неделя три (week three)

We will start off with an update on work. I am still editing John Feinburg's course on the Problem of Evil, which, if you're going to Trinity, you should probably take as it's about some pretty interesting stuff (I get a free high level education while doing this. Score!) I am on 10/14 lectures, so things are moving along! And while I'm sure you would all love to hear lots and lots about all the editing I do, I'm going to disregard your emotions completely and tell you about the past week outside of work. Deal with it!

Since my update last Tuesday a whole bunch has happened. Wednesday and Thursday were rather slow and I don't remember much to tell you about it.

Friday, I went out for a walk around the surrounding areas and stumbled upon a free concert in the nearby park. First up was a soft rock band of sort. They weren't too bad, easy on the ears. The next two bands were metal bands. And while I didn't appreciate their poor covers of western musicians, it was rather hysterical so I stayed the entire time laughing silently to myself. 

Saturday was my big adventure day. I decided I was going to go back into Kursk, but by myself this time. I knew that I needed to get to Lenin St and I was also told that most buses head straight into town so I gave it a shot. I was terrified so I sat at the bus stop for about 30minutes until I finally saw a bus that specifically said Lenin St (in russian of course, but I can now read most russian). I got on, gave the driver my money and just sat there waiting to see what would happen. Turns out it was the right bus and it got me right where I wanted to go! Then I spent the day wandering around, exploring and taking pictures. At one point, I went to one of the supermarkets to buy some bottled water (no water fountains here and you can't drink from the tap, you have to buy bottled). While I was deciding which water to get I heard some english down the aisle. I looked down and saw a young woman and man talking about some fruit. The guy looked slightly familiar, but I had no clue who either of them were and I wasn't in the oddly outgoing mood that I would've needed to be in to introduce myself to them so I just let it pass. More on this later.

It turns out that it was "youth day" so after dinner there were some free concerts going on in red square (there is a red square in each major town). With respect to the free concerts, let me tell you that rap is not one of Kursk's strong points ... not at all. In fact it was rather horrible!

After a few performances, I decided enough was enough and headed out. I knew where I needed to catch the bus and that I needed to get on the one headed for полет, so I got on the first bus that said it. Now this is where there was almost a problem. The bus went to my general area, but not where I was expecting it to go so I missed my stop. The real problem was that I didn't realize I had missed my stop until we had gotten to the end of the route (which thankfully wasn't far from my stop), turned around and I missed my stop a second time. Luckily, I was able to get out at the next stop and walk home. It was a little further than I was expecting to walk, but I made it home safely which is what counts.

Two different churches meet in the building I live in. I went to the upstairs one last week so I decided to check out the main one that meets on the first floor. I went in and found a seat in the corner by myself, trying to stay out of the way. There is one girl in the church that I have seen around a few times and she speaks some english. When she say me, she came over and told me that there were some other americans there and that I could/should sit with them. Not being one to argue I agreed and followed where she pointed. When I got over there I realized that the guy and girl I had seen in the supermarket on Saturday were there with two others so of course I introduced myself as "Hey, my name is Joel. Were you in a supermarket in Kursk yesterday because I think I saw you there." It turns out that the girl and her two friends are part of a short term mission team from Missouri and the guy I had seen was their interpreter who is also the son of one of my boss's. He looked familiar because I had seen a picture of his family in the last week. I spent the church service and afterwards with them and ending up convincing them to let me go with their team to do whatever on monday.

Monday morning, I took the bus into Kursk again and I met Andy (my boss's son) and from there we went and met the team where they were staying. They rented out a bus for their week and a half (?) in Kursk and we drove a hour out of town to an orphanage in what Andy called the suburbs. So we spent a few hours there playing with the kids, giving presents and then the team put on a program for the kids with games, skits and a Bible presentation. It was pretty cool to watch. We then headed back to their dorms where most of the team retired to their rooms until we were to head out to another orphanage. During this time Andy introduced me to some of his friends who work in the kitchen at the dormotories. Now these friends are twin girls. He introduced me to Ina first (without her sister) and then Ina went into the back room as I talked to Andy for a bit and then "she" came back out and started talking to me, but was asking me some of the same questions she had before so I was a tad confused. Then a duplicate of her walks out from the back room and I realized that I wasn't talking to Ina but her twin sister. They got me good, but as a result I can't remember the second ones name so now there both Ina ... In a way I'm the one who won ... so HA! They were fun to talk to. While they aren't near as good at english as Andy is (he grew up in america while his Dad went to Trinity seminary, so his english is just as good as mine), their english is better than my russian and they also know a little german. So between their decent english and spotty german and my decent german and spotty russian we had some fun times talking. 

After a while it was time for the team to head out again so we all loaded back into the bus and went to another orphanage where we played with more kids and the team did another version of their program. The kids really seem to love the attention and the knowledge that people other than their directors and orphanage works do really care about them. Then it was back to the dorms where I was lucky enough to get some dinner cooked by the Ina's and then it was back on the bus home. This time I didn't even come close to getting lost!

Tuesday has been more and more work, but Igor encouraged me to take the day off again tomorrow and go with the team again. So I just got off the phone figuring out what's going on and am going to be going to go with them again. While they are leaving tomorrow night, it has been a great blessing meeting them. Last week was really hard, I was getting lonely and wondering if this was really going to be 6 weeks of Joel-time. And while I do love myself, I don't want that much me time! This team has been a real encouragement! Probably the best thing though was meeting Andy and the Inas which I have a feeling I will be seeing much more of in the next month. Through this experience I also got to meet Victor who is Andy's older brother and also a translator for the team as well as Achmed (another translator) who is probably one of the funniest guys I have ever met, also to his credit I honestly believe he could kill me in a heart beat as he knows more types of martial arts that I can pronounce let alone remember.

Now with that last run on sentence and this picture I will leave you, probably for another week.

Praise the Lord for taking care of me physically and emotionally!

Weeeeeeeeek 2

Things have gone well since the last post. Currently, I have 5/14 lectures edited, but in case you're thinking to yourself "WOW, this kid is pro! He's going to run out of things to edit in no time!" you would be wrong. When/if I finish this first course, there is a whole nother one to do! I also get to help film a gypsy band on july 5th I believe and then the professor teaching the course I am currently editing is coming here july 15th to teach another course, which I also get to help film.

busy busy busy

When I'm not working, things are still kind of slow, but picking up. 

Friday, I was convince to stay after work and play Call of Duty with the other computer guys I work with. I have never played Call of Duty or any first person shooter game for that matter, but I was sick of not doing anything that I had to! I'm not very good at CoD. I laster about 2hours and then I had to take a break. These guys are addicted to this game though! As soon as the work day end they're on there playing network games and killing each other. It's ridiculous, but I think I'm probably going to be playing CoD a good bit while I'm here ... I have yet to decided whether that is a good or bad thing.

On saturday, I was supposed to go and see downtown Kursk. That fell through and I ended up going to a festival at a monastery instead with the Dean of Students (I think that's his official title) and his wife. While calling him the Dean of Students makes him sound intimidating, he's not. His name is Sasha. He's probably only in his mid 20s, but his job is to make all the tests for the online students to take as well as creating manuals and such to go along with the DVDs that get sent out.

Well anyway, on the way to the festival we got stuck in a grand total of 3traffic jams all caused by people going really slow over train tracks! When we finally got there it was not at all like what I had thought a monastery festival would be like. There were vendors EVERYWHERE! Selling everything from a university education to John Deere farm equipment! We spent about 2hours there just walking around and looking at things. 

**Side note**

One of the first things I was told when I got here was that if I was offered a russian drink called KBAC (kvass) I should decline it as I would probably spend the next 24hours on the toilet.

**End side note**

As we are getting ready to head out Sasha tells me that he and his wife are getting some KBAC and wondered if I would like some. I immediately remembered what I was told upon arrival, weighed the options and decided that I should do because who knows when I'd get the chance again. I got myself a small cup and let me tell you, it does not taste very good at all!

Oh and I didn't spend the rest of the day on the toilet.

Overall the festival was pretty sweet. I was going to take pictures for you all to see, but when I pulled my camera out to take my first picture I noticed that I left my SD card in my computer. Oops, no pictures for you.

Then on Sunday, I went to the church that meets in the school so I just had to walk across the hall to get there. I understood a grand total of 5 words the entire time (worship and sermon) but I did get to meet an elderly couple from upstate Maine and another couple from Canada (they didn't know what was being said either). We got to talking after church and I'm now invited to go snowmobiling/ATVing in upstate maine if I ever have the urge ...

Monday, it was back to work. After work it had been arranged for an interpreter to take me into Kursk. So I met up with her right after work and into town we went. It was awkward at times because I didn't really have much to say and neither did she ... but the conversations picked up towards the end and I did get to see a LARGE portion of Kursk throughout the few hours we were there. I only found this out after I was back at the school, but their hospital/medical university was originally a prison. Back in the early 1900s, when the building was being built, the men in charge of the city went to St Petersburg, the capital at the time, to ask for money to build a hospital. Their request was denied, but they were given money to build a prison. So they took the money and built a 'prison,' which they closed after only 3years and turned into a hospital. 

tricky russians

But the trip was fun. My interpreter had just graduated from university here so she was excellent at english as well as the closest person I have met to my age so far. So that was nice.

Tuesday has just been more work and messing around the area. I found the big supermarket around here and stocked up on more food. I get a kick out of going to the supermarkets and walking the streets just trying to read stuff. I pretty much have the alphabet down pat and the words are coming along. I don't know if this helps much, but since english is no ones first language but mine I try to speak in simpler sentences so it's easier for others to understand. This also helps me as my simple russian vocab is growing. I can speak very simple sentences and when I'm speaking to others I can throw in the russian words I know. I'd say I'm at about 20% of the way to being proficient, not fluent but proficient. 

Oh and a picture for you all ... An veeeery small Orthodox Church, or Candy Land churchs as I believe Katie Kunkle called them. I'll get pictures of the bigger ones for you later.

That's about all for now.

Settling In

Things are going well and I'm beginning to settle into the routine here.

I work everyday from around 8.30am to 4/5pm. 

I'm logging and editing from a course called "The Problem of Evil" taughy by John Feinburg at Trinity in Chicago. Igor filmed it along with another course while he was in America a while ago. There are about 5 tapes for each lecture, so I have to load each one on to the computer and then edit them all together. So far I have worked 3days and been able to get 2lectures finished, which is rather good progress. They seem very appreciative of the work I'm doing as th

e courses are in english and while their other editor(s) know a little english it is very hard for them to keep up with Dr Feinburg and know where and when to start and stop cuts. 

After work I generally fall asleep for a bit due to a mixture of jet lag and work. Believe it or not, staring at a computer screen/camera can wear you out a tad. The past few days I've taken to exploring the nearby areas a tad, not too far but it gets me out of the building at least for a bit. Then it's generally dinner time and I spend the rest of the night doing some general reading and trying to learn some Russian. I'm rather proud that in the three days I've been teaching myself russian, I've managed to learn the majority of the alphabet and basic numbers. I'm sure my pronunciation is pretty horrible, but I'm not too sure as everyone speaks to me in English and I have to go out of my way to speak Russian. I try a little here

 and there ... I'll try more as I get more comfortable around the people. My big break through today was learning some verbs as well as the sentence "I don't know how to speak Russian" which would've been helpful yesterday as multiple people tried to talk to me on my stroll through the streets, oh well. 

So really no complaints although it would be nice to meet someone (preferably closer to my own age) to hang out with a bit. I'm all for introspective speculations and alone time, but sometimes you just need some other people. I'll make friends eventually, so no real worries.

On saturday, I'm going to downtown Kursk with a translator to see the city a little and hopefully learn how to use the public transportation by myself. I plan on making her teach me russian more than she translates, but we'll see how that goes.

Oh and check the view I got from my window yesterday. Double bows!

All's well on the slavic front, peace out girl scouts!

Making Things Up As I Go

After 27hours of being in transit I finally made it to Kursk!

The flying part of the trip went very smoothly, no missed connections or delays. 

I was blessed that there was no one sitting next to me on the 10hour flight from Atlanta to Moscow, but even then sleeping didn't work. You really cant sleep if the top of the chair is at the base of your neck. I love being tall, but sometimes being 6' 4'' is just a pain in the neck... literally!

I arrived in Moscow with no problems, got through immigration just fine, found my luggage and was out to the real Russia. I was met by a man with a sign saying "Joel to Kursk" and I correctly assumed that he was waiting for me. We went out to his car which was actually being driven by his little brother (who spoke zero english and my russian is growing from zero, but very slowly) since his car was "how do amerikanz say, kaput?"

Then it straight to bumper to bumper, not-going-anywhere traffic for about an hour trying to get out of Moscow. I love how even though there are lines on the road, they don't mean anything. In Russia, if your car looks like it can fit in

 a space between two other cars it probably will and if it doesn't ... then just get really close until they move for you. I could've reached out my window and touched at least 3 other cars at any given moment. Ok, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but at least 1 other car is the simple truth. 

After we finally got outside Moscow, we were just driving through the countryside and while beautiful, I couldn't keep my eyes open for the life of me. I was so tired my eyes hurt so I dozed off.

Now Moscow to Kursk is only about 500km (approx. 310mi) and would only take about 5hours if I was driving in America. But in Russia we had a car that was at least 20years old and at one point we all had to get out and shift everything around  because evidently too much weight was on one side and was influencing how the car drove ... I don't really know. All this to say 500km took just about 9/10hours hald of which I slept. But in between the many naps I got to see a good many things including my first dead person

, which was an experience. It was on the freeway where we were moving quite fast and then all the sudden traffic slowed down drastically. As far as we could tell there had been an accident up ahead. In response, cars started driving over the thick grass median and on the other side of the 4land highway (it turns out they were actually told to do this by the police on the scene). But as we were driving past the accident I was looking and I noticed a guy lying on the side of the road ... I looked closer and he was most definitely dead, I won't go into detail but it was obvious. I guess he had been killed in the accident and they just loaded him up on a stretcher and took him to the side of the road and left him there, uncovered, until an ambulance (?) came to pick him up. This was pretty shocking to me and I was pretty disturbed there for a little (don't worry Mom, my driver was very safe and skilled. I'm alright and

 there weren't even any close calls!), but it just goes to help illustrate the many differences between Russia and the USA. 

Other than that the trip was rather uneventful until we got 50km from Kursk and we pull off the road by this shabby white car. The guy who picked me up gets out, points to the car and says "haha, my car, electic system kaput." Evidently he had started driving to Moscow to pick me up when his car died, so he called his brother to come pick him up and they just left the car there. So we all got out, pulled some 'tow ropes' from the boot of the car and hooked the two together. The last 50km were spent going around 40km/hr 

(25mph) while pulling a car behind us (with the guy who picked me up steering it). We took the car to their parents house because they had a garage there and then headed to the seminary where I'm staying. 

By the time we got there it was about 9pm and still as bright as day outside! Night doesn't fall until 10pm here. As soon as I got in I was shown my room, which is actually an apartment I have all to my self. I have a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom all to myself! It's pretty sweet!

 If you couldn't tell this is my bedroom

Yeah, I've got a pretty sweet bathroom

kitchen, part one

kitchen, part 2

 Then out of nowhere a nice lady named Anna came and started cooking me dinner. While I was pretty hungry there is no way anyone could ever be as hungry for the amount of food this woman made! I was made 2eggs, an entire bowl of ravioli type noodles, a plate full of egg roll looking fried pastries as well as half a load of bread. I looked around to see who was joining, but I was expected to eat it all myself. I made a valiant effort, but there was no way I could do it!

After she left I made it to my room and finally collapsed around 11pm. I slept soundly until 6.30am when I just couldn't sleep any more, curse jet lag! I was able to catch up on some reading and cleaning (myself, sorry for that image haha) before 8.30 came around and I met Vitaly Petrov. 

Vitaly gave me a introduction to the ministry they are doing and what it is going to be like living there. I also got to meet many of the other staff members here. Many speak english, but many do not also. So I am trying my best to learn Russian, I am sure I will be laughed at many times, but I will get it! I was given pronunciation advice by Vitaly, he basically said that in Russian you do not articulate the different syllables like we do in english. I'm taking that as advice to mumble the words!

Vitaly then gave me a tour of the building and while it doesn't look like much from the outside, it is gorgeous inside! He made the comment, "Many christians look good on the outside, but are bad inside. Here we are the opposite. Dirty on the outside, but very nice inside."

This is the new home.

And there studio has top notch video equipment! I was very impressed!

After Vitaly was done, I was handed off to his brother Igor who assigned me my projects. This is the part I was most nervous about, but it's all good now! I guess a while back Igor had filmed two courses at Trinity in Chicago. Each lecture is about 2hours long with two cameras filming it. I believe here are about 11lectures for each course. So my job is to digitize each DVtape, which can only capture in real time meaning I have to sit through each lecture twice as it is capturing, and then edit the two angles together. The work is tedious (read it takes a looooooong time) but I know what I am doing. I was able to learn their editing program within minutes as it is very similar to Final Cut Pro, which is a huge blessing!

So most of today was spent digitizing tapes. Since there is not much to do while they are capturing I did a lot of reading and trying to learn russian. I've got some basic phrases down as well as numbers and I'm starting to understand their alphabet a little more. For those who don't know, the Russian alphabet is nothing like you've ever seen before, unless you've seen the Russian alphabet that is. Check it out ( http://www.friends-partners.org/oldfriends/language/russian-alphabet.html )

So it's going slow, but I've got a while. I work in a room with the rest of their tech staff, the hardware, software, and designer guys. None of them speak english, but they're pretty hysterical so I should be entertained. Igor and Vitaly stop by every now and again to check on me and give me some people to talk english to. I hope I pick up on Russian pretty quickly as it would be really nice to be able to talk to anyone I wanted!

In an effort to beat jet lag I'm trying to stay up until a relatively normal bedtime, but it's only 7.30 now and I'm about to pass out. I'm 8 hours ahead of you all. To give you a reference, when you're waking up around 10am it's already 6pm here.

Thank you for your prayers and God has blessed me so far. I feel very comfortable in the seminary and I'm sure as the days go on and I venture outside I'll have many more grand adventures!

The Back Story

T - Zero days

I fly out today!

While I have shared the story of how all this came about with many of you, there are a good number of you with whom I haven't shared so I'm going to write it all out here as it is a God story through and through.

*****

I first heard about the possibility of going to Russia this summer back in early November when my Dad mentioned it to me. Being one who loves adventures and traveling I instantly jumped at the idea. There were some initial emails and an intimidating phone conversation with, I believe it was, Vitaly Petrov over in Russia. Things were starting to look like this would be an actual possibility. 

Then the emails stopped and I didn't hear a word more a good long while and it looked like the whole deal had fallen through. At this point, I was rather indifferent towards the entire trip as summer was still a long away and there were a plethora of possibilities for the summer. As time went on, I started looking into other possibilities such as working with Mercy Ships ( http://www.mercyships.org/ ) or maybe an intership with InterVarsity's 2100 Productions ( http://www.intervarsity.org/2100/ ). I was getting excited about both possibilites as both would have been incredible experiences. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, I got an email asking if I was still planning on coming to Russia.

This email threw me for a loop. Out of all the possibilities for the summer, Russia was my least favourite. It would by far be the hardest of the three, I would be going alone to a foreign country where english was not the first language. With Mercy Ships I would be on a boat filled with english speakers and with 2100 Productions I would even have to leave America!

I took my time replying to the email because, in all honesty, I wasn't planning on going to Russia anymore and really didn't want to go.

In my mind, the decision was made, but there was a tiny nagging voice somewhere down inside was telling me that Russia is where God wanted me to go. I argued with this voice for the better part of a week, telling it to be quiet and that God wouldn't want me to go to somewhere I didn't want to go. The clincher happened one morning as I was walking to class. I was, once again, arguing internally when the story of Jonah came to mind. How God gave him a mission he had no desire to do and he refused only to end up in the belly of a giant fish. Now for those of you who know me, you know that I DESPISE seafood and the belly of giant fish is pretty much the last place on this earth that I want to be so I gave in to this voice and when I got home that day and typed up a reply saying I was still willing to work in Russia for the summer. I clicked the send button and a weight was lifted off my shoulders. From all of this I was taught that I have to follow God whether I like what I'm being told to do or not.

Then in the days and weeks that followed my reply, I heard nothing back and I started to, yet again, think that something had fallen through and it wasn't going to work out. I was like, "Oh God, you're a trick one, you are. Put me through the stress of deciding to follow what I know you're telling me to do or what I want to do and then when I make the right decision you don't make me do it." I thought that since I had made the right choice God was going to "let me off the hook" and follow one of those "fun" summer plans I had dreamed of. 

Then comes February and I get an email basically saying "Hey Joel, we're excited about your upcoming visit and here are some things you need to fill out so we can get all the paperwork together. From Russia with Love!"

Oh great, I wasn't off the hook. 

I sent them the information and it finally dawned on me that this is actually happening and I only had 3months to get everything ready.

While I was nervous, I now knew, without a doubt, this was God guiding my life and I needed to give it my everything. So in a flurry of papers and 'coincidences' I end up here today with a plane ticket to Moscow, a Letter of Invitation from the Russian Government, a Russian Visa, a man waiting to pick me up from the airport and a bed in Kursk.

I'm still not entirely sure how it all worked out, as most of it probably should not have, but it did and I am off. Our Father has turned the initial apprehension into excitement and there is not a doubt in my mind that this is what I am supposed to be doing.

Please continue to pray for me. That I may be useful not only to Trinity Equipping Centre but also to all the people I meet during my travels.

Next update will be from Russia! 

Ok update.

My visa arrived right as I was sending out emails to a whole bunch of people asking for prayer.

I don't know if any of you had time to pray for me, but I do know that I spent time on my knees praying for it and prayer is powerful and effective. Praise the Lord!

T - 13days

13 days until I'm heading out to Russia for the summer  and we've got a slight problem. I sent away for my visa a while ago and we were expecting it to come sometime last week ... it didn't. In case you didn't know I kind of need a visa to live in Russia soooo I'm praying really hard that it comes SOON!

Now here is the part you can help with!

If you've got a little time I would greatly appreciate it if you wouldn't mind praying for the timely arrival of my visa.

James 15.6 says:

... "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective"

so please pray for me!