experience. We did three programs in the ladies jail and 1 in the mens. They were all very well behaved and particularily attentive in the men's jail. It was a real great time we had to be with them.
On Friday we had a youth program at the Community Bible church...(Karina's church) It was fun and it was great to see so many new and old faces. There were several other groups who came out too. That was real fun. :)
Nipawin: After leaving PA, we arrived in Nipawin, my other home. We spent several days there and I was glad to hang out with Grandma and with all my classmates from last year who were attending again. There were some new people there that I knew, and some that I was able to meet for the first time. It was great! :D It was hard to leave both Nipawin and PA...
lol, on the way back to Alberta, we got ourselves lost and it probably delayed us almost a half hour. What was interesting though was that was what God had wanted for us. We showed up just in time to help a couple vehicles that had ended up in the ditch. There was ice all across the road. One huge layer. It was absolutely awful to drive on. Anyways, it was a great adventure to push out these people.
I'm running out of time... so I'll just say, ALberta was good! We had a few programs in different places for all ages and it was a real blessing to be there. We found that when we don't tape our programs we do them consistantly very well... whenever we tape them, something goes wrong. O.o Wierd.
At Coralie's place they celebrated all our team's birthday's this month. That's Coralie, Janelle and myself. It was great to be a part of another person's family get together.
And now we're home...my third home. VTI. Keep praying that God will move in the people the different places we go...and beyond for that matter. Consistanly we saw God move. It was incredible. People everywhere are so thirsty for something more than what they can get from tradition or religon...or attending church all the time. We want to go to these places to let God refresh them and revive them to do the tasks that He's given to them.
Keep on praying! God is doing amazing things!!!
Take care everyone! Go in God's grace!
~J
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