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!