My team's trip to Russia was a time of stretching, understanding, and pouring out of love. The Boaz Project ministers to the orphans that are abandoned to the state's care because they have been shown time and again that they are not worth caring for. My team went not to change that in one week, but to join the long term work that is being done there and to allow ourselves to be broken by the things that break God's heart.
We arrived on Sunday morning (March 20) and immediately piled into a bus to drive the three hours to the city of Vladimir. The Boaz staff introduced themselves and were great at keeping us awake to help us make the time zone adjustment. Arriving at our hotel, we wasted no time in unpacking and meeting our interpreters for the week. Mine was a young man named Yuri, a web developer who was studying English at his university. We were to work together with my ministry partners Luke and Celeste (and their interpreters, Andre and Juliana) at the Barskoye Gorodiche trade school for agriculture.
Our typical day there (which took up Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday) looked like this: the six of us would arrive around 9:30 and meet the kids in their classroom. We would teach the Bible lesson, usually starting with some kind of game and ending with a craft with the actual lesson woven in between. Then we would play games outside (mostly soccer) in the frozen tundra and later in the afternoon shift to games (like Uno) indoors. We would play until about 5 when we would leave to make it back for dinner and a team meeting. This schedule comprised most of our time there.
On Saturday we were able to spend some time as tourists in Moscow, buying souvenirs, seeing Red Square (including the overwhelmingly beautiful St. Basil's Cathedral), and even a Russian circus. Sunday we flew out and arrived back at Taylor at 2AM on Monday morning.
With this overview in mind, my next few posts with excerpts from my journal should make more sense.
Also, the title "Россия" is "Russia" in their Cyrillic alphabet.
We arrived on Sunday morning (March 20) and immediately piled into a bus to drive the three hours to the city of Vladimir. The Boaz staff introduced themselves and were great at keeping us awake to help us make the time zone adjustment. Arriving at our hotel, we wasted no time in unpacking and meeting our interpreters for the week. Mine was a young man named Yuri, a web developer who was studying English at his university. We were to work together with my ministry partners Luke and Celeste (and their interpreters, Andre and Juliana) at the Barskoye Gorodiche trade school for agriculture.
Our typical day there (which took up Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday) looked like this: the six of us would arrive around 9:30 and meet the kids in their classroom. We would teach the Bible lesson, usually starting with some kind of game and ending with a craft with the actual lesson woven in between. Then we would play games outside (mostly soccer) in the frozen tundra and later in the afternoon shift to games (like Uno) indoors. We would play until about 5 when we would leave to make it back for dinner and a team meeting. This schedule comprised most of our time there.
On Saturday we were able to spend some time as tourists in Moscow, buying souvenirs, seeing Red Square (including the overwhelmingly beautiful St. Basil's Cathedral), and even a Russian circus. Sunday we flew out and arrived back at Taylor at 2AM on Monday morning.
With this overview in mind, my next few posts with excerpts from my journal should make more sense.
Also, the title "Россия" is "Russia" in their Cyrillic alphabet.
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