October 10, Wednesday - Part I

Today (Wednesday) is a breather day. It is 10:30 Vlad time; the weather is partly cloudy in the 50's with a beautiful rainbow out our windows to the south and southeast. In 20 minutes we will walk to Ugenay (sp?) to the Bible School where Steve has taught during his four trips. I am still catching up as far as sleep. My belongings and personal space is now organized enough that I don't feel I am operating in the middle of chaos. This morning I realized that yesterday I shampooed my hair with facial cleanser. Steve said at least I won't have acne in my hair! :) Further, the internet situation is resolved, but only one of us may use the internet at a time. Alexi is not with us, as he began his new job with the Far East Technical Institute (hereafter FETI) which has since been renamed. More on that in a minute. Alexi is both an English instructor (since 2007) as well as beginning his work as an elevator inspector-in-training.

Yesterday (October 9, Tuesday) was a terrific but exhausting day. We drove into Vlad through scads of traffic (without one single traffic light), parked and descended no less than 200 steps down to the City proper. We went with Alexi as he met his new boss Nikolai who will use Alexi in the safety department. His emphasis will be elevator operations/safety for the many buildings of the FETI. Great interaction with Nikolai; most Russians enjoy the interaction with Americans, assuming they have an introduction. Afterwards we met with another FETI instructor, Daniel, for some chai (tea) as we prepared to meet with him and his two students for over three hours. We had Alexander and Sophia (both 21) and engaged them back and forth for 3 1/2 hours on many subjects: their lives, background, education, interests, meaningful work, life's purpose, mentors, money, American politics, the joy of marriage and children, abortion, China's one-child policy, their prospects for work, Jesus, the Gospel, the necessity of community (and how that is wonderfully found in the Church), etc. A great time for sharing the Gospel and planting Gospel seeds - you'll see their pictures when I do my first picture upload in the afternoon. Later we had lunch with Daniel and was able to talk through the concept of community and its place in the church. Daniel is 29, converted in the last 1 1/2 years, married eleven months, father of a ten month old (Timothy), and keenly interested in what we presented to his students. I will tell you more about Vlad later today. Later (5:30 PM) we sat with Alexi in a luxurious shopping mall in Vlad as he gave a one-on-one English tutorial to Nikolai (55 year-old ship inspector); Alexi had taught Nikolai's daughter for the last five years at FETI. Nikolai was a joy to speak with: very respectful, intelligent, a man's man, married for 30+ years, father of two unmarried daughters, generous, etc. Alexi was overjoyed to receive 1,000 rubles ($ 30 US) for an hour of Russian-English conversation. The agreed upon price was 500 rubles, so we saw typical Russian generosity live and in person.

Final thought: there is real opportunity for the Gospel here in the Far East. We are close to China and North Korea. The people here have had a large dose of hopelessness (economic and spiritual) for a long time. It has been hard to trust for Russians to trust others - think back about their lives prior to Perestroika in the late 80's...Isn't the Gospel most bright in the face of persistent darkness?