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.