Photos!

Since Dan and I married we've generally divided our time in Russia between two cities: Ekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk.  Both are in the southern Urals and have populations of over a million.  Since we're only here for 2 weeks this year that means a week in each city - not a lot of time at all!  We spent our first several days in Ekaterinburg and on Tuesday drove down to Chelyabinsk; our friend Edik made a round trip to pick us up so we wouldn't have to take the bus - something we're very grateful for as bus journeys can be hot and sweaty even without record heat & wildfires in the region!  Since then we've seen different friends here, all of them from the church formerly known as Heaven's Open Church (it's now merged with another evangelical church in the city, Chelyabinsk Church of God).  Here are a few pictures to tell the story of our last few days: 

Smoke hangs over the city of Ekaterinburg from the wildfires in the region.  

An Orthodox church near our friends house.

Some of you may remember our friend Alexei Shilin from his visit to the US last November.  He is the General Secretary of the Russian Christian student movement, which is really struggling right now with both vision and resources - they appreciate your prayers!  

(Also, if you're not on the prayer letter list for CCX Russia and would like to be, please let me know & I'll make sure you get added.)

Our friends Katya & Dennis just had their second child, Mark, 3 weeks ago.  We enjoyed visiting with them a couple of nights ago.  Dennis is a worship leader at the church and both are great lay leaders.  Katya has also started scrapbooking & cardmaking this year, so she and I had a great time comparing our creations!

Misha, Katya & Dennis's older son, and his new favorite toy - an old gas mask.  A new obsession for him is to scuba dive with an oxygen tank.  He's 5, but he knows what he wants ;)

Having lunch at McDonald's with our friend Slava.  Slava is an amateur independent film maker who films commercials and other shorts as a way of making money.  He's had a lot of sucess lately - he recently filmed a short piece for the governor of the region, for example.  His wife Masha is a photographer who does weddings and personal photo shoots.  He and Dan have a shared love of technology - here they're discussing iPhones :o)

Some of you will remember that last year we finalized the sale of our apartment in Ekaterinburg and purchased an apartment in Chelyabinsk.  The new apartment needed a lot of renovations!  Our friends Pr. Ilya, who is one of 3 pastors in the newly merged Chelyabinsk Church of God, and Anya & their two children, Grisha & Alica, live in the apartment and did all the work of renovating and decorating it this year.  It's nice to be here and see what they've done with the place :)  Here are some "after" photos:

Living room:

Bedroom:

Toilet "closet" (it's tiny!) & bathroom:

Kitchen:

Outside:

When Russians describe an apartment they talk about how many rooms it has - a 1-room apartment or a 3-room apartment, for example.  The kitchen and bathroom don't count as rooms (since every apartment presumably has those) - and other rooms often serve multiple purposes (e.g. living/dining/bedroom.)  Ours is a 2-room apartment, as you can maybe tell from the photos above. 

Thanks for following along on our blog & praying for our time here.  Continue to pray for rain - the effects of the drought, from wildfires to a record low harvest, are still big concerns here.  Pray for our weekend - Dan preaches on Sunday and we still have a number of friends we want to make sure we have time with, including Pr. Ilya & Anya who have been away at a couple's retreat camp for the last week.  Our goals, as always, are to encourage and be encouraged in our conversations with those who are seeking to faithfully follow Christ on this side of the world.  We feel passionately that our friendships with them can help both us, them and YOU to know God better and live more faithful lives.

With love,
Lucy