Entry #1

July 29, 2012 Sunday

Day one, sixty-two remaining: This is my first blog entry ever. I came up with the idea yesterday to create a blog between now and the end of September (probably the 29^th) when I hope to join Pastor Steve Graham of Chicopee, Massachusetts for a month-long trip to Vladivostok, Russia for ministry and teaching. I hope you will join me for the journey. Of course I intend to continue the blog while in Russia and for several weeks after I return. This initial blog entry will be longer than most as I set the stage for subsequent posts.

Vladivostok is a long, long ways from Greenville, South Carolina. I have never traveled so far. In fact, Vladivostok is a ten-hour plane or one hundred fifty hour bus trip from Moscow. The huge country of Russia itself currently encompasses nine (9) time zones – in contrast to the four we have in the United States.  Vladivostok is effectively in the eastern end of Russia – where China, North Korea, and Russia all converge in one cold region.  According to Wikipedia:  “Vladivostok is a city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai, Russia, situated at the head of the Golden Horn Bay, not far from Russia's borders with China and North Korea.”

If you lived in Los Angeles, California, you would travel west if Vladivostok was your destination. Pastor Steve (Steve from this point forward) and I will meet in New York City and then fly east to Moscow for one stop and then on to Vladivostok.

 Vladivostok (hereafter “Vlad”) is fifteen (15) hours ahead of Greenville, so as I write this at 2:40 pm on Sunday afternoon, most Vladivostokians (spelling?) are still asleep in their town of some 600,000 souls. Today it is 67°F with the wind howling at 25 mph from the southeast. When we travel in October the average high should be around 55, with an average low of 42°F. And I understand the heat in Vlad is unreliable….:)

How did this trip come about? Well, Pastor Steve stayed with Cheryl and me at the end of March when he came down for Pastor Bob Selph’s 60-40 celebration (60^th birthday and 40 years of Gospel ministry). We hit it off right away, and he graciously threw out the idea of me joining him for his fifth trip to Vlad since 2004. Steve has made four previous month-long autumn trips to Vlad (three by himself; one with Mitch of Louisiana). I have tossed the idea around with Cheryl and our elders since June. This past Tuesday night the elders gave me their blessing (call it approval if you will) to proceed with the trip. Understandably, the elders were initially more interested in Cheryl and me making a trip together to a potential place of ministry. I appealed to the men that this trip would do me good; it would encourage Steve; and I hoped serve the faith of our fellow Russian believers. The thought of ministry in a far away place has been largely theoretical to this point. I begged the men to see how this trip would serve the purpose of testing my desire for vocational ministry – whether that looks like church planting, theological education, or leadership training.  Of course the fact the trip occurs during the heart of the American college football season (Go Tigers!!) – one of my pleasures in this life –  adds a dimension for testing my true desire and resolve for future Gospel ministry.  I cannot express enough gratitude for the elders’ willingness to let this chief of sinners have the privilege to leave American soil with their blessing and prayers to share the Gospel with a people I have never met. I dearly wish Cheryl could join me (and she was willingJ) but that is for another trip…

Tonight Pastor Bob Selph and I present the trip to our deacons for their consideration of providing financial support for the trip. I trust God’s kindness in this matter; I also trust the wisdom of our deacons.

So much for my first entry…I will always include a passage of Scripture or significant quote in every blog. Nothing is more relevant as I look forward to this trip to a country of those of another tongue than my own, than John’s vision of the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders in Revelation 5:9-10:

Revelation 5:9-10   They sang a new hymn: "Worthy are you to receive the scroll and to break open its seals, for you were slain and with your blood you purchased for God those from every tribe and tongue, people and nation.  ¹⁰ You made them a kingdom and priests for our God, and they will reign on earth."