Finally.

I'm going to give you a list of thoughts/experiences of my time here so far, simply because it is too difficult and time consuming to give all of the details...

These are some things that my friend, Stephen, put on his blog that I'm going to use part of so that you can better understand what I'm writing about now and for the rest of my time here. You can read his blog here

Campuses: We went to campus today to talk with students. When we go to campuses during the week we are primarily meeting students and striking up conversations. Sometimes we may share the Gospel if the students seems very interested in spiritual things, but more often than not we simply build relationships and ask questions about what they think on deeper subjects. We then invite them to hangout with us at the park on Saturday, or even setup appointments to meet one-on-one later in the week if we think they might want to talk more. (Campus visits will be Mondays-Wednesdays, Appointments on Thursdays and Fridays, and Park hangout time on Saturdays). While appointments are usually initiated with students who want to talk more one on one, the park will be our whole team playing sports and allowing those interested in simply spending more time with us to come along. We have also learned that there are less than 5 believers on each campus that we know of. That absolutely breaks my heart. On a few of our campuses, there are no known believers. You can imagine that this makes outreach and sharing our faith quite difficult.


Teams: Our whole group is broken up into three ministry teams, and each team will take on two campuses while here. We each have a primary campus and a secondary campus. The primary campus is the one we'll focus more on (hence, primary)...My team's primary campus is the Architecture school. It is very prestegious and every student seems to be very talented. Our secondary school is a humanitarian university, and many of the students speak very broken or little English.

The Hostel: The 13 of us students are taking up about half of a hostel called The Napoleon. The thirteen of us share two toilets and two showers with the rest of the hostel, which holds 40ish people. I'd say that this living style probably makes camp or the dorms look like high end living. Haha. I have had 2 cold showers since I've been here, the space is very small, and it's definitely strange to get out of the shower and boom, there is your team and all the rest of the people in the hostel. I think I will get used to it though, and it definitely has helped our team bond already.


Now onto other thoughts...


I was really tickled by the British accents the whole plane ride here. I was also amused by the guys on my team that I sat between, as they talked back and forth in British and Irish accents to each other. Mark even asked one of the flight attendents if he had a good British accent, to which she replied, "No, not really." Haha.


I was very confused when we got here because I had absolutely no concept of what time it was. I had lost 9 hours of my life and was totally sleep deprived and delerious.


I don't know any Russian.


I feel like one of those idiot Americans that you see in the movies.


Russians really like exact change, and if you don't give it to them, they kind of raise their voice and say something in Russian. Luckily, I don't know what they're saying so I just shrug my shoulders and smile until they take my money.


Speaking of money, I'm having a difficult time understanding how much things really are. I think I paid like $15 for my dinner the other night without knowing...whoops.

It's light here from 4am to 11pm...confusing.

I got hit on by a guy at the Architecture school yesterday. A guy on my team, Brian, and I started out talking with him and his friend, and we kind of got seperated. I ended up talking with him for 2 hours, and he wanted me to wait an hour and a half until he got out of class again so we could hang out more...I didn't. Haha. That will be a story to tell when I get home for sure.


The metro is crazy. I can't imagine trying to figure it out myself.


Nobody smiles or talks on the metro. Our team is encouraged not to either, because we don't want to stand out anymore that we already do, but it is hard and sometimes we just can't help ourselves :)


We walk A LOT.


There are sooo many people here, and barely anyone ever smiles. Even little kids. It makes me sad.


Ministry/outreach here is very difficult for lots of different reasons.




You can be praying:

for patience.
for rest.
for my friend that I met day before yesterday. She seemed very interested in talking more about spiritual things, and we are planning to see her at the park on Saturday.
for continued team bonding.
for as little language barrier as possible.


I will try to write more often. I love each of you and I'm thankful for all of your continued support!

-m.

"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"

Romans 10:14-15