Since it was Jeff & Karla's last Sunday, we posed for a group photo.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
In many ways this week has been no different than most here in Russia. There have been soaring highs, crushing lows, days that you desperately want to pack up and go home land later (even on the same day) you can't imagine being anywhere or doing anything else. The week was filled with both language failures and successes. And, in a period of a week, the Russian Football (soccer) Team took made our spirits soar and then brought us crashing back to the ground as they just barely missed being able to play in the championship game. With all of that being said, it is funny to me how we have started to feel nationalistic about our adopted country in such a short time. Even when we are at our lowest and the suitcases come out of the closet we stop and ask ourselves "but what about..." and then we start to list the names of Russian friends we have made who have not had the chance to give their lives to Jesus. And that list is becoming longer. Every week we seem to make new relationships and we pray that God will use our friendship to allow the Gospel to be shared. And I don't think we will ever feel that the work here is finished because as soon as one gets saved, there will always be another new friend that we couldn't bear to leave until they were saved too. In a city of around 15-million people, I think we could be here for quite some time.
Let me add this on a total side note. I am finishing a video about our team and their strategy and I hope to post that here sometime later this week. However, I think it is important to remind folks back home that most of the people that we work with are"totally lost" in the sense that they have no background or concept of religion to work with as a starting point. Many who are a little older (25+) have told me that under the Soviet Union, Communism was their god. "Lenin and Stalin were our gods and we worshiped them," one lady told me. So, sharing the good news of Jesus and his sacrifice for our sins is not as simple as meeting for a cup of coffee at Country Cabin and finishing lunch with the "sinner's prayer." It is about forging deep relationships and personal trust which then gives us the right to share our faith. It is about them realizing that our lives and our family is different from theirs and them developing a hunger for wanting to understand what about us makes us different. The work of sharing the Gospel here is slow. However, in the end what we will find is that we have made a host of new friends and pray that they will one day meet us in heaven. That makes the daily struggles worthwhile.
OK, my sidebar is over.
Our team leader, Jeff, and his family head home this next week for their year of Stateside Assignment. Jeff and Karla will be serving as the Missionaries in Residence at the Baptist College of Florida in Graceville, Florida. Our whole family will miss them very much. They have not been just our team leaders, they have been our friends and I assure you that without their friendship, guidance, advice, shoulders to cry on, etc. that we would have given up and left Moscow long before now. So, I am grateful to them and ask that you pray for them as they transition back home this week.
And that brings me to the long list of changes that are in process...
First, let me tell you about church yesterday...all six and a half hours of it!!! That's right, you did not misread. We met as a church for 6 1/2 hours. For weeks you have been praying about our decision to host a Bible Study and yesterday was the first meeting in our home. It was truly amazing. Jeff and his family joined us for their last meeting with the group and we were also joined by another missionary family who has just moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow. But more importantly, there were 7 Russians who were with us yesterday! That meant that we had more than 20 people crammed into our living room as we sang songs of worship and studied the Bible. Our worship time and Bible study was at least three hours. Then we shared a meal together and fellowshipped. We played cards for awhile and then we had another spontaneous time of praise and worship again. It left us so excited about the decision we have made to host this group and it is so encouraging as we watch our new friends wrestle with the Word of God and see the Holy Spirit working in them. We are also excited by the fact that they are already stepping up and sharing in the leadership roles. We thought it was very important that they begin taking ownership of the group and started leading as well as participating. So, one of the guys has volunteered to play guitar each week and another (very shy) girl has agreed to facilitate the Bible study portion...a huge step for her. Next week we will start a six-week study on the life of Peter. Please be in prayer for our group as we use the life of this disciple to draw us closer in our relationship with Jesus.
Change number two...we are down to just six hours left of language learning!!!! As the Russians would say, "Oooo-rrrrah!" Our teacher in on vacation in Turkey this week so we will have the week off as well and then will study for three days next week and be finished...at least for awhile. Now, before you think us arrogant, know that we are nowhere close to knowing all of the things we need to learn and still struggle just to watch television and understand what is being said. However, we are grateful for what this break means in our lives. We are looking forward to spending more time with our children and doing things as a family. And, we are looking forward to our language learning taking on different forms...like actually talking with people. One of the drawbacks to full-time language study is that when you spend your day studying lessons and doing homework from textbooks it leaves you very little time to get out of the apartment and actually talk with people. So, I am especially looking forward to that. There is a possibility that in the fall I will start taking lessons again for six hours a week. But, none of that has been set in stone so we are reveling in our accomplishment and looking forward to the freedom it will bring to our lives.
Change number three...we are getting a vehicle!!!!! Our Moscow leadership decided this week to let us use the van assigned to Jeff and Karla while they are in the States. We are so excited about this decision because it will make our lives here just a little bit easier. It will also allow us to pick up Lilliana for church each week. She is 82 and could not attend if she had to take public transportation. We are trying to be cautious about how we use this new asset because it could be re-assigned at any time and will certainly go back to Jeff's family when he returns next year. And, when that happens we are back to using our feet and public transit, so we will try not to over-use the van while we have it. However, in the meantime it will allow us to transport groceries in large quantities from the store...and that, my friends, is worth the price of admission.
Change four...this week I officially transfer to my "real job" as the Russia Field Media Coordinator. This change, for me, is probably the most exciting of all because it means that I finally get to put my concentration on the things I am good at, and to finally be able to do the things that God called me here to do. I will tell you more about my new job throughout the summer, but my primary functions will be to (1) visit cities where we do not have any personnel and produce media pieces that will create interest in future personnel serving in these areas; (2) assist current personnel in the field with creating media pieces about their work in Russia; (3) work with the Russia Leadership Team in creating support pieces for our work here. As you can see, my life is getting to be radically different and I will most likely spend around 10 days a month away from home. Please pray for Kellye and the kids as we transition into this radically different lifestyle.
Change five...and this is not a good one...visa laws. The government changed their visa laws again this week and fellow colleagues are having trouble obtaining their new visas/work permits. We are scheduled to get our new documents in August. We were supposed to travel to Kiev, Ukraine to get this done, but have now been told that the Kiev office will no longer issue the documents we need, so as of today we really don't know what the plan is. Please pray that God will make a way for us to stay in Moscow to work with our friends here.
This week is the corner we have been waiting to turn for some time now. It is hard to believe that we have been in the country for nine months. It is hard to believe that we finally feel we have at least a base knowledge of the Russian language. It is hard to believe that we have made relationships with Russians and that there is a group of them studying the Bible in our home each week. And, it is hard to believe that most days I cannot imagine doing anything else with my life right now. That does not mean that all days are happy ones. As a matter of a fact, it generally means that we are under attack much more frequently and that makes life hard. If you never have before, I ask that you pray for our family over the next two months. If you have been praying all along, I ask that you double that amount this summer. While most of these changes are great ones we are aware that this time in our missionary career is a particularly sensitive one and is usually the point where a family either takes off and soars or crashes and burns. Pray that this week especially will be the one where we begin our ascent.
Blessings,
Marc
Let me add this on a total side note. I am finishing a video about our team and their strategy and I hope to post that here sometime later this week. However, I think it is important to remind folks back home that most of the people that we work with are"totally lost" in the sense that they have no background or concept of religion to work with as a starting point. Many who are a little older (25+) have told me that under the Soviet Union, Communism was their god. "Lenin and Stalin were our gods and we worshiped them," one lady told me. So, sharing the good news of Jesus and his sacrifice for our sins is not as simple as meeting for a cup of coffee at Country Cabin and finishing lunch with the "sinner's prayer." It is about forging deep relationships and personal trust which then gives us the right to share our faith. It is about them realizing that our lives and our family is different from theirs and them developing a hunger for wanting to understand what about us makes us different. The work of sharing the Gospel here is slow. However, in the end what we will find is that we have made a host of new friends and pray that they will one day meet us in heaven. That makes the daily struggles worthwhile.
OK, my sidebar is over.
Our team leader, Jeff, and his family head home this next week for their year of Stateside Assignment. Jeff and Karla will be serving as the Missionaries in Residence at the Baptist College of Florida in Graceville, Florida. Our whole family will miss them very much. They have not been just our team leaders, they have been our friends and I assure you that without their friendship, guidance, advice, shoulders to cry on, etc. that we would have given up and left Moscow long before now. So, I am grateful to them and ask that you pray for them as they transition back home this week.
And that brings me to the long list of changes that are in process...
First, let me tell you about church yesterday...all six and a half hours of it!!! That's right, you did not misread. We met as a church for 6 1/2 hours. For weeks you have been praying about our decision to host a Bible Study and yesterday was the first meeting in our home. It was truly amazing. Jeff and his family joined us for their last meeting with the group and we were also joined by another missionary family who has just moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow. But more importantly, there were 7 Russians who were with us yesterday! That meant that we had more than 20 people crammed into our living room as we sang songs of worship and studied the Bible. Our worship time and Bible study was at least three hours. Then we shared a meal together and fellowshipped. We played cards for awhile and then we had another spontaneous time of praise and worship again. It left us so excited about the decision we have made to host this group and it is so encouraging as we watch our new friends wrestle with the Word of God and see the Holy Spirit working in them. We are also excited by the fact that they are already stepping up and sharing in the leadership roles. We thought it was very important that they begin taking ownership of the group and started leading as well as participating. So, one of the guys has volunteered to play guitar each week and another (very shy) girl has agreed to facilitate the Bible study portion...a huge step for her. Next week we will start a six-week study on the life of Peter. Please be in prayer for our group as we use the life of this disciple to draw us closer in our relationship with Jesus.
Change number two...we are down to just six hours left of language learning!!!! As the Russians would say, "Oooo-rrrrah!" Our teacher in on vacation in Turkey this week so we will have the week off as well and then will study for three days next week and be finished...at least for awhile. Now, before you think us arrogant, know that we are nowhere close to knowing all of the things we need to learn and still struggle just to watch television and understand what is being said. However, we are grateful for what this break means in our lives. We are looking forward to spending more time with our children and doing things as a family. And, we are looking forward to our language learning taking on different forms...like actually talking with people. One of the drawbacks to full-time language study is that when you spend your day studying lessons and doing homework from textbooks it leaves you very little time to get out of the apartment and actually talk with people. So, I am especially looking forward to that. There is a possibility that in the fall I will start taking lessons again for six hours a week. But, none of that has been set in stone so we are reveling in our accomplishment and looking forward to the freedom it will bring to our lives.
Change number three...we are getting a vehicle!!!!! Our Moscow leadership decided this week to let us use the van assigned to Jeff and Karla while they are in the States. We are so excited about this decision because it will make our lives here just a little bit easier. It will also allow us to pick up Lilliana for church each week. She is 82 and could not attend if she had to take public transportation. We are trying to be cautious about how we use this new asset because it could be re-assigned at any time and will certainly go back to Jeff's family when he returns next year. And, when that happens we are back to using our feet and public transit, so we will try not to over-use the van while we have it. However, in the meantime it will allow us to transport groceries in large quantities from the store...and that, my friends, is worth the price of admission.
Change four...this week I officially transfer to my "real job" as the Russia Field Media Coordinator. This change, for me, is probably the most exciting of all because it means that I finally get to put my concentration on the things I am good at, and to finally be able to do the things that God called me here to do. I will tell you more about my new job throughout the summer, but my primary functions will be to (1) visit cities where we do not have any personnel and produce media pieces that will create interest in future personnel serving in these areas; (2) assist current personnel in the field with creating media pieces about their work in Russia; (3) work with the Russia Leadership Team in creating support pieces for our work here. As you can see, my life is getting to be radically different and I will most likely spend around 10 days a month away from home. Please pray for Kellye and the kids as we transition into this radically different lifestyle.
Change five...and this is not a good one...visa laws. The government changed their visa laws again this week and fellow colleagues are having trouble obtaining their new visas/work permits. We are scheduled to get our new documents in August. We were supposed to travel to Kiev, Ukraine to get this done, but have now been told that the Kiev office will no longer issue the documents we need, so as of today we really don't know what the plan is. Please pray that God will make a way for us to stay in Moscow to work with our friends here.
This week is the corner we have been waiting to turn for some time now. It is hard to believe that we have been in the country for nine months. It is hard to believe that we finally feel we have at least a base knowledge of the Russian language. It is hard to believe that we have made relationships with Russians and that there is a group of them studying the Bible in our home each week. And, it is hard to believe that most days I cannot imagine doing anything else with my life right now. That does not mean that all days are happy ones. As a matter of a fact, it generally means that we are under attack much more frequently and that makes life hard. If you never have before, I ask that you pray for our family over the next two months. If you have been praying all along, I ask that you double that amount this summer. While most of these changes are great ones we are aware that this time in our missionary career is a particularly sensitive one and is usually the point where a family either takes off and soars or crashes and burns. Pray that this week especially will be the one where we begin our ascent.
Blessings,
Marc
Here are some photos from house church yesterday:
I didn't have a wide-angle lens for my camera so you can't see everybody, but this gives you an idea of what our very full living room looked like.
Our "Russian Cowboy", Cyrill, singing during our praise and worship time. Notice his sweatshirt. Cyrill loves all things American and usually wears cowboy boots and a cowboy hat...quite a sight in Moscow.
Jeff leading us in worship.
Dema and his nephew Vita.
Lilliana...'nuff said. :-)
I didn't have a wide-angle lens for my camera so you can't see everybody, but this gives you an idea of what our very full living room looked like.
Our "Russian Cowboy", Cyrill, singing during our praise and worship time. Notice his sweatshirt. Cyrill loves all things American and usually wears cowboy boots and a cowboy hat...quite a sight in Moscow.
Jeff leading us in worship.
Dema and his nephew Vita.
Lilliana...'nuff said. :-)
Saturday, June 21, 2008
By The Numbers... (June Edition)
Because next month holds many new changes in our lives and because we are looking forward to those changes, this past month has felt rather monotonous. School is out, but Kellye and I continue to study language. We have said goodbye to friends as they have left the field, some for good and others for just awhile. And, we have suffered through Moscow's little annoyances like our dryer breaking after having it for just a week. So, as I took time this week to get excited about the week ahead (there is some fun stuff coming and I will tell you all about that next week), I also decided to take a look backwards and let the numbers do the talking. So, here is the June 08 edition of "By the Numbers."
265 - The number of days we have lived in Moscow.
492- The number of classroom hours we have studied Russian.
328- The approximate number of hours spent doing Russian homework.
820- The approximate number of total hours spent studying the Russian Language.
23.54- That is how many Russian Rubles we get for every American dollar.
232- The cost (in Rubles) for a kilogram of cheese.
424- The cost (in Rubles) for 24 half-liter bottles of Coca-Cola.
1,997- The monthly cost (in American Dollars) for the rent of our 2-bedroom apartment.
3 to 7- The number of miles we walk each day.
1- The distance, in miles, to the nearest Metro (subway) station.
25- The number of Russian students "enrolled" in our weekly English Club.
2- The number of students we started with on the first week of our English Club.
9- The average number of Russian students who now attend each week.
90- The number of blog posts I have written.
3,740- The approximate number of visits to this blog since October 2007.
40- The approximate number of countries represented by the people who read this blog.
14- The average number of visits to this site each day.
So, whether you are one of the 14 people who check this site every day, or just one of the people in one of the 40 countries around the globe who are interested in what and how we are doing in Moscow...THANK YOU!!! Thank you for reading. Thank you for caring. Thank you for praying. We could hardly do more than get out of bed without your prayers and support.
Next week... "Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!!"
Friday, June 13, 2008
A lot of catching up to do
They say that you start to slow down once you hit 40, so that is the excuse I am using for not posting since my birthday a couple of weeks ago. The truth of the matter is that part of the reason I have not written is that I have been pretty busy over the past couple of weeks. The other half of the reason is that nothing of consequence has really happened and therefore there is not much to write about. However, at the prodding of my family I am going to attempt to bring you up to speed on the not-so-exciting adventures of daily life in Moscow.
Let's start with my birthday. My wonderful wife, Kellye, went above and beyond to make this a special birthday for me. As you can imagine, living the missionary life does not leave you with a lot of money in your bank account for extravagant birthday gifts. So Kellye took this opportunity to make this a memorable birthday not with the expense of the gifts, but for the sentiment. At a dinner party with our Moscow missionary family, Kellye presented me with a scrapbook filled with letters from friends and family around the world wishing me a happy birthday. Many of you who read this blog contributed to the book and it was truly wonderful. I heard from friends that I have not seen in over 15 years as well as missionary friends from around the world. Those of you who know me well know that I am a "weeper" so it should be no surprise to you that as I read greetings from these important people I had tears streaming down my cheeks. In addition, Kellye's parents sent a truly amazing quilt made from t-shirts I have collected for 20 years. There were shirts from Oklahoma Baptist University, from radio stations where I have worked, from t-shirt logos that I designed and a variety of other memorable times in my life. It is really cool and very special. During English Club that week we had another party to celebrate my 40th and my students wrote acrostic poems using the letters in my name to describe me. Also very special. They also were very generous and gave me a few gifts, including a t-shirt with the Russian flag on it.
Our language lessons continue. And, while they can be very frustrating some days, I feel like we are starting to have some degree of success with the language. We even felt comfortable enough with our language skills that we returned a DVD to a store the day after we bought it because it was not working properly. And, while we did not get our money back, we did get them to let us choose another movie. All in all, a language success.
Our "new" clothes dryer that Kellye has been so excited about died a week after we got it. We are currently waiting for a service man to come out and tell us if it can be revived or not. Until then it is back to crunchy jeans and underwear from the drying rack.
I am about two weeks away from transitioning from the Moscow Arts Team to the Russia Field Administration Team. What does this really mean? It means that after nine months on the field I will finally get to start doing the things I came here to do. I will start working on media projects, traveling the country, and creating media pieces which will hopefully draw new missionaries to the field. It also means that I will spend more language learning time in OJT and less in the classroom and I am looking forward to that.
As Kellye has mentioned in her blogs, we have a lot of people from Moscow who are moving back to the States. Some are going just for the summer, some for a year and some for longer. While this is difficult, we are celebrating that God has brought friends from St. Petersburg to Moscow to live and our children are already becoming fast friends. Tomorrow is movie night at our house and we will have a full house as we watch Horton. We have also started a weekly Phase 10 night with friends and this is one of the highlights of my week.
Many of you have joined us in prayer as we were presented with the opportunity to host and facilitate a Bible Study/Church for Russians in our home. We have felt God's leading in this matter so this week we will start meeting with the existing group and three weeks from now we will officially move the group to our home. We are excited about this because it will be yet another opportunity to share our faith in a very real way. And, having the group in our home will also make it easier for us to invite those attending our English Club to our Bible study. Please continue to make this a matter of prayer.
Whew! So, that about sums it up. A lot of activity, but not much else to say. Life here continues to be interesting. There are good days and bad, but the days we want to get the suitcases out and come home have all but disappeared. I still don't like Russian food, but am starting to look like "an olive on a toothpick" because Kellye keeps my belly nice and fat with her great cooking and my legs are getting skinnier and skinnier from all the walking we do each week.
Know that we love each of you and enjoy hearing from you.
Blessings,
Marc
PS- Each Saturday we write a prayer letter update from the past week that is sent to the leadership of our partner churches. Some of you have expressed interest in getting this letter so we have started posting our weekly letters on a different blog site. The address is: www.hooksworldprayer.blogspot.com Please feel free to share this address or print these updates and share them with your Sunday School classes, WMU groups, etc.
Also, if you would like to read stories about how people in Russia are finding saving faith in Jesus Christ, you can read our new newsletter "Blessings 4 Every Heart." It can be found at www.hope4russia.org/blessing or you can subscribe to the weekly email by filling out the form in the top left of the page.
Let's start with my birthday. My wonderful wife, Kellye, went above and beyond to make this a special birthday for me. As you can imagine, living the missionary life does not leave you with a lot of money in your bank account for extravagant birthday gifts. So Kellye took this opportunity to make this a memorable birthday not with the expense of the gifts, but for the sentiment. At a dinner party with our Moscow missionary family, Kellye presented me with a scrapbook filled with letters from friends and family around the world wishing me a happy birthday. Many of you who read this blog contributed to the book and it was truly wonderful. I heard from friends that I have not seen in over 15 years as well as missionary friends from around the world. Those of you who know me well know that I am a "weeper" so it should be no surprise to you that as I read greetings from these important people I had tears streaming down my cheeks. In addition, Kellye's parents sent a truly amazing quilt made from t-shirts I have collected for 20 years. There were shirts from Oklahoma Baptist University, from radio stations where I have worked, from t-shirt logos that I designed and a variety of other memorable times in my life. It is really cool and very special. During English Club that week we had another party to celebrate my 40th and my students wrote acrostic poems using the letters in my name to describe me. Also very special. They also were very generous and gave me a few gifts, including a t-shirt with the Russian flag on it.
Our language lessons continue. And, while they can be very frustrating some days, I feel like we are starting to have some degree of success with the language. We even felt comfortable enough with our language skills that we returned a DVD to a store the day after we bought it because it was not working properly. And, while we did not get our money back, we did get them to let us choose another movie. All in all, a language success.
Our "new" clothes dryer that Kellye has been so excited about died a week after we got it. We are currently waiting for a service man to come out and tell us if it can be revived or not. Until then it is back to crunchy jeans and underwear from the drying rack.
I am about two weeks away from transitioning from the Moscow Arts Team to the Russia Field Administration Team. What does this really mean? It means that after nine months on the field I will finally get to start doing the things I came here to do. I will start working on media projects, traveling the country, and creating media pieces which will hopefully draw new missionaries to the field. It also means that I will spend more language learning time in OJT and less in the classroom and I am looking forward to that.
As Kellye has mentioned in her blogs, we have a lot of people from Moscow who are moving back to the States. Some are going just for the summer, some for a year and some for longer. While this is difficult, we are celebrating that God has brought friends from St. Petersburg to Moscow to live and our children are already becoming fast friends. Tomorrow is movie night at our house and we will have a full house as we watch Horton. We have also started a weekly Phase 10 night with friends and this is one of the highlights of my week.
Many of you have joined us in prayer as we were presented with the opportunity to host and facilitate a Bible Study/Church for Russians in our home. We have felt God's leading in this matter so this week we will start meeting with the existing group and three weeks from now we will officially move the group to our home. We are excited about this because it will be yet another opportunity to share our faith in a very real way. And, having the group in our home will also make it easier for us to invite those attending our English Club to our Bible study. Please continue to make this a matter of prayer.
Whew! So, that about sums it up. A lot of activity, but not much else to say. Life here continues to be interesting. There are good days and bad, but the days we want to get the suitcases out and come home have all but disappeared. I still don't like Russian food, but am starting to look like "an olive on a toothpick" because Kellye keeps my belly nice and fat with her great cooking and my legs are getting skinnier and skinnier from all the walking we do each week.
Know that we love each of you and enjoy hearing from you.
Blessings,
Marc
PS- Each Saturday we write a prayer letter update from the past week that is sent to the leadership of our partner churches. Some of you have expressed interest in getting this letter so we have started posting our weekly letters on a different blog site. The address is: www.hooksworldprayer.blogspot.com Please feel free to share this address or print these updates and share them with your Sunday School classes, WMU groups, etc.
Also, if you would like to read stories about how people in Russia are finding saving faith in Jesus Christ, you can read our new newsletter "Blessings 4 Every Heart." It can be found at www.hope4russia.org/blessing or you can subscribe to the weekly email by filling out the form in the top left of the page.
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