Departure – Sat-Tue, Oct 20-23

On Saturday, our last full day in Russia, we took a little time to go touring and shopping. Our bus took us to see several sites including St. Isaacs Cathedral, Kaczynski Cathedral (a working Russian Orthodox Church), pictures on the outside of the Hermitage (Winter Palace), and of course the Savoir on the Spilt Blood Cathedral.

That’s a long name, but this is the famous cathedral that looks like the one on Red Square in Moscow called Basil’s cathedral. This one in St. Petersburg is built on the site of the assassination of Czar Alexander II in March of 1881. A group of revolutionaries threw a bomb at his royal carriage on this site. The church was built between 1883 and 1907 and was officially called the Resurrection of Christ Church (a.k.a. The Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood). The church was closed for services in the 1930s, when the Bolsheviks went on an offensive against religion and destroyed churches all over the country. It remained closed and under restoration for over 30 years and was finally re-opened in 1997 in all its dazzling former glory. This church has a great number of mosaics covering the walls depicting the life of Christ and his disciples. One can enter the church and see many of the stories of the Bible!

Touring was great as there is a lot to see in St. Petersburg! We only had an afternoon to cover the main sites! We ended the day by touring this famous cathedral and shopping at the flee market for souvenir trinkets across the street. This outdoor market is famous and has a lot of variety, but the weather had turned cold and we needed to go inside!

Down the street was a café called the Liama Café. It’s a place I frequently take teams as there is plenty of room and the cashiers speak a little English. Milan, one of our former translators to the Orphanage, joined us with his wife Anya and baby Phillip. It was a nice meal, but it was time to get back to the hotel and pack for the trip home. I also needed to pack as I would be moving to the MIR apartment for the next couple of days.

The team departed early on Sunday. We all had to be loaded on the bus at 4:15am in the morning to make it to the airport for a flight departure of 6:20am. It’s always rough getting up so early! But soon the tem was on their way home and I went back to the MIR apartment to rest a little and meet my kids for dinner that night.

On Monday I had one more appointment with Nadezhda at Child in Danger and needed to go by the Orthodontist to see about my Masha’s braces. She will get the braces off in a couple of weeks!

My appointments ended and I got about 4 hours sleep before the taxi came (earlier than expected of course) and I was off to the airport. The trip home was uneventful as I sat in my small seat in the back of the plane.

On the flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Dallas, Texas I watched a movie I hadn’t seen. It was called “Evan Almighty”. It was about a regular guy living in modern suburban America who was asked by God to build an Ark! Few believed in him. His wife and three boys abandoned him and later returned. His neighbors laughed at him. At first he was resistant but then he became obedient. I would laugh as the movie showed him attempting to build the Ark by himself without help. He would hit his thumb on a nail, get angry, get frustrated, and make all sorts of errors all in his attempt to be obedient. He wasn’t perfect. He was just a regular guy called by God to do a specific task.

God asked me to build an Ark called SAC to encourage orphans and hurting children in Russia to come on board through salvation in Christ Jesus before the coming flood of Judgment. I could relate to “Evan”, his ridicule, his frustration, his imperfections, and his commitment to be obedient. I felt my chin quiver as the movie ended and God’s plan was revealed.