Dearest Friends-
Here in Russia I am finding little hints of spring. The birds are singing and the sun is shining but I believe with all of this snow spring will take much longer than back home. During the night everything that had melted during the day freezes so in the mornings and evenings you are walking on ice. During the day, you are trekking through slush, mud, and puddles upon puddles. I have switched to a lighter coat so I’m excited about that. People have been saying how warm it is back home and that they can open windows and such……. You really need to be quiet… haha JUST kidding:) I will have my window open soon enough I’m sure. I hope. While I’m thinking of it, you can’t control how much heat is coming into your home (dorm room, apartment, flat). If you are getting warm you open a window. And if you were to have your front door open all day it wouldn’t affect your heating bill. Just an fyi for you:)
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a pretty full week here. There were some definite ups and some definite downs. Having internet in my room has already been a huge blessing especially during the down times. It is my little escape into the world back home:) But most importantly I can easily keep in contact with family and friends. I was disappointed to find that hulu is not available in this part of the country. Sometimes just a half hour show is nice to have to settle down with after a long day. Guess I’ll just have to be content with what I brought with me from home:)
I believe I’ve told you about the worship conference that the Hinson’s are leading on Saturday nights. I was there for the first week and helped with the Eshelman and Hinson kids. The next week I volunteered to watch the kids at the E’s so they wouldn’t have to worry about the kids during the sessions. So the last two Saturday nights I’ve been with the kids. I brought some movies with me from home so I take them with me when I watch them. I knew there was a reason why I brought my preschooler show “Charlie and Lola” with me… It’s just right for Iva to watch:) But yes, we are three weeks into the worship conference and we have three weeks left. We are halfway done. I usually stay at the Eshelmans place on Saturday nights but this week there were a total of 16 people already staying there… I decided not to be the 17th. It was the Eshelman family, Nastia (girl from the orphanage), Lola (a girl staying for spring break), and 9 ladies in town for a conference. I think I made a wise choice:)
So I have three teachers that trade off each week for my class. But this past week all three of my regular teachers were sick… I think it’s something about our classroom or us students… In America, what happens when your teacher is sick and the regular subs they get (if they even get a sub) are sick? They cancel class. What do they do here? Find sub after sub after sub… I had a different teacher every day for 7 days in a row. They are Russian Language teachers, yes, but they usually teach the higher levels of the language. They aren’t used to us newbie’s. Sooo yeah. Its been an interesting week at class. There were days I thought about not going because of everything being up in the air. And its difficult to be getting used to a different teaching style each day. But I’m proud to say that I didn’t skip. In fact, I haven’t missed a day since I started. There were days that I wanted to leave after I got there but I was too scared to leave not knowing what the teacher of the day would do:) They should have just canceled classes…
My university has a museum on the… 4th floor? Its like three good sized rooms with history about the university. There were several faculty members who were a part of the war so they tie in a lot of history about that. When they said we were going to a museum I got pretty excited:) But then they said it was only on the fourth floor… But I was pretty impressed with the whole thing. It was very nice and interesting. I didn’t understand everything that they were telling me but that is to be expected.
Breaks from classes have been interesting this past week. Some friends of mine from China wrote my name in Chinese for me which I was pretty excited about:) Still am. They seem to think that I should also be learning Chinese while I’m here… Shoot me in the face… haha I’d love to be able to learn Chinese BUT I’m having a hard enough time with Russian. And learning them at the same time… Madness. Yeah, just to let you know, this studying Russian thing I’m doing has pretty much ruined any chance of me learning any other language. Pretty sure. I can definitely see the importance now but I don’t think my brain is built for this.
Almost every day I hear the name “Alexander Sergey Pushkin”… If you didn’t know (which I didn’t), he is a famous Russian poet from way back when. He is very much dead but still his name comes up all the time. He is in my textbook dozens of times. They use dialogues of people talking about Pushkin to study and learn new words from. I haven’t been able to read any of his poems cause they are all in Russian. Obviously. But my friend, Vicka, found a collection of his poems with Russian on one side and English on the other. I’m excited:) Now maybe I can figure out why this man was so great.
Last Sunday, Cecil preached at the oldest Pentecostal church in the city. I went with as well as the Hinson family. Apparently, at this church not long ago the men sat on one side and the women on the other. Also, the women wore head coverings. So I had to be prepared with a head covering and to possibly sit with the women. Turns out that most of the women wear head coverings but not all so it was fine that I didn’t and they sit wherever they want. I guess the pastor has been working hard at trying to get the church to grow. But yes, it was an interesting service. It started at 11am and didn’t get done till 1pm. The seating is on wooden benches with backs that didn’t reach the middle of my back so 2 hours was… at times slightly uncomfortable. There was worship, Cecil preached with Tonya translating, the pastor got up and pretty much preached again, Steve Hinson did a special number, then there was announcements and prayer. The pastor and his wife live on the second floor of the church. They brought us there and fed us an amazing lunch. Their kitchen is tiny but somehow we managed to all eat. I think you could fit a queen sized bed in there but that’s it. After lunch Tonya and the men went back downstairs to the church for a leaders meeting. I think we were finally in the car at 6pm with still an hour’s drive to go:) It was a long day for everybody but a great experience.
Last Wednesday, I went for an outing with a lady, Irina, who is studying English and Italian. Her Italian teacher goes to my church and that’s how she heard about me. Irina has a car so she took me to lunch and also to one of the squares downtown I hadn’t been to yet. My college student stomach was extremely blessed at the restaurant she took me to. She ordered salad, a main course, dessert, juice as well as tea. Yes, I was very blessed:) This was the first sit down restaurant that I have been to here that I ordered food at so that was interesting. They had an English menu so I was excited about that. But yes, it was a great opportunity to meet and get to know her. She says that we will do it again in the future so I guess I didn’t scare her too badly:) Her son is learning English at school so she had me talk to him on the phone for a few minutes. He is only like 8 years old but his pronunciation was pretty good on the few words he knew:)
My first week here I read in my Bible about the Tower of Babel and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since. I wonder what the world would be like if the people hadn’t built the tower and if God hadn’t divided the languages. Would there be different languages like there is now or would there just be a lot of different accents? And how did God decide who would have what language? Were families separated because they were given different languages? What was it like to suddenly be speaking a different language? Did they sound the same in their own eyes/ears and everyone else sounded different? I have often been pondering these questions… The answers to these can only be answered when I get to heaven:) Maybe they have some “what ifs” videos that I can watch or maybe the video on the Tower of Babel has some bonus features…. Whatever happened (or would have happened) I’m SO thankful that the Lord hears and understands me whenever or wherever I am. He knows what I’m going to say before I say it. He understands what I’m thinking or feeling even better than I do! I’m thankful that we don’t have to learn a certain language to talk to God. We don’t have to memorize certain prayers or anything. We can talk to Him just like we would talk to a close friend. With not having as many people with me throughout the day that speak English, me and God are having more inside jokes than ever before. I see something funny and I’m like “Hey, God you saw that right? That was hilarious! No one else saw it or understood it but we did!” Yes, it’s okay for you to have an inside joke with God:) So I guess in all my pondering and inside joking… Most likely you don’t have a language barrier to deal with where you are right now. So what’s stopping you from shining Gods light to those around you? But I also challenge you… Before you text your bff about that funny thing that just happened to you… Tell God first. He already knows about it but He would love to hear you say it in your own words. Before you call your mom to tell her about your day… let God know about it. Create some inside jokes with God. He has a sense of humor too you know:)
Well, according to my schedule this is a day or two late but thankfully I got it out before my weekend ended. Hooray! My prayer requests… Always be praying for my classes and that I would understand things quickly. That’s an everyday struggle for me. Also that God would provide times for me to talk one-on-one with these women He has been putting in my life. You guys amaze me.
Pondering,
Leah
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