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!