heyo

Hello firends and loved ones! I am sorry I haven't written in so long!!! Ilove you all! I have just been incredibly busy!! I AM SOOOO HAPPPY! Easter was great here!! I'll try to get some pictures of our Easter eggs and whatnot soon. I haven' gotten a prepared blog written so this is just to let you know all is well and that GOD IS SOOO GOOD TO ME. I am been calling home alot, and I think that is part of why I am not wrting as much... I only have so much time in a day and if I spend my communication with home allotment on a phone call I am usually too sleepy or busy to write a blog. That is no excuse, just a rationalization. Let's see. Paige and I have been watchign movies. School has been school. On Saturday we foreigners went to Pavlovsk. It was incredibly beautiful and I'll try to get those pics on here too sometime. :) The weather has been ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!! Adn cats are out and I like cats. It is like 20 degrees celcius here and thta is liek my perfect weather. IT is even comfortable inthe shade and there is a pleasant breeze. I LOVE IT!!! Adn it is SUNNY!!! There are SOOO many people on the beach at Ozerki over by where the rehab is. The lake is melted too. I've heard that people are swimming in the Neva! HA what fun!

Okay, I had been flipping out abotu stayign and where money is goign to coem from and all that jazz, but this is the new plan and I am really excited abotu it because I think it will work. :) I'm plannign on workign for chacha. haha. I know it sounds silly, but this way it will be like I am workign int he US (legally) and I;ll be makign an income, even if it isn't so good. I'd be paid by the number of questions I answer so the pay is like $3-$9 and hour. I'm anticipating being on the lower end of that spectrum but at least I'll be able to work whenever I am available and we called the Academy's Dorms and found out that I can have internet oin my room. So if the internet isn't crap, I could just work late at night or whenever I have down time or whatever. I dunno ow in depth I've gotten on this blog about my aspirations for the upcomign year, but I very much feel that God is calling me to stay. I am plannign on attendign The Russian Christian Academy for the Humanities ( rxga.ru ). This all very intense and there are so many obstacles. These obstacles have caused me no little crises of faith in the last few weeks, but the LORD is little by little making the road clear and I have full faith that He is will me and will make my paths straight. I HAVE SOO MUCH JOY RIGHT NOW!!! SO HAPPY TOO!! And I am at peace with my Love and my Creator!! Good times!

We saw a play the otherday... I didn't like it really.

Be prayign for me!! I can always use wisdom! BE prayign for my upcomign entrance exams and for my current schooling. Be praying for Rehab and that th eLord would give me a humble servant's heart to better serve there!! :) So much to pray about os just go hogwild! Pray for provision and increased faith and for my family!! Mommy isn't feeling too well, and I know that all of this craziness is hard for my family in general. Be prayign that God gives them peace abotu His path for me and that He confirms it to them... and stuff. Sorry that this is poorly thought out and poorly wirtten, but I gotta go to class now!!! I LOVE YOU ALL!!

Being a Goof

What wonderous bliss is this!! I’ve got so many wonderful things to say!! :) Luckily I’ve waited for you I’ve waited so long and have so many wonderful, recent memories to recount that I can hardly remember the hardships, let alone the desire to recount them.

Let’s see, I’ll try to say the basics at least. On Sunday we had a festival. I sang Dorogoy Dlinuyu ( A Russian Roman..ce) Any who. I have never successfully sung a solo in public. All of my attempts in high school were PAINFUL. But I gotta say, I rocked this one, praise the Lord. I am not saying it was perfect, no way. But it was a crowd pleaser and had no major goofs and it felt good. :) I like the performing arts people at school. They are very nice and open, lust like performing arts people should be. Now when I see them at the institute they get all excited and always say hello. It is nice. Also, Paige tried to come and watch me but she slept in. It was cool thought because when I was mopey on Saturday I mentioned my desire for Papa John’s and sisnce she missed my gig she said she’d buy at Papa J’s on Monday.

Then I went to church but I was way pooped and not much good to anyone. I probably would have fallen asleep if Kristina hadn’t lovingly chided me in a little note. But it is always nice to be at church. At church Nicolai and some of the Mothers asked me if I would consider and pray about teaching English based on the Gospels for like an hour or 30 minutes before church services. Nicolai has been learning English from The gospel John and sometimes will quote John 1:1 to me. It is endearing. Also he just got a bilingual New Testament. But he showed me his full bible in English on Saturday and it was SO NICE and NASB and red letter and leather and I was admiring and I made a big deal about it being nice and cool and I asked him where he got it (you know we talk up eachother’s nice things in America, I never really thought about it before, but that really is part of our culture)… He asked me if I liked it and I said yes and he gave it to me. That was not my intention at all, but I totally forgot that I need to be careful about that here. I refused as often as I could but he gave it to me anyways. It was an incredibly nice thing to do, and I don’t feel to guilty about the whole thing, which is surprising for how much I guilt myself. I feel a certain peace about it, I guess. But in any account it is an absolute answer to prayer to finally have a full Bible in English. PRAISE GOD. Anyways, so Nicolai also asked me if I have some sort of Audio Bible because he is teaching himself and knows that when he reads he doesn’t always pronounce things correctly, and has no way of knowing when he is doing it right and when he isn’t. I told him that I didn’t have one, but that I’d see what I could do. I found a recording program on my computer and I recorded John chapter 1 yesterday, and gave it to him today :) Okay, back to Sunday! I was so tired and fatigued and almost considered preemptively deciding to skip rehab for the next day and not leave the apt. But I was reminded of the verse that says never tire of doing good, and since the meetings are frequently the highlight of my week, I just was sure to pray for rejuvenation and hope for the best. :)

MONDAY, MONDAY, MONDAY! One of the best days ever. I don’t have school on Monday, so I slept until like 12:30. Then I called Paige to redeem my pizza date. We set a time and I took a shower. We went to Papa Johns and it was splendiferous. The weather was the nicest EVER too. After Pizza we went to the American consulate because I wanted to ask some questions and it is on the same road as Papa J’s.

The process into the Consulate was silly. We had to show our passports, then go in one at a time. One by one, we had to get metal detector wanded, take all electronics out of our bag and turn them off, get our bag searched, go through a specially locked door, go through another metal detector, put our electronics in a cubbie, put our bag through a metal detector, get our bags back and go on in. We met back up on the inside. It was under renovation or something but it was SO small and there was like no one there. The good news is, I can now say that I have peed on American soil in 2009. I was concerned that I might run out of passport pages soon and I thought that would mean I would have to get a new passport. When I asked about the new passport process she explained it, but then when I told her my problem she said I could just get more pages for visa, so I filled out a little form, waited like 20 minutes and got like 2x the original passport pages, and for free at that. It was a load off my mind, and very satisfying. By the way, while in America we didn’t talk to a single American!

When we left, and went for a splendid walk in the nice weather. From there we parted ways and I headed to rehab.

The lesson was great and we had a guest speaker who also os a musician and donated some CDs and played songs for us. He is an ex-addict who had attended one of our Rehab centers. Aleksey spoke again and I really appreciate his lessons. I sat next to Christina’s Mom during the meeting. A guy who was totally Tweeking came in. His name was Dima and I really hope he comes back. Him coming on his own is encouraging. He was mildly destructive but only because he couldn’t hold still and was very chatty. You could tell he was really trying to focus though. Actually, a lot of current addicts came to the parent meeting this week, and we barely had enough room to fit every one (Praise God!). Be praying for them. Most of them didn’t come in today (Wednesday) when we have the question and check in time, so really be praying that God brings them back and gives them the strength to press on and come back and make it to Rehab and find solace and peace and Love.

After the lesson we had tea and what have you, and Aleksey gave me more verses (WHICH WAS AMAZING!!!). One of the Women whose child is an addict but hasn’t yet come into talk to us, her name was Nadezhda, which means hope, talked to me pretty much the whole tea time. She was absolutely delightful and very understanding of the language barrier and my inability to remember the words I was looking for. She was an absolute dear. Be praying for her and her daughter. Then I went to the metro with Kristina and her mom. I had already been talking to God about whether or not I should get the Calla lilies I had been eyeing at the flower shop and if so how many. I had felt at peace about getting 3 and when I realized I was with these wonderful women I realized why I should get three. One for each of us of course! So we went into the metro with our beautiful flowers.

Kristina kept on saying really cute things and she was clearly very happy. I told her these were my favorite flowers and she said Now, they are mine too; they’re tasty! (then she pretended to eat them). Then later she said: They are beautiful, hey they kinda look like you! She is adorable and an absolute dear. Then she asked me to go for a walk with her. We went for a Walk on Nevsky. WE HAD SOOO MUCH FUN. SO MUCH! Seriously I think it is in my top 25 nights ever. We walked around talking and taking in the view and taking pictures of eachother. We talked to artists and the other people on the streets. But we mainly just walked and talked. We talked about almost everything. I felt so at ease, and even though my Russian was probably just as bad as usual, I felt like it was my mother tongue. Speaking to her is just so easy and free flowing. I mean I would not know the words I would wanna say, but I sometimes can’t find the right words in English either and that is just how it felt. We walked and sang hymns and talked about dance, and study, and life, and the Bible, and different theological views, and told stories from our lives, and just had an all around SPLENDID time. When Kristina saw a bums and alcoholics and addicts she would stop and give them rehab’s business card and talk to them. Most of them referred to rehab as “slavery.” I guess their view of rehab is a work camp. That historically makes sense, of course, but caught me off guard. She was an absolute hero and would reason with them and talk to them about how God used the rehab program to change her life. I so long to be able and walk around and talk to people like she did, but my language isn’t there yet and I know it. It was very sweet though, because she said she wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t there because she would’ve been scared. So perhaps we achieved more together than we would’ve/could’ve separately. :) I suppose God does well to use his body and iron sharpens iron and all. We stayed out so late we were almost too late to get in the metro. I only live one stop away so I was fine, but the metro closed when she was still really far from home, poor girl. She called me and told me about it but I didn’t entirely understand what she said. I think she met a girl on the metro who was going to the same part of town as her so they walked… or maybe taxied together… I am not sure which one. I was SPLENDID. IF you get a chance check out the pictures on facebook.

Tuesday went to class and the weather was great again so Paige and I went to Nevsky and I got a new Russian Bible with commentary.  yea! And we walked around and it was swell. We went to Palace square and did one of the best things we’ve ever done. We did all of the Arrested Development Chicken impersonations in the middle of Palace Square (and if you don’t know where that is it is where the Revolution took place and the square inside the Hermitage). BRILL. It was liberating and good fun. We walked more and had a swell time.

Then parted ways and I went to the Academy I am planning on going to next Semester… if God is truly in it, which I do believe He is. I asked them a few questions and then went to Church for our Tuesday service. Delight. I think Aleksey told me he is done with Adaptation, but I unfortunately was destracted and may have accidently blown him off. An old man at church came over and prayed for me and I for him (only I prayed in English… I am sheepish about switching over to Russian prayer… be praying about that). HE was an adorable old man and he was SOO happy when he found out I am American and he prayed for us again and praised God all over the place for the fact that he and I are family in Christ, even though we are from different countries. It was very cute, and encouraging.

Wednesday,Russian class. Computer time. Chillaxing with Paige; bought a Ukrainian CD. Went to rehab. LOVED IT. I had the responsibility of office duty alone because we were short-handed, but no one came in once I was alone. They all came in like 1 hour late or a little early. I know that was from God but I was kinda hoping they’d come so I’d be forced to do it. The only thing is, if I messed up or if they were turned off but the fact that I suck at the language and am hard to understand, that is SERIOUS. It isn’t like working in a office or a restaurant where if you screw up, somebody has cold food or you have to re-copy something, it could be the difference between somebody getting help, or staying of the street. I know that weight is not on me, and that God is with me and will help me with anything and everything He is and may call me to do, but I am relieved today wasn’t the day for me to do it alone (well… alone with God). Then we had Bible study which was nice. I talked more than usual, but only God knows how much was understood, or appropriate. It was man is a three-part being stuff. That is intense stuff. INTENSE and hard to explain. Then Seryozha and I went home. Seryozha calls me Mishka, or little bear, because my big furry coat and today he played this silly little song on hi phone as we were walking that was all 60s and about a Mishka. IT made me laugh hard. On the down side, a cold front came in. this blog took me about 2 hours to write. I need to sleep. I LOVE YOU ALL!!! GOD BLESS YOU! Please let me know what I can be praying for you about! (pictures are chicken impersonations, Papa Johns, Gogol Statue, My church on a Sunday night, good times with Kristina... and other stuff I am sure... I don't remember what I just uploaded.) ... I am trying to upload the video of me singing, but it is takign forever so we'll see if I have time to do it before class.

:)

Let’s see, what’s new. My phone won’t call Paige right now… IT is confusing but nothing to worry about I am sure. Today I went to both of my classes. Paige didn’t go to the first one. I drew a picture of Cherith and me as my doodle for the day. IT is really hard for me to pay attention in there. I did enjoy the power point about existentialism, though. Yea! My phone is working again. I turned it off and then on again. Then I got online a bit and then Paige met up with me and we went to out next class. That was Literature. I am SOOO glad I took that class with Rutsala. She talked a lot about the books they are talking about. The thing that sucks is the kids are ALWAYS talking and it is yet again really hard to pay attention… and all the names blur in my head. In there was a test today and we BOMBED. BOMBED. BOMBED. IT was horrible. And as we turned it in the teacher talked to us about how we must know more than her kids and stuff because we choose to study it… I tried to say it was so hard in Russian but very interesting. I was trying to sound sophisticated while not getting her hopes up for the test score. I think she is going to be pretty darn disappointed. Oh well, when they read the test score aloud in class next week (and oh, yes, they do that) it might give me the overdose of shame I frequently need to get my butt in gear. Or it might make me cry. Only time will tell. :)
Then Paige and I went to Carls Jr. Good times. Then we wandered around the center of town. It was fun. The sun was out and it was nice weather if you are in the sun but really cold if you were in the shade. We found some benches in the sun and when we got to them we read the sign on them and realized they had wet white paint on them so we sat on the edge of the empty fountain and watched the numerous people approach the benches in hopw only to have them smashed. IT was also fun to watch their stradegies. Some girls sat ont heir purses and then flipped out when the paint got on the purses and spend like 15 minutes pulling out various papers and trying them out. There was a couple where the guy sat down and the gal sat on his lap. HE was shamed as he walked a away with a butt of paint. He couldn’t see it and wanted to see the damage. IT really wasn’t too bad in his case. I saw a bar in the distance called the Korova Bar and I was hoping it was Clockwork Orange themed but it was just cow hide obsessed and swanky. On our walk we ran into Volodya from Church and we were right by his work so he invited us up for tea and coffee. It is this huge real estate place at like the moist prime piece of real estate I think I have ever been in. He said the room we were in when we drank tea was the Tchaikovsky room. I guess it was where he lived. And it had a beautiful view of one of the most well-known bridges in St. Pete. Very nice. We talked all about all sorts of things including the economic crisis, real estate in Russia today, Easter, my future plans, etc. Then he walked us out and we went on our merry way.

Then Paige and I enjoyed the sun for a while longer and window shopped some more and then we went to the metro and parted ways. IT was good times. I headed straight to Ozerki even though I had plenty of time. I went to Okay, the supermarket, and bought some pantyhose to wear for the festival. Then I went to KFC and didn’t get anything but sat down and read revelations and worked more on the little at home section part of the devotional. Then I headed to church. We sing a song, break out into groups and discuss the lesson, then meet back up and sing another song and listen to a sermon. The songs we sang today I liked very much. I don’t remember the name of the first one but the second one was “There is none like you.” This was just about the first week that I contributed to the discussion. Before I was either not prepared or … well, mostly not prepared. The lesson is over Revelations. Not my favorite book of the Bible, in fact it is probably my least favorite. But the entire Bible is Good, Holy, and useful and I should learn it all. Plus there is such comfort just being with believers, and it is where I met Masha, although she hasn’t been around for a while. Anyways it was nice.
Today was Seryozha’s last day at rehab. He had been living there I guess as the leader. I never was quite sure whether he was living there or not until like a week ago, but as of today he doesn’t live there. So, he and I walked/metroed home together like his mom and I do. We talked about food, cooking, things I miss from America, and Psychology and whether it is any good at all. It seems no one is very keen on psychologists here. Seryozha wasn’t antagonistic, just perhaps not completely informed and understandably wary. Plus he does have a good point in saying psychology can’t offer a 100 fail proof way out of drugs and he has never met a single person who became and stayed drug free with psychological help. I think that is the general picture here. I tried to explain my view on psychology and again tried to explain that psychology and Jesus aren’t enemies and they can work beautifully together. It is so strange to me when people can’t seem to imagine a world where there is a God who works through science. We can observe and analyze the way God’s creation works… isn’t that pretty much science, from creationist point of view? Yes I am simplifying matters, but whatever. I’m sleepy.
Okay, Night Night.

Love and Jesus

HEyo! I should go to bed soon, but I haven’t written in so long I know I need to. It seems last time I took a sabbatical people forgot to get back into it, so I’ll try to be consistent so you can make me part of your regular habit! :)
The other day when Paige and I were watching 28 Days Later (which I bought yea!) she said a little piece of gold: “It would suck to be in the stair-car during the Zombie invasion… SO many hop-ons.” Isn’t that GOLD? Ah! If you don’t know what this a a reference go to your local movie place (preferably Hastings) and get yourself some Arrested Development (for sale or rent)! ASAP! Good times.
Today Paige and I went to our first class and then went and saw He’s just not that into you at the dinner and a movie place called Jam Club or something equally silly. IT was nice. We haven’t gone out for a movie in a relatively long time and it is a very soothing process for me. :) Then I went to Church. But I was WAY early and so I did some wandering first. I had never gone to the Tuesday service at the Ozerki church before. I didn’t even really know what time it started or what it would be like… But on Saturday (or maybe it was Sunday) Kristina said that she wanted to go to church more and asked me about church services (it isn’t like she goes infrequently though… She goes like 3 or 4 times a week). I knew there was a service on Tuesday but I didn’t know anything else about it. So we decided we’d go together. But when I got to Ozerki (like 30 minutes early) I called her and she said … well I don’t know but I think she wasn’t feeling to hot so she wasn’t coming. I went. I thought it started at 18:00 but there was like no one there so I sat in the most invisible spot I could find (it was behind a column) and just prayed and enjoyed God and read the Bible. I had hoped to go by unnoticed, but at like 18:30 Nicolai saw me and came over and asked me to help him with his English and he read the beginning verses of John to me in English. He said he had been in Finland the day before (which blew my mind because I saw him both on Sunday and Monday… I guess that was a quick trip) and they’d taught him some English. He has pretty good at what he had learned and he translated it into Russian to prove he understood. Cool, cool. Then I prayed for another 30 minutes. Then the service started at 19:00 and I heard laughing behind me only to see the rest of the brothers there just realizing I was in front of them. I guess I am not very good at being inconspicuous. The service was nice. Today is a Holiday and as far as I can tell it celebrates Jesus’s conception…. I don’t really know… but we read Luke 1:26-56 and the young people’s choir sang wonderful songs perfectly relating to the verses. One of my lampposts: Luke 1:45 is in there and it was so good to here it. I also am really engrossed with the fast that I am a slave to the Lord and Mary calls herself the Lord’s slave in verse 38 so I learned the correct female word for slave and wrote “Lord’s slave on my wrist.” I didn’t think much of it at the time although I thought I heard the men make some noise behind me but when the service was over Pyotr made me show him my wrist and laughed. I guess they were watching me like the whole time. I should’ve known and I was kind of conscious of it but I tried to shut it out. The service was swell and GOD IS GREAT. Kristina called me later to ask about it and asked if she could load me a DVD. I LOVE HER.
I had some down days emotionally pretty much from Thursday night until half way through the night service on Sunday. Various people commented on it. I guess I am usually so overly jubilant here I can’t even pass by without dancing or laughing randomly without people noticing. Saturday night at “choir” practice (there it 4 of us) Nicolai was like “Do you know Jesus Loves you?” and I said yes and then he pretty much told me that I should be happy then. It was sweet. He later commented on my “depression. ” that same night during bible study Aleksey twice told me not to cry. I thought I was passing for moderate emotion… but I guess not. Later Kristina was kinda asking what was up and she got the whole lot of it including tears and everything while she and I were heading home together and waiting at the bus stop. She is so sweet and compassionate. I think she is very wise too, but I can’t say I understand all of her advice unfortunately. I LOVE HER. It was extra sucky to be sulky because when I went to rehab on Friday night it was just me and the Ukrainian dude and so he played a recording of a sermon he had while we were waiting for potential intakes. The Sermon was given by an American Southern Baptist from Billy Graham’s group or something and so it was in English with Ukrainian translation. It was about joy. Haha, I guess I didn’t get the hint until Sunday when I finally asked God what was wrong with me. He said it was guilt and when I asked if it was righteous guilt HE said no. I do that sometimes. Hold on to guilt for things God has already forgiven myself and my massive guilt trips are crippling. I surrendered it to HIM and he took it from me and filled me wonderous joy! I’ve pretty much been walking on air since then :) Praise God.
Monday was SO GOOD I cannot even begin to describe it! TRULY JUST KNOW IT WAS AN INCREDIBLE BLESSING FROM GOD! I grew so much closer to Kristina and God answered the prayers I prayed for throughout the day with HUGE AFFIRMATIVES and he enabled me to finish the translations for the websites. And HE was AMAZIGN AND WODNERFUL! And AH!! Beyond description! I dunno, it you want more details make me call you so I can tell you, cause I can’t write it all.
Bu speaking of the website, I HIGHLY encourage you all to check it out!!! PLEASE!!! Valery has been really beefing it up lately and plus there is a little testimonial of mine on there and a bunch of the stuff was translated by me. :) CHECK IT OUT!!!
Go to:
narcostop.org
Click on the British flag for English and look around. That is the organization I am with a lot and volunteer at. I very highly endorse the group so if the Lord compels you to contact them or donate or if you plan on going to Russia and want to visit them, DO IT! They are way cool and it is wonderful to see the way God works through their program.