Tomorrow's plans

Dan and I are both still recovering from pretty bad colds. We're both sniffling less and coughing more now. Tomorrow is a long day at church - Dan will preach in the morning service (10am-noon) and then I will speak at the afternoon youth service (2-4pm). Services here tend to run longer and involve quite a bit more standing than services in America, which added to the fact that everything is in a second language makes for a tiring day when you're feeling under the weather. It's also our last Sunday in Russia this year, which is always a very bittersweet feeling.

As always, time has flown by. We have found that while we really missed having our own apartment to live in, it was also a gift to spend so much time with both Kostya & Luda, here in Ekaterinburg, and Ilya & Anya and their children in Chelyabinsk. Living for several weeks with people leads either to bonding or a severe case of getting on one another's nerves - or both. I hope - and trust - we had more of the former than the latter. Living with people also means you learn a lot more about the ins and outs of daily life in a different culture. I know much more about how Russians handle babies than I did before, for example, after living with Ilya & Anya last month. Or, perhaps I just know more about how Ilya & Anya handle their baby... which is, of course, the problem - distinguishing cultural norms from individual idiosyncrecies. Which should make you wonder... what do people here think is "normal" for Americans after spending so much time with Dan & Lucy!

I digress, though. Please pray that tomorrow goes well, our voices hold out, our translators understand us, and that we have enough energy to say our goodbyes well.

As an update - our documents for the new apartment should be in on Monday morning, according to our lawyer in Chelyabinsk. We pray there are no more mistakes! Ilya plans to travel to Ekaterinburg on Tuesday so that he and Dan can go to the notary and get a formal power of attorney for him. We leave very, very early Wednesday morning. As always, we're cutting it close!

Pictures are harder here in Ekaterinburg because our internet connection is slower. But many more will be posted on Facebook and here when we get home, if not before.

Thanks for praying!

Sunday at Heaven's Open Church

Praying for us as we head back to America.

The congregation praying for us.

With Blana after the service. When we first met Blana 2 years ago she was a non-believer with lots and lots of questions. Now not only has she become a Christian, several of her friends are now investigating God.


Pasha, Masha, Nadia & Edik man the "book store".

Pastors - Dan & Ilya

Edik's younger sister and a non-Christian friend who came to camp with us and was at church Sunday - her first ever church service, I believe.

Please pray...

Long story short - somewhere, someone has made another mistake and the documents we need to finalize our purchase of the apartment in Chelyabinsk are not yet finished. This is bad news because we need these documents before we can go to a notary and do a power of attorney for Ilya to take care of anything official relating to the apartment - which would include the electical work that needs to be done after the vandalism of the last couple of weeks and getting the building company to pay for some of the damage that was done while the apartment was still under their care. We are supposed to be headed back to Ekaterinburg any day now and then back to the States on the 12th (a week from Wednesday). Imagine if you will how much more of a headache it would be to try and do all of this from America - if even possible. So please pray that the documents would be completed in record time and with no more mistakes! Our current plan is to go back to Ekaterinburg and once Ilya has picked up the documents - hopefully Friday or Monday - he will come to us there.

More pictures tomorrow - there are plenty to share!

Some Stories From Russia

Weighed down by guilt……

Recently I (Dan) sat down with an old friend to catch up on life etc.... After a while the conversation took an unexpected turn. My friend began to talk about how guilt has shaped him as a person.

“I feel weighed down by Guilt. Sometimes it feels as if all my life I have had this incredible burden that presses down on me,” he said.

When I asked how this effected his life he responded. “It makes me doubt myself in all kinds of situations. My culture, my parents, my in-laws, everyone seems to criticize me on a regular basis. I don’t know what to do about it. It is not just me by the way, many of my friends feel the same way. It feels as if guilt is a big chain weighing everyone down.”

This man had been a Christian for well over 10 years, so I was surprised to hear this. I inquired about forgiveness from God and the freedom from guilt that Jesus brings into our lives, but he just looked at me dejectedly and said “forgiveness and freedom- those are just words to me.”

Based on this conversation I incorporated some teachings on guilt and freedom in Christ into one of my sermons this past week, repeating some of what my friend had said. Afterwards several other people come up to me and said that they could easily identify with those feelings - they feel the same way.

Talking to people about guilt and its influence is something that seems to keep popping up in my conversations. One thing I have learned is that I can never assume just because someone goes to church, reads their Bible, and prays along side of me, that they have experienced the freedom that comes with knowing Jesus. My friend is a mature Christian, yet he feels trapped. The Biblical truths that I shared with him had no magical effect, they did not free him immediately from the trappings of guilt. I am not sure exactly why. I am sure that the reasons are complex. One thing that he did emphasize is that these feelings began as a child, and have been reinforced over and over again all throughout his life, via most of the key relationships he has ever had.

Drunken Interruptions…

As Lucy mentioned earlier, last week I was preaching in church on spiritual warfare when a drunk man started to interrupt me by shouting out various questions. When, after being politely asked to stop he kept shouting out his questions, he was forcefully removed from the sanctuary. To be honest, I am not used to being heckled during one of my sermons. I was rattled by the scene and had a difficult time concentrating further as my thought kept going back to the man. This proved to be a good object lesson as to the creative ways that the devil wants to distract us from what God calls us to do. This was not a random person that wandered into the congregation. This is a man whose wife and children are church members and who were present. I felt for her and the shame that she endured throughout the rest of the service. The church was well aware of her situation, many had confronted this man in the past on how he treated/abused his family. At the end of the service the Pastor Ilya got up and said “I am not sure that we handled this the right way today. But I want you to know (and he turned to the wife) that we are your family, that we want to support you. We also want to love [this man] as Christ loves him. I do not know how we do that, but part of it has to do with what Dan spoke about today when he said that our battle is not against flesh and blood.” This was an example to us about how a congregation faces the struggles and pain that confront them, not sure how to go forward, but acknowledging that they must do it together rather than as individuals. It was also a vivid reminder that alcoholism is a real force for evil and destruction in this country.

Remaining hopeful…..

Lucy and I recently had a long conversation with Ilya and Anya over dinner that stretched into the evening. After discussing for quite awhile about the mistakes the church makes, Lucy asked us “So how do we remain hopeful about the church?” My first response was “Our hope is not in ourselves or the church, it is in Christ. He has a plan and we need to trust that it (his plan) is moving forward. Even if the Christian institutions that we help to form fail or disappear, that will never change the fact that lives were changed, people were saved by what Christ has already done through us.” This lead Ilya to comment on how recently he has noticed and felt deeply the brokenness and suffering around him; he has prayed “God why have you shown me all this brokenness if I can’t seem to do anything about it?” He felt the response he got from God was this: “I have called you to be a Pastor; to teach, equip, and train people to be Christian doctors, artists, musicians, school teachers, factory workers and business managers. So that my light can shine through them and I can heal the brokenness in the world.” Ilya went onto comment how God had helped to deepen his love for his congregation, these particular people who are the people God has chosen for him to shepherd and lead (regardless of whether he would have chosen them!).

Here are some ways you can join in on these conversations and pray:

• Pray that our friends will experience the freedom from guilt that Christ offers. Pray that God’s truth will overcome all of the false ideas that have been ingrained in their identities.
  
• Pray for the man who interrupted the sermon and for his family. Pray that God will invade this man’s life and free him from his addiction. Pray that his actions will not isolate this women and her children from the congregation but rather they would find the help and encouragement they need in this community. Pray that God will help the whole church understand how they can be a family for this women and her kids. Pray for healing and protection for this family - and for Russia - from the effects of alcoholism.
  
• Pray that God will strengthen Ilya and Anya to be shepherd’s for the people God has given them. Pray that God will use this small group of believers to have a huge healing effect on the city of Chelyabinsk.

Dan

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!