Chelyabinsk - "When it rains, it pours"

Well, lots has happened and we still haven't shared stories from camp! So perhaps I'll start from the more recent events and work backwards in the next few posts.

This week has been both eventful and relaxing, in its own way. We are in the city of Chelyabinsk staying with Pr. Ilya and Anya Sluzin and their two children, Grisha and Alisa. They live in a two-room apartment, which means that in addition to the kitchen, toilet, bathroom and corridor they have two main rooms. One is the family bedroom (all four of them sleep in one room) and the other is the family room/guest room/office. It is relaxing to stay with them because they are such good friends and very easy-going. We have great conversations over breakfast and/or into the night after a late supper (as last night). They also have unlimited internet, which is a treat!

The last month or so for them has been very hectic, and unfortunately this week has not proven to be as restful as they had hoped. Ilya is the Pastor of Heaven's Open Church, a small evangelical congregation of about 100 or so. The church is a strong partner of the IFES (International Fellowship of Evangelical Students) movement here in Russia - CCX - and among other things they help CCX put on evangelistic student camps each year, providing both the campsite and volunteers who cook, keep the camp running, etc. Ilya spent a lot of time setting up camp, arranging transportation there and back (and there and back, and there and back... for the various groups coming and going at various times!), buying the food for various camps, etc. And then over the weekend he went back and forth (2-3 hours each way) to take everything down and put it back into storage. He had to be here in the city for church Sunday, but poor weather meant he had to go back to the campsite again to get everything taken care of. Anyone who has lived in Eurasia will understand the difficulties and time involved in doing all of this - in many ways it's a very different job for a pastor here in Russia than in the United States!

To add to the already exhuasting weekend & week, Anya discovered Saturday night - around 10pm - while bathing the kids that Grisha had a tick. Ilya had stayed behind at the camp and Alisa was running a low temperature because she's teething. With no car and it being late enough in the evening that public transport was slowing down (and filled with people who'd been drinking), and having confirmed that they wouldn't send an ambulance, Anya called a friend to take her and Grisha to the other side of town to the children's emergency clinic. Over the course of the week they've had to go back and forth to 4 different clinics/hospitals and have confirmed that Grisha has tick-borne encephalitis, but the doctors they need to see to get him on the right treatment all seem to be on vacation. They had to take him to another hospital this morning and now the plan is to actually start treatment tomorrow - we'll see! Thankfully, TBE is less dangerous in children than it is in adults and hopefully Grisha will be fine - but the time, worry, money & energy expended still take a toll. Dan and I being here has helped if for no other reason than they can leave Alisa with us if needed.

Meanwhile, Dan and I have tried to get in as much time with various people here in Chelyabinsk as possible. We have several friends who have gone through difficult things in the past year - divorces and illnesses and so forth. I am reminded again why training in pastoral counseling is such a good thing - and how good it is to offer just a litte of this while we're here. I'm also thankful for IFES and the Eurasia Institute for the opportunity for Eurasians to get this kind of training, which is so rare but so needed in this part of the world. Several of the leaders of Heaven's Open Church got to attend this training institute in Kiev this year, including Ilya. He has shared how much he learned in the theological courses he took there.

Tonight we will spent more time with a couple who became Christians through the camp ministry of Heaven's Open Church several years ago but have since left the church to become Russian Orthodox. They continue to maintain ties to the congregation and attended Family Camp this year (with their 10-month-old son, Daniel). Leonid teaches at one of the universities here and is finishing his PhD is theoretical mathematics (which makes no more sense to me in Russian than it does in English - but I do understand that he's a very smart, very logical person!). We have already had some fascinating conversations about Orthodoxy vs. Protestantism and their own faith journey. We have also tempted Leonid by describing the kinds of strategy games we like to play and he's eager to learn one tonight! Dan was sent on an errand to buy the food for dinner tonight and *somehow* found his way to a bookstore where he found Settlers of Catan (among other games) in Russian. Those of you who know him will not be shocked to learn that he succumbed and bought the game :) He's almost as excited about the tortillas he found to make a mexican meal tonight.

More stories to come - including stories from camp & the drama from Sunday, when Dan's sermon was interupted by an agitated drunk man. Over and over in the last few weeks I have been reminded of the spiritual darkness in Russia - and the Light which the Church here offers. They are small and weak, in many ways, but in so many ways they are like shining stars in a dark universe, holding out the word of life (Phil 2:15-16).

Those of you who have Facebook - I have posted lots of pictures from camp. If you are not on facebook and would like to see the pictures, send me or Dan an email and we can send you a link to the album. Here are a few more photos from the past week.

Thanks for reading & praying!

P.S. - I almost forgot! Our new apartment here in Chelyabinsk was broken into sometime in the last week and a few things broken or stolen. It's essentially an empty shell at the moment, but they still managed to do some damage. Ironically the same day we discovered this we'd been debating what quality of a front door to buy (yes, we have to buy a front door, among other things!) and this made the decision to spend more money on a higher quality steel door an easier one.

The playground outside Ilya & Anya's apartment

(the apartment building in the background is exactly like theirs).

Leonid & Daniel


Grisha working on his computer while I work on mine!

Pr. Ilya, proudly sporting a "Russia" t-shirt (Anya told us a story of when a mutual friend came over a few month ago & Ilya answered the door in this shirt. He exclaimed "Finally, a Russia shirt and not one of these terrible American Cubs or Sox shirts!" Then they went into the kitchen where a third friend was sitting - wearing a Cubs shirt! :) )

Anya & Alisa, headed out for a walk to the clinic to get Alisa's 5-month immunization shots. (Alisa is happy because she knows she's going to get to go outside, which she loves. Little does she know...)

Blessings to all!

Lucy (for us both)

Pictures from camp

We're heading out the door to church soon and I need to get ready! But I thought I'd post some pictures from Family Camp to tide you over until we can post some of our stories from the last week. Hopefully these will whet your appetites! (FYI: I believe if you click on the photos you can see the larger version.)

Camping in Russia

Hi everyone, we are safe in the woods of the Urals, camping with Christians from 2 different Chelyabinsk churches. We can now get internet deep in the woods in Russia – what a strange world we live in! So far the weather has been great, the fellowship wonderful, the food good, and conversations blessed. I (Dan) have been preaching every morning (we’re in the middle of 8 consecutive days of preaching) doing daily expositions on the book of Ephesians. They have gone well; today the main focus was how important it is for us to fully grasp how deep and wide the love of God for us is if we are to best fulfill God’s purpose for his church here on earth.

Lucy has been struggling with a migraine, that seems to be lifting after its fourth day. She spends lots of time in deep (and not so deep) conversations with people and has been helping me some with sermon preparations (she’s particularly fond of Ephesians :) ).

For those who remember last year, there are many fewer mosquitoes and snakes here (for which we are both thankful)!

Please continue to pray that

• God will speak through Dan and help us better understand and apply the message of Ephesians to our lives;
  
• God will completely heal Lucy and enable her to continue to care for the people God connects her with;
• Pray for God’s blessing and encouragements to be shared through us via our conversations with the many Russians who come to us with concerns and questions.

We’ll write more in detail about our time here when we get back to Chelyabinsk – with lots more pictures, of course!

Facebook Ethics

I'm not feeling so well & camp looms right around the corner, so I can't afford to get sick... all of which to say, an abridged blog post this evening. Russia seems to make us introspective - it certainly sobers us about the reality of life that living in America somehow seems to shelter us from. One of the things I (Lucy) have been pondering the last several days is the way in which blogging - and Facebook, for that matter - has changed the way we share about Russia. Mostly, it keeps us accountable. I hope I have always been careful in the way I portray Eurasians (Russians and Belarusians and Ukrainians, etc.) and Eurasia - but I also know that knowing how many close Eurasian friends might read what I write, now that it's so public, makes me extra sensitive. Because I love them, and I don't want to offend them. Because I know that they know what it's really like - and they feel that I'm embellishing or exaggerating for the sake of a reaction from people "back home", well, hopefully they would call me out. But certainly we would lose credibility. There's another kind of accountability as well - accountability not to gossip. My campus minister from my undergrad days told me once that he tries never to write something about someone in a prayer letter without sharing it with them first, if possible, or which he couldn't be comfortable showing to them. I try to keep to that standard - which, frankly, means that you don't get to read all the "juicy stuff". And now that Facebook means I can be reasonably sure that people from Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk have easy access to what we write, well, things get even less juicy. All of which I have been pondering. What do you need to know about what we do here? How much of people's lives - and tragedies - should we disclose? We want to connect you to CCX (the student movement) and Living Word Church and Heaven's Open Church and the various people and ministries that many of you have invested in, through your prayers and in giving money. We want to serve God's church by building bridges that bless people on both sides of the ocean. But we want to make sure we do it in a way that honors everyone involved. And - for all its potential narcissistic pitfalls - blogging seems to help us do that better. For which I am grateful.

Sorry to leave you with only introspection and no real "news"! We had a very successful day of bureaucracy and now the lawyer we have hired will do most of the work of gathering all the documents and stamps and signatures we need to finalize the purchase of a new apartment in Chelyabinsk. Dan tells me we can get the keys tomorrow, though (hypothetically, at least) and start working on getting it ready to be lived in. We probably won't have time for that before leaving for camp on Saturday morning - but it's good to know we're that much closer!

Some pictures of the countryside - Russia never fails to amaze me in its sheer massiveness.

Our bus ride down we had the bus largely to ourselves, which makes for a much nicer ride, I have to say!

Dan did a little reading on the bus & was so absorbed he had no idea I was secretly photographing him:

Thanks again for reading & praying!

Detski Dom - Children's Home

Monday morning we had the opportunity to visit a Children's Home (Detski Dom in Russian) that is in the final stages of being built. This is a project that came out of a ministry to street children. Two summers ago Dan was present for the "ground-breaking" as they started the building project. It's grand opening will be this fall. The home is designed to take in children of any age who either are homeless and living on the streets or whose parents are in crisis (drug addictions, etc.) and cannot take care of them. The ministry is already connected with programs for rehabilitating adult addicts and so would take the children for a length of time (up to a couple of years) while the adults are getting the help they need. This focus on helping families rather than just orphans makes them unique - virtually no such programs exist right now in this region of Russia and so the local government has show support for the ministry.

A husband and wife have almost single-handedly driven this project out of their own ministry and vision - it's quite inspiring to talk with them. Natasha gave us a tour of the near-finished home and talked about their plans for the future.

This is a corner of a small one-room apartment they have included for a Christian couple/family who will serve as "house parents":

The furniture and toys have been donated by various organizations, including a local hotel.

Here is a large family room space that divides the girls' and boys' sections upstairs:

Another room with a crib for babies. At the moment they are already caring for one baby whose mother, a 16-year-old, gave birth on the streets. The mother stayed with them as well for a few months, but has now left - they hope she'll choose to return.

Among other things, the ministry collects clothing from local churches to give to children living on the streets. Here you see a pile of clothes they've collected but haven't yet had time to sort through:

A sponsoring ministry prints educational Christian booklets that they will use as part of an education curriculum; Natasha showed us the library space:

This is the basement of the house - still largely unfinished as you can see. These rooms will become classrooms and a workshop for learning practical trades. They are building as they get money, and this is obviously less of a priority than having bedrooms, bathrooms and a working kitchen:

Here's a view of the back of the building. They plan to build a playground area here. There is also a guest apartment at the back of the building, separated from the rest of the home - so if you'd like to come visit, there's a place for you to stay!

Eventually the home will be able to house 20-30 kids at a time, though they plan to start with just 10 or so this fall. Some of the money that our Alleluia! kids collected during Vacation Church School will buy a refrigerator for the home. Natasha was delighted when we described how the kids earned quarters to give to children in need in Russia - thank you for letting us be your connection! It was such a privilege to represent Alleluia in this way.

We are now in Chelyabinsk, a city about 3 hours to the south of Yekaterinburg. We have a "break" of sorts for a few days - starting Saturday we'll be camping with Heaven's Open Church for their family camp. They are expecting about 60-70 over the weekend and then about 40 for the remainder of the week. Dan will preach for the morning gatherings - so his "break" is a chance to write 8 sermons! Many of the church's leaders are helping with a student evangelistic camp at the moment and we are staying in the apartment of Pr. Ilya & Anya while they are both away. These few days are our only "alone time" this summer, so we are enjoying them.

Please pray too for our friends in Yekaterinburg, Kostya and Luda. (Kostya is the owner of the Christian bookstore and church administrator.) Luda is in the final month of her pregnancy and the doctor's have been concerned that her health isn't as good as it could be. She had one stretch in the hospital earlier in the pregnancy and they wanted to readmit her this week, but the hospital is full so she was sent home and told to rest. Pray that she and their new son would stay healthy.

We love you and miss you! Thanks for praying & commenting - we love hearing from everybody!

Back together again

Lucy has arrived safe and sound. It is great to have her here with me. Life feels much more balanced/complete when she is around. Today we went to church and listened to a good sermon on how a husband and wife can deepen their relationship with each other. Afterwards we gathered with old friends for a "Pizza Gathering" A tradition that I started about 15 years ago. I make Chicago style pizza, everyone gathers, we fellowship together and enjoy the blessings that God has given us.

One of the main topics that has been coming up over and over again is the financial crisis. It has touched people all over the world, even here in Yekaterinburg Russia. People ask me all sorts of questions from "How did this happen?" to "Where do I see God moving/acting in during these times of stress and difficulties?" Although at times it can be tiresome answering the same question over and over again, I still enjoy the Chance to dialogue with people about how they can find God in times of trouble.

Last week I taught a class at a local Bible school for adults who want to further their spiritual knowledge. It is run by the Living Word church here in Yekaterinburg, aimed primarily at lay leaders in the church. One question I was asked at the end was one I was familiar with but always have a hard time answering. A women asked me "I feel like God has given me certain spiritual gifts to be used in a specific ministry, but my husband is against me getting involved. He is a non-Christian and is against me being involved in anything religious outside of Sunday morning services. What do I do?" As we further discussed her situation, I encouraged her to continue to be faithful to God and her husband. This might result in her reexamining some of the assumption she has about what kind of ministry God is calling her to. She works full time, has friends, neighbors, and a home she can invite people into. There are people she interacts with all the time, people that her husband can not stop her form meeting, talking to, and caring for. Sometimes when a door seems closed, we need to see what kind of opportunities God is presenting us and pray that he will gives us the gifts an ability to respond to the needs around us. There were no specific answers or directions that I could give her, just principles and truths form the Bible that I could share, plus my own knowledge about how God has worked out these types of situations for others in the past. Often we want specific answers, but in the wrestling through the issues we learn so much about ourselves and about God. I truly value the chances I have to be a small part of helping people to work through some of the difficult questions that they face in life.

Tomorrow morning(Monday)we are off to visit a ministry that reaches out to street kids in Yekaterinburg. In the afternoon we will be catching a bus to the city of Chelyabinsk, where we will be spending the next three weeks.

Dan

Busyness

I've spoken to Dan a few times since he's been in Russia - things have definitely gotten busy quickly. He made a quick trip to Chelyabinsk, the city where we are buying a new apartment. The old apartment is sold and the new apartment is bought, sort of. Apparently the power of attorney we got for our friend to buy a new apartment for us only covered older apartments; since we are buying a brand new apartment there are different documents to be completed, stamps to be procured, etc. The good news is that Dan successfully jumped through the first set of hoops on Thursday, the bad news is that there are multiple more hoops to jump through! So, in between preaching and teaching in both Ekaterinburg & Chelyabinsk, and spending a week at church camp, we have to fit in long days of going from office to office to get all the paperwork in order. Pray that things go without too many snags and that by the time we leave in August the apartment would be officially ours and move-in ready for Pr. Ilya and his family.

Dan has lined up much of our official ministry for the summer. We're only going to one camp this summer, and Dan will preach the weekend on either side, so that will be a long week (8 days preaching in a row) for him. I will leave for Russia on Wednesday, arriving Friday morning local time (Thursday afternoon here in the states). The following week Dan and I will be in Chelyabinsk and have a list of friends we need to spend one-on-one time with. As usual, there are people struggling in big and small ways and one of the things that feels most important is to spend time just listening and caring for people. Pray that I would get over jet lag quickly and that we would be able to be an encouragement, despite not having as long to spend with people this summer.

I had a chance to meet last week with the woman who leads the IFES work in Eurasia - the former Soviet Union. Christy is a Filipina woman who has been a missionary in Eurasia for many years now. She is in the states fundraising and we sat down for coffee to see how we might help one another. Dan and I love IFES - the umbrella organization that InterVarsity here in the states and CCX in Belarus and Russia belong to - and their mission to see a vibrant indigenous Christian student movement in every country around the world. The work in Russia is struggling right now, low on finances and looking for partners to help them rebuild. We will get a chance to spend time with the leader of the Russian group, CCX, this summer and we are helping him set up a trip to the states in October of this year. Let me know if you would be interested in meeting Alyosha and hearing more about the student work in Russia!

Well, enough for now. When I get to Russia with the camera I hope we'll be able to post more pictures to go along with the news :) Pray for me as I get ready to go - and that I would be managing my fear about flying well.