Better Than A Puppy!

We hosted a Sweet 16 party last night.  And, while I realize that back at home March Madness abounds, this party had nothing to do with college basketball and everything to do with Sarah Beth.  It is hard to believe that she is really 16 years old.

For months Kellye and I had been struggling with what we should get SB for her birthday.  This was 16 after all, but life in Moscow is different that life at home.  There would be no driver's license on her 16th.  And there certainly wouldn't be a car -- not that there would have been if we still lived in Middleburg.  But we wanted to make this a special and memorable birthday for her.  So we were always on the lookout to see what kind of meaningful gift we could get her for this milestone birthday.  And, we were struggling.  Until one night around 4 months ago when SB was sitting in her room making plans for her Sweet 16 party.  Things were going along pretty well, but I started to hear sobs coming from her room.  When I went in to check on her, she looked at me through make-up smeared eyes and said, "my best friends isn't going to be here for my party."

Time to digress and give a little background.  Last year before moving to Russia Sarah Beth had the opportunity to come to Eastern Europe and live and work with a missionary family in Prague for 6 weeks.  During that time she was able to attend the region's annual meeting where all of the missionaries (and the missionary kids (MKs) get together for a week.  During that time she made wonderful friends.  She didn't even want to come back home, just meet us in Moscow when we finally got here!  And that is where she met Anna.  Anna has lived in Russia for most of her life and she lives in a city that is a full day's travel north of Moscow.  She and SB became fast friends and they communicate via Internet nearly every day.  And, while SB has many friends here in Moscow, Anna is her closest.  So when Kellye and I found her sobbing about Anna not being in here for her party we knew immediately what her "big present" would be.  I don't even think I waited for her to go to sleep that night before I hid in my room with my computer and sent Anna's dad an email asking if we could bring her down for the weekend.

The timing of this surprise was tricky and it was a coordinated effort to keep the cat in the bag.  Anna arrived Thursday night and stayed with other friends of ours (and hers, of course) in Moscow and even attended a play at Hinkson that night.  Thankfully we had just returned from Kiev that afternoon and SB was too tired to even ask to go to the play.  Then SB went to school for her chorus class on Friday, so we had to make sure that none of her friends accidentally mentioned that Anna was in town or that they had seen her at the play the night before.  As time for the party arrived it seemed as if "the package" was still a secret and SB was still hoping to get a pet for her birthday present.

So, this was the scene as the teenagers arrived for the party...

We had a really great time last night.  SB has a wonderful set of friends who are truly a joy to be around.  We are blessed that God has allowed us to serve in a place where there are lots of teenagers who are believers and who provide SB with such a wonderful network of friends.  And, let me say again how proud we are of Sarah Beth.  She is a wonderful, smart, funny and beautiful young woman who adds immeasurable amounts to our family.  She has dealt with this transition extremely well and has become a leader to her siblings.  We are quite blessed to have her as our oldest daughter.

In the days to come I will be sharing my version of  "The Kiev Chronicles" -- the account of our first trip out of the country and four days of Russian language immersion.  So, stay tuned....

What you didn't know about Easter in Russia

If you literally translate the Russian Bible's account of the Easter story it reads something like this:

"And sitting on the rock outside of the tomb was a man dressed in garments as white as snow. Which made him very hard to see. And the women said to him, "Where have you taken our Lord?" And he replied, "He is risen, just as he said. Look! Follow his footprints in the snow and you will find Him!"

Ok, so maybe that is not what it says, even in the Russian translation. But I do think that I have discovered why Easter is a whole month later on the Russian Orthodox calendar...because nothing says Easter quite like a fresh coat of snow on the ground! That's right, we had over an inch of snow last night. So as you are going to church this morning in your pretty white dresses and Easter hats, we will be trudging to the Metro in our snow boots, and scarves!

I have many favorite sections of the Easter story, not the least of which is when Mary Magdalene realizes that she is talking with Jesus. Don't you wish you could have seen that? Another favorite is when Jesus appears to Thomas. We often criticize Thomas for his doubts and unbelief, but many days I wonder if I would have been in the room at all. So, I try to give Thomas a break.

This year as I re-read the Easter account in the gospels my attention was drawn to the men on the road to Emmaus. Can you imagine getting a Bible lesson from Jesus himself? Now I am sure that those who were there for the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus' other teachings were captivated by him. Who wouldn't be. But just imagine these two guys. They had Jesus...God himself...walk them through the Old Testament and passage by passage he explained how the symbolism, the sacrificial system, and the prophecies all pointed to his death on the cross and His resurrection which occurred just hours ago. Wow! If we get to choose what we get to do in heaven when we get there, that will be one of the first things I want to see!

Well, it is time to get the kiddos up and see if we have been visited by the Easter Bunny, the Easter Beagle, or maybe even the Russian Easter Bear (ok, I made that one up too).

I hope that as you read this you will take hope in this...HE IS RISEN INDEED!!!

Blessings,

Marc

Much too young to be this dang old...

Happy Birthday to my Boo-Boo!  

It really is impossible that 16 years have passed since your Mom and I spent countless days in the Medical Center in Columbus, Georgia waiting for you to arrive.  We spent many of those days dreaming about what kind of person you would become.  However, I don't think any of my dreams compared to the wonderful daughter you have grown to be.  Not only are you beautiful (like your mother) but you are funny, compassionate, kind and have a heart for Jesus.  There is rarely a day that goes by that you do not amaze me with  the kind of person that you are.

I hope that your 16th birthday is everything you dreamed of it being.  Just remember that your family thinks that you are awesome and we love you very much.  Our lives would not be as rich and full without you in them.

May God bless you on your special day.

Love,

Daddy

Moscow Arts Team Conversational English Master Class 2008-Our First Ministry Project!

As you will see in this video we have been pretty busy this week.  I don't have time to write much tonight because it is getting late and I have come down with a small case of the flu, but we wanted to share some of the fun we have had this past week.

This week-long camp was hosted by the Moscow Arts Team and classes were taught by volunteers from First Baptist Church of Allen, Texas.  The goal was to reach our target group (artists) with an opportunity for them to study conversational English with native speakers.  Yes, I know that many will argue that Texans are not necessarily native speakers, but for our purposes it was close enough!  :-)  

Starting next week our team will follow up by hosting weekly English Clubs in our homes with the hopes that these relationships based on a common foundation of speaking English will lead to deeper relationships, discipleship, and hopefully a church plant in our homes.  We had nearly 50 Russians attend our Master Class this week and as you will see it was a wonderful time.

Thank you for your continued prayers.

Blessings,

Marc

Finding the Good in Freezing Children

Every Sunday night we "attend" church at Southern Hills Baptist Church in Oklahoma City via their webcast on the Internet. This past month the pastor has been preaching about the life of Joseph -- one of my favorite Bible characters. At the climax of the story, Joseph is sitting in a position of power and prominence in Egypt when he finally gets to address his brothers who tried to kill him but decided to sell him into slavery instead. At this key meeting Joseph tells his brothers "Don't you see, you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good..." (The Message)

Honestly, I meant no harm to the small children in the apartments above us. I really didn't. And there was no harm or evil intended. Honestly! However, as is His way God has used that event for good instead of harm.

As I have said before, Russians are very closed and difficult to get to know. I have been told that once they get to know you they are very welcoming and inviting. However, getting to that point is difficult, at best. I think that comes from a combination of things, not the least of which are long cold winters and years of communist dictatorship. On a brief side-note, I came across these next verses this week that reminded me a lot of the Russians that I encounter on the streets, stores and metro every day. As soon as I read them I thought that the people of Russia must not be much different from the people Isaiah was asked to talk with every day.

"But this is a people battered and cowed, shut up in attics and closets, victims licking their wounds, feeling ignored, abandoned...Their whole world collapsed but they still didn't get it; their life is in ruins but they don't take it to heart." Isaiah 42:22, 25 (The Message)

So, back to my story. On Thursday Kellye and I arranged to meet for lunch along with two other couples to celebrate Valentine's Day at an American steak house here in Moscow. I was really looking forward to it because I have not had a steak since September. Kellye was coming from school and I had a language lesson that morning and was walking from the apartment. As I approached the street I was greeted by someone yelling "Privet, Marc!" Now this was strange for a couple of reasons. The most obvious being that nobody except for missionary friends call me by name. The second was that someone would shout out my name from a distance...Russians are typically very quiet people, especially in public. And lastly, I was greeted with "privet" which is the greeting reserved for friends. Outside of missionary friends, the only other people who have greeted me with this word have been brothers and sisters at our new and wonderful church. Well, I suppose you have guessed by now that the person calling my name was Эдик (pronounced "Eh-dick"), the handyman for our building who had come to turn the heat back on for the poor children upstairs.

He asked me where I was going and we discovered that although we were going two different directions part of the route was the same, so he asked if I wanted to walk with him. We talked about the weather and he showed me a photograph of his daughter as we briskly made our way up the street. (And yes, for those of you wondering, we spoke entirely in Russian because Эдик does not speak English.) When it came time for us to part company we said our goodbyes and turned to go opposite directions, but not before he turn back and invited me to call him sometime!

So I spent the rest of the week trying to figure out what I would say if I called, what we would talk about, etc. And, I had planned to call him today to invite him out to get a cup of tea and talk, but frankly I was pretty nervous about it. I was kind of relieved when I found out that my day would be taken up running business errands and that I would not have time to meet with Эдик. However, God had other plans. So as I returned from my daily walk to the store this morning I saw Эдик outside of my building as he was getting ready to enter one of the other doors in the building. Notice my wording here...I saw him...he had not seen me yet. I could almost hear Jesus out loud as he walked with me down the sidewalk, "Ok, Marc...so now what are you going to do. If you don't call out to him, he will go inside and you will go upstairs and nobody but you will know. You asked for a friend and I helped make the first move, so what are you going to do with it?" It is so uncomfortable when Jesus talks to you like that... So even though I was quite uncomfortable doing it I called out to him. We had a brief chat while new snow fell around us and I took the opportunity to invite him to have tea with me this Thursday after my lesson.

So this week I am thankful that God has heard my prayers and used a simple thing like being too hot in my bedroom, causing me to turn off the heat, which caused the repairman to come, etc. to help me make a friend with a Russian national. As you read this I have two simple requests for you: The first is that you pray for me this week as I will have an opportunity to spend some time with Эдик and hopefully develop a relationship. But the second is that if you come across someone this week who does not speak English. Be kind to them. Speak to them first. Ask them what they are doing and maybe you can go along, even if it is a short distance. But most importantly, give them an opportunity to maybe make the first friend they have outside of people who are just like they are. They will be glad that you did.

The Super Bowl and Freezing Small Children

There is good and bad news out of Moscow this week.

First the bad news. Apparently the new Americans in the building (yes, that's us) inadvertently shut off the heat of a section of the building in the six floors above us, causing the small children in those rooms to be very, very cold. How did we find this out? Because this morning at 8:30 the building handyman was at our door! He was a very nice man, but he was speaking Russian at about 90-miles-per-hour! If you know me at all you know that I am not particularly a morning person anyway and on the days where I have my lesson at 9am it is all I can do to speak Russian at that time of day, let alone try to figure out what someone is saying to me. So, picture yourself standing in front of a fire hose and that is a little of what I felt like.

Now we had a really good reason for turning off the heat (honestly we did.) Even though the temperatures have hardly risen above freezing since we moved here in October. Our apartment is heated by a series of radiators. There is at least one in each room and they make our apartment unbearably hot...especially in our bedroom. Usually we keep the windows open all of the time and that helps some, but it also creates a wind tunnel in the apartment and doors are constantly slamming shut, etc. Anyway, several weeks ago I developed a very bad cough that seemed to be aggravated by the dry heat of the radiators and sleeping with the window open at night, so since the radiator in our bedroom has valves on it (all but one other don't have any control at all) I decided to shut off the heat so that we did not have to open the bedroom window at night.

If Paul Harvey were here he would now tell you the rest of the story...apparently the radiators in the building snake through the walls in an s-like pattern that go upward from one floor to the next. So the kitchen heat is tied to the kitchen heat on all 14 floors, the living rooms are tied together, etc. You get the idea. Unfortunately somewhere in the six floors of rooms above us live small, small children who for several weeks have been suffering because the radiator in their room was not working. This was a bad way to start the day.

However, I suppose some good has come out of this. The best news is that today's temps were around 36-degrees, so it was not that cold. Secondly, we met the handyman and how have his name and number in case we ever need him for anything. (I wish we had that in December when the electricity was off for four days.) And, I was able to communicate with the handyman, though if you were him you probably thought I spoke like a retarded caveman and was only slightly more literate than if I had been using a series of grunts and clicks.

Now for the good news of the week...

Today we received a package from Miss Spicy's Sunday School Class at Westminster Baptist Church, the church where I was raised. It took two months to get here, but we were thrilled to see the many goodies from the States. The kids were especially excited and they have spent the rest of the afternoon playing with their new gifts. We are so grateful when people back home demonstrate their love for us with special treats like Orville Reddenbacher popcorn, Hot Wheels, and a box of new crayons!

And finally...thanks to a generous gift from our family at Christmas we have been able to share the treasure of watching American television with our mission friends here in Moscow. Early Monday morning (around 1am) around 25 people descended on our tiny apartment to eat chili and other snacks and watch the Super Bowl. We had a great time and were very thankful to not have language lessons later that morning! We love our Moscow mission family and enjoy spending time with them every chance we get. It really was a great time. The photos below are from our party.



It is Russian custom to take off your shoes as you enter someone's home. (And if you saw the mud, snow, ice and other muck that we walk in every day you would understand where that custom came from.) This picture is from our entryway and more than 24 pairs of shoes.


A shot from our living room. There were more people in other rooms too!


Long about the 3rd quarter I needed a little catnap on the couch in the hallway.

I hope that you are having a good week and that the people living in the apartment below you have not turned off the heat.

Blessings,
Marc

Watching the snow fall and other simple pleasures

It has been a pretty average week for us in Moscow.  In language learning there were both good days and bad.  The weather has not been terribly cold by our revised standards.  (It is still below freezing, but days that are close to 32-degrees are considered to be warm.)  And life just continues to roll on.  One of the things that I have come to appreciate about missionary life is to take joy in the simple pleasures.  So this morning I thought I would tell you about some of the simple pleasures of our lives.

1.  Watching the snow fall.  Even as I write this I am sitting in front of my bedroom window watching large flakes of snow drift to the ground.  At times it snows so hard that the buildings that surround our apartment actually disappear.  There is something refreshing about sitting at the window with a hot cup of coffee and just watching the snow fall.  I think that if given the opportunity I would do it for hours on end.

2.  Cinnamon rolls and hot coffee.  I love cinnamon.  As a matter of a fact, I think that is what heaven will smell like when we get there.  At least it will to me.  My wife can do fabulous things in the kitchen.  And when it comes to baked goods she really is an artist.  Add to this that any time we want we can go to the local grocery store and buy freshly made packages of bread dough.  So the result is one of my all-time favorite treats...cinnamon rolls.  There is just nothing like starting your day with freshly-baked home-made cinnamon rolls and a hot cup of coffee.  

3.  Small language victories.  It is easy to get discouraged when every day you struggle with a new element of a foreign language.  It is even more discouraging when you stop to review and find that you have forgotten most of what you have been taught.  However, there are days with small victories and boy are they sweet.  This week I had two.  The first was when we were reviewing vocabulary and I was able to take a huge stack of flash cards and move them from the "study" pile to the "learned" pile.  The second came yesterday afternoon when the phone rang.  Now, there are few things more intimidating than answering the phone and hearing a Russian voice on the other end.  There is something about not being able to see a person's face that makes that conversation much more intimidating.  So the woman who called yesterday was doing what we would equate to a Neilson survey.  And, thanks to my fantastic language teacher, I was able to understand the woman on the other end AND answer her questions on the survey...all in Russian.  I must tell you that was pretty cool.

4.  A working elevator.  We live on the 8th floor of a 14-floor apartment building.  And most days that is not a bad thing.  We are high enough to have a nice view and we love our apartment.  However, many days we do not love the building in which it is located.  This past week government officials came to inspect our elevators and discovered that the managers of the apartment had misplaced the paperwork that certifies that our elevators are safe.  So the elevators were turned off.  That's right folks, turned off.  And, to make matters worse it was the day of our semi-monthly shopping trip to the Mega-Mall where Kellye is able to purchase meat and juice in bulk.  Let's just say that dragging my belly full of cinnamon rolls up 8 flights of stairs is not an easy task in itself, but add a full backpack and two armloads of groceries and I was hurting pretty badly by the end of the second trip.  Thank goodness for our friend Frances (who drove Kellye to the store in her van) and Irena who both helped Kellye and I take all the groceries upstairs.  You have no idea how wonderful the simple pleasure of riding up an elevator is until you push the button and the light does not light up.  The elevators were turned on yesterday afternoon and I am thinking about riding them up and down a few times today just to celebrate!

5.  Quiet time.  As you can imagine, having five people ranging in ages from 6 to 40 crammed into a small Moscow apartment in the middle of winter does not provide much of an opportunity for quiet.  But Friday afternoon Kellye and I experienced "the perfect storm"...all of the children were out of the house at the same time and we had nothing on our calendar!  It was the first time in over 100 days that we have been totally alone.  As it turned out all of the children wound up spending the night at different people's houses and Kellye and I were able to spend nearly 24 hours alone in our apartment.  We even watched a movie without being interrupted.  I realize that one day in the distant future the sound of silence in our home will be a bad thing.  But this week it was a precious gift.

6.  A full and noisy apartment.  Conversely, we are blessed to have made wonderful friends with our Moscow missionary family.  Tonight, (early tomorrow morning), as most of you who read this are watching the Super Bowl in your living rooms, we will be doing the same thing with more than a dozen missionaries.  Thanks to a gift from our family, we are able to watch the game via my computer hooked to a projector.  Our Super Bowl party starts at 1am and will end around 6 or 7am.  There will be Marc's chili, Kellye's cinnamon rolls and who knows what else to eat.  We love to fellowship with our missionary brothers and sisters and are blessed that our family has provided a wonderful piece of technology that allows us to watch American television and share that gift with others here in Moscow.

7.  Homemade salsa.  One of our "mission friends" has shared a recipe for fresh salsa with us and it is some of the best salsa that I have ever had.  It is one of the simple things I enjoy in a week.

8.  My family.  Though it can get noisy and tempers can flare in these closed quarters, I love spending time with my family.

9.  Technology and high-speed Internet service.  Many of you remember our struggles with getting Internet service when we first arrived.  It felt as if we had been cut-off from the rest of the world.  Well, one of my simple pleasures is the fact that I can communicate anywhere in the world with a few simple keystrokes.  On Sunday evenings we watch a live webcast from a church in Oklahoma City.  On many evenings I am able to chat with missionary friends around the world and we are able to encourage each other through our struggles.  Thanks to Vonage our friends and family back home are able to call us on the phone as if they were making a local call.  I am able to watch American television, especially football.  And I am able to share this blog with friends from all over the world. (If you haven't done so already, check out the map at the bottom of my blog...clicking on it will show you the different places around the world where people are reading this post, although it still baffles me why anybody would want to.)  Living a missionary's life is hard enough.  I cannot imagine how difficult it was for those who went before us whose only form of communication with the outside world was a letter or semi-annual phone call.  I am certainly grateful for the simple pleasure of technology and the benefits it brings.

10.  Your prayers.  I know that the people who read this blog pray for us regularly and many of you pray for us on a daily basis.  And your prayers have been heard, answered and felt on this end.  I hope that we never take your prayers for granted and we thank God for each of you who lift us up before Him.  So, thank you.

Wherever in the world that you are today I hope that you take a few minutes to reflect on some of the simple pleasures in your life.  Sometimes I think we work so hard to provide big memorable things (Disney vacations, etc.) that we forget to stop and see the simple joys of life that surround us each and every day.  Enjoy the snow, or the warm sunshine, or the smell of bacon and morning coffee, or the fellowship of your Christian brothers and sisters, or the sounds of your children (even if they are fighting with one another), or just the simple fact that when you go to the store and someone speaks to you that you can understand all of the words that they are saying.

Blessings,

Marc