Backpacks Delivered!

On Saturday we had made arrangements to travel to Sosnovo, a small town about an hour north of St. Petersburg, where our teams have worked at an Orphanage and church Day Center for at-risk kids in the past. Traffic was congested as it took nearly three hours for us to arrive. The van that took us was usually used as a Marchucka (a small metro bus) and the driver had spent the last month driving his family over 7000km on vacation to the Black Sea.

When we arrived at the Orphanage the kids recognized us as we approached. They called out Da Da John (Uncle John) as they have called me before. Our visit was unannounced and the director was to arrive shortly. She was not happy that we had come without calling first, but I had lost her phone number. However, she quickly saw an opportunity as two guys who could help her move some heavy furniture. So, we moved three shelves from one room to another in amongst the renovation of several rooms. She was very pleased afterwards and our protocol misstep was forgiven!

We gathered the school-aged kids in a small recreation room to hand out backpacks. The kids had already seen us carry in the three big boxes and were anxious to know what was inside. I had them sit on the floor around me so I could talk to them. There were about five new kids, but the other ones remembered us talking about God in April along with some of the crafts that we had done together. I told them the ones sitting quietly would get to select their choice of backpack. As they selected they seemed happy to try out the zippers and parade around with the backpack on their back. One boy even collected all the tags on the backpacks for his personal collection!

In the hall I had a short discussion with the director. I had heard rumored through some other friends that the Orphanage would be closing soon and I wanted to hear from the director what was really happening. She told us that the Orphanage was not closing and instead will be adding a group after the first of the year. The building is undergoing extensive renovation in anticipation of this growth. They have also begun a foster parent program. Currently there are 21 school-age kids, 9 pre-school and toddlers, and 10 children in foster care.

I had the brief opportunity to see one child who will be adopted soon. Karill was in the youngest group and we spent a few minutes with them today. They had just woken up from their afternoon nap and he was still asleep when we arrived. We gave these kids backpacks even though they are not in school; the director said they could use them for trips to the hospital when the kids had to go for a few days. Karill was a little groggy from just waking up, but he soon perked up and was willing to have his picture taken.

After our short time at the Orphanage, we returned back to the apartment we had been invited to stay the night. Valentina had prepared us a big lunch and tea. It was good to be there and being just a five minute walk from the Orphanage. Later that evening, her son Alex came to visit us. I hadn’t seen Alex in over a year and half since we first worked at the Day Center in Sosnovo. Alex had just become a Christian and was anxious to be around other believers and help out.

Alex, who is now 21, lives in the area and had previously, had a job in cabinetry. Knowing he had woodworking skills, I wanted to get his advice on an idea for the Day Center I had come up with a few months ago. My idea was to find some project that the older male youth in the area would find interesting and would encourage them to become active in the Day Center and the church. As I explained my idea of making wood pens and what tools could be used he seemed interested and said it would be something that would be of interest to other guys in Sosnovo. He volunteered his time for a couple of hours twice a week to be involved in this project. He was anxious to get started!

Alex had to leave after a two hour visit, but later his older brother Stass came by for a visit. Stass, 25, is a first year medical student looking toward a career in pediatrics. He had many questions on religion and the different denominations and knowing which one is the “correct” belief. We discussed many issues and probably could have stayed up all night. We agreed to meet next weekend to discuss more of his questions. Please be in prayer as I share more about the foundations of faith!

Mission: Backpacks!

You wouldn’t think that buying children’s backpacks would look like an episode out of Mission Impossible, but my effort to get 200 of these gifts for the kids at the ministry sites proved to be a little bit of an “adventure”.

Dasha, our SAC program director in St. Petersburg had made arrangements with a commercial seller over the last few weeks for us to purchase some backpacks at a significant discount to give to the kids at the various ministry sites we serve. We made our appointment with this seller at 3pm on Thursday.

It took about an hour to get there. I had to exchange money first to pay for these and then we were off to make our selections and pay for the backpacks. When we got to this building after walking from a metro station for about 15 minutes, there was a delay in getting in. Apparently, this building used to be a high security government building. Even though there was no high security work being done there anymore, the building retained the security rating and only authorized personnel were granted entrance. Usually they need about 2-3 hours to work up paperwork to arrange for a foreigner to come inside the building, but the seller had not prepared this. I was just a customer of this one company that occupied part of the building that sold bags, including the backpacks that I wanted. Of course, the seller wanted us to come in as we were ready to make a purchase. So, as is common in Russia, you can always find a way…

Since entrance had not been prearranged, the seller spent several minutes making “other” arrangements to sneak me into the building. Ahh… the adventure begins! Remember, all I want to do is buy backpacks for some orphans in our ministry sites, but it’s not always so easy!

My translator was escorted into the building through one entrance. She was not a problem since she was a Russian citizen. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but I knew in situations like this from before that I just needed to be patient and wait to see what they were able to arrange. I waited outside the building for 10-15 minutes listening to a car alarm that evidently was too sensitive. Soon, the seller came out and told me (in Russian) that a car was coming to pick us up and take us in. The car came around and picked us up. I was told to sit in the front seat. The seller sat behind me. No one spoke English. As we got on our way, the driver handed me a brown document about the size of a passport without a picture. It appeared to be some document with stamps and official signatures. It was probably the driver’s or someone else’s security ID. He motioned and explained in Russian that I was supposed to open it and hold it up to the window when we drove past the guard at the gate! Oh boy, I thought… this will be interesting!

We rounded the corner and sped past security. They waved us on through and I didn’t have to hold the pass up to the window. So, I was in! I just kept quiet so others around me wouldn’t question why I was there. Of course, I was only a customer buying children’s backpacks, but the building security situation made for an interesting visit!

Inside the seller was very friendly and showed us a number of high quality backpacks to choose from. I was challenged to finds backpacks that would appeal to girls and boys along with young children and teenagers. After several minutes of calculating what would be best, I made the selections and received deep discounts as they knew the backpacks were going to be given to official Russian social institutions.

Then there was a little problem with the payment. I expected to pay in cash, but since it was a commercial purchase, they usually do purchase by bank transfer. Since I wanted to take several of the backpacks to Sosnovo this weekend, they quickly made arrangements so that I could pay for these in cash. We waited probably 30 minutes for them to prepare the paperwork to do this. At one point I saw a man carrying a cash register past us and I thought that maybe this was part of what they were trying to prepare! However, I think it was for something else. Within short order, the transaction was complete and they would deliver the backpack to us the next day. Now that the transaction was complete, they needed to be seek me out of the building again!

Again, my translator was taken out another exit. I was told to get in the backseat of another car that had darkened windows on the side with yet another driver. This driver spoke a little English and seemed pleased to get to practice it. I sat among other boxes in the back of his car. Again, we rounded the corner and the driver sped toward the gate. I sat quietly and watched as we got closer. The female gate guard appeared to stoop as if she was trying to see through the front window if anyone was in the back. Maybe she saw me and maybe she didn’t, but she made no motion to stop the car. We drove on through and rounded another corner and picked up my translator who was waiting for us. The driver then drove us onto the metro station where our little adventure came to an end!

Now it really wasn’t a big deal as the others at this place of business seemed to have had to do this before. It wasn’t illegal, but probably just a broach of procedural protocol. It just seemed to be a part of normal business in Russia to get around rules that don’t make sense to the business. Even though all of this, God knows my good intentions and my desire to help orphan kids. Passage was made for me with His protection all the way. With faith and prayer, God can provide for your needs too even when procedures and customs seems a little strange. He can even provide a little life adventure for the willing soul!

I've Arrived!

In the days before I left, there was a lot of scrambling to pack and get my bags so that they were under the required weight. I left Tuesday, worried that my bags would get through. As it turned out, I had no problem at the airport and no problem going through customs in St. Petersburg! Praise God! Thanks for all your prayers for this!

I arrived a little early in St. Petersburg on Wednesday evening. It took almost a couple of hours to reach the place I will be staying for the next couple of weeks. My son Sergey met me at the airport and as soon as we dropped off my stuff, we headed to McDonalds so I could have a late night dinner with all four of my kids. We had a great time and I enjoyed seeing the kids smile, laugh, and tease each other. I don’t think they had all gotten together like this since my last visit in April. It was good for all of us to be together.

I got back to the apartment I’m staying at about 11:30pm that night, after being up for about 30 hours. I was tired and went straight to bed. However, the St. Petersburg mosquitoes didn’t want to let me sleep! It felt I was up every 20 minutes or so turning on the light to swat another mosquito that was buzzing around my ears and making too much noise! I think I killed 6-7, but I didn’t get much sleep! So, I was up the next morning at 7:30am to do some unpacking and get ready for the day.

Sergey wanted me to meet him at McDonalds at 9:30am for breakfast. He likes to meet so we can talk and discuss things. It was good to sit there and visit with him, but it’s a 30 minute compute by metro to get to the nearest McDonalds close to his home in the Northwest part of the city. We had a great visit and there were several things he was anxious to show me and discuss. There were several serious subjects that he wanted to have a private conversation on including Masha’s situation. Please be in prayer as I continue to discern about what to do and how to best help her.

Woodworking at “The Harbor”

I’m sure you are looking at this photo and wondering what contraption is this! Well, this is a shoe rack. In many Russian apartments you have a shoe rack near the door. It’s a custom here when entering a home to take off your street shoes and put on some slippers. Often, homes have extra slippers for guests. The shoe rack helps organize the shoes and slippers so they are not all over the floor.

Projects like these are done in “The Harbor” to teach life skills to these graduate orphans that live there. Briefly, “The Harbor” is a privately funded organization in St. Petersburg that takes youth who have “graduated” from the orphanage and puts them in this two year residential program. During these two years, boys and girls learn life skills like how to cook for themselves, budget their time, money, and keep up an apartment. They go to school or work depending on their individual situation. They have mentors that live with them to give structure. SAC works with them on our short term trips to teach some of these life skills. Woodworking seems to be a popular project when I come.

For this trip we built this shoe rack as something practical that could be used. I went to their home in early April to begin the project. We had purchased some of the wood, but after about 3 hours of looking, we couldn’t find the rest. That first night we began cutting the pieces needed with the lumbar we had. They had all the tools, but the saw blade on the jig saw was a dull as a butter knife! I could have turned the blade around in the saw and cut with the back side of the blade and it would have been just as successful. So, that first night we didn’t get much accomplished.

I came a couple weeks later with some members of our first mission team. However, they didn’t have a new blade by that evening yet, but at least they had found the wood! Again, we didn’t get much done that evening. I did tell them what they needed to cut and gave them some “homework” to do.

This past Saturday when I arrived, I had brought some new saw blades. However, the boys had cut the wood anyway! Everything was cut and ready for assembly. I’m not sure if they cut the wood with a new blade or not, but everything was ready to go at long last! In Russia, things take a lot longer to get done. I just can’t hop in the car and run down to Home Depot and put up the things I need. The store may be out of the items, we have no car to transport them, and it takes a lot of time to find the items we need.

Nevertheless, I showed the guys how to assemble the project. After they got going, it was all assembled with glue and nails in under an hour!

The project was taken from a picture I saw in a magazine. I like it as the plan could be modified easily either in height, width, or depth. Thanks to Kevin Kelly and his son who helped come up with drawings and measurements for this project along with a prototype they built on a Sunday afternoon. The guys modified Kevin’s design from the original measurements to make it fit into a certain space in the girl’s apartment of “The Harbor”. They also decided to make it a 3 shelf version than the 2 shelf design our prototype had been designed from.

This was a great project for them as it was practical, easy to build, and easy to modify to specific apartments. The guys had a lot of fun building it. They waited for me to arrive on Saturday afternoon. We assembled the project and then had dinner together. The mentor who speaks English had to go, but I hung around with some of them for a couple of hours. It was interesting as I tried to use my limited Russian skills to have a conversation. It worked and I understood about 80% of what they were talking about if we took time to explain it to each other.

Thanks for your prayers for this mission trip. Saturday was my last project that I needed to complete before going back to the states. I have some meetings and visits to make Monday and Tuesday before heading back on Wednesday, but the completion of this shoe rack gave a sense of accomplishment. It also serves as a reminder of the simple carpenter, who came to earth, assembled a plan of salvation, and from a wooden cross proclaimed, ”It is finished”.

Left Behind

On Friday as we were gathering our things to leave the Orphanage, we were told that the Director was handling another situation across the hall. A mom had brought her 4 year old boy to the orphanage to be left there. The father was waiting in the car outside the Orphanage. I could see the looks on the face of Rayisa, the Director. It was somber, but a look of acceptance as this is how life is here. The little boy just kept saying, “I want my mom and I want to go home”!

I don’t have any other details on this child than that. I do know that typically 80% of children living in an Orphanage have parents, but they can’t take care of them due to economic reasons or substance abuse problems in the home. It almost seems too easy. If life gets too tough, it’s just easier to leave your child with the government and let them take care of them. Maybe this boy will have future contact with his family and maybe not. It’s a poor choice for parents to choose to let their child grow up in an Orphanage.

It was sad to leave the Orphanage today and even sadder to see this child being added among the number of kids at this institution. Pray with me that this child will adjust, make friends, and that we will be able to impact his life during our visits in the future. I know it will be hard to do, but pray for his parents as well. I don’t know their situation, but God does and He is in control.

Sharing Christ

The kids seem to be really connecting with us! It helps that we have a more normal schedule and the kids are anxious to be with us when they come back from school. This is what I had hoped for as I shared Christ with them.

After a craft, I was able to sit them down and talk quietly to them about salvation in Christ in simple terms. I related the caterpillar and the butterfly in its transformation as we are transformed through Christ. It’s hard to tell what they understood and if the translation of this analogy helped them understand. I sensed a little bit of confusion, but I continued to share and led them in prayer. If I went too long I would have bored them, so I chose to continue this discussion tomorrow to let them think about it.

On Thursday I shared again as this was the day we made “Edible Butterflies”. The kids really enjoyed this activity and loved the cheese wiz! We gave each of them a paper plate and gave them one straight pretzel and two curly pretzels. The curly pretzels were the wings and the straight one was the body of this edible butterfly. We topped it with Cheese Wiz to act as a mortar to cement the pieces together. Then we used Swizzlers for antenna and mini chocolate chips for eyes! When I said go, the kids ate!

This was a fun activity and the kids were anxious to listen as we sat in a circle. I explained the butterfly as it related to our transformation in Christ. However I still sensed confusion and had some interruptions.

Later that evening we were all invited to Valentina’s home for dinner. This was the apartment Sergey and I were staying in. It was a great and relaxing meal. It gave me time to think on how I could share better the next day.

Friday was our last day with the kids. It is the day we give out gifts for each child, take our last pictures and tell them goodbye. It was also my last opportunity to help them understand a relationship with Jesus.

We gave out gifts to the first group of toddlers in the morning. They were excited to receive the gifts. To keep control we had them close their eyes, but Patty had collected sleeping masks on the plane and we gave those to each of the kids to help hide their eyes! It was cute seeing them all in masks and seeing how many couldn’t resist lifting up the bottom to take a peek as to what we had sat in their laps! After the gift giving, I briefly shared with them about Jesus and His gift to us, but most were too young to really understand.

Later that afternoon we gave out gifts to the school-aged kids. This was more difficult and disruptive as we struggled to get the right size of t-shirts to the kids. It seems I can never predict the sizes of the kids and we are always too big or too small. So, some kids got t-shirts that didn’t fit which I hated, but one boy smiled at me and held up his Adult X-Large t-shirt and had a big smile! He wanted me to take his picture! I did, and realized that everything worked out as God wanted it to!

I sat them down in a circle as they squeezed to get close to me and talked about our week together and the free gifts they received as a reminder of the free gift God gives us of eternal life. You could have heard a pin drop. They were very attentive and open. I went through a complete Gospel presentation using the beads of the cross necklaces they had just made. The meaning of the colors of the beads will serve as a reminder to them. I led in prayer and told them I would pray, Masha would translate, and I would pause to let them repeat the portion of the prayer that had been translated as a prayer between them and God. It was quiet and as I paused, I could hear little whispers in Russian talking to God! As we finished I asked who had prayed a prayer like this before. Several did as they told me they did this with Pastor Slava, pastor of the Sosnovo Baptist Church who was there last year. I was happy to know that seven other kids who didn’t know Pastor Slava accepted the Lord that day! Praise God!

God worked all things out and in the end seven souls were added to the Book of Life this week! Thanks for your prayers for this because your prayers made this all come together! Thank you!

Sunny Day – Tue, May 1

After all the snow yesterday, it was sunny today and cold! The kids were still on a holiday and had been inside for the past several days. We continued to play inside in a small play room on the first floor. The kids enjoyed the obstacle course I set up and ran them through! They started with doing situps!

When we arrived at the Orphanage this morning, there was a young couple there from America to adopt a two year old. This was their second trip and they were there to pick up the child! It was an exciting thing for them. It was also interesting as when one of our main translators, Natasha walked in the room, they knew each other from the first trip! They also knew Sasha from the Transition Home!

Later that morning there were 11 Russian volunteers that had come to the Orphanage from St. Petersburg to spend the day with the school-age kids. They were making cards for people in pensioner’s homes (nursing home) to remember them on May 9th, Victory Day in Russia. This is a major holiday where Russians remember their victory over the Nazi’s in WWII. The kids were drawing planes, tanks, and showing the defeat of the Nazi’s. So, the kids were tied up with them until about 4pm when we could begin our activities. It is typical that there are a host of other things that go on in an Orphanage during our week that we just need to adjust to as servants of Christ.

It was a busy day and the kids had a lot of people to play with. However, life in an Orphanage is still rough. Today I ran upstairs to get something and one of the girls named “Ksusia” came out of a room with a bloody nose and crying. I took her and held her head back as I walked her quickly to the bathroom. Several other kids were around helping me and helping her. We got the bloody nose stopped and the house mom took her to clean her shirt and have her lay down for a little while. Later I found out that one of the boys had hit her for some reason and this caused the bloody nose. Life in an Orphanage is hard.

After all the other volunteers left, we began the craft activity called “Caterpillar Pencils”. This week as a theme we will talk to the kids about the transformation of Caterpillars into Butterflies” as Christ transforms us into new creatures once we believe in Him! The nametags we had them make also had caterpillars and butterflies on them along with the word in Russian which is “Transformation” as a reminder to them throughout the week.

When we were leaving today, there was still a lot of snow on the ground. The kids were outside as the house mom’s wanted them to get some fresh air. Of course the kids could not resist to making a snow ball and hitting the big target in the green coat! I couldn’t resist either and just had to pick up my own snow balls as well! There were “several” against one and the kids loved it! My hands were cold as I didn’t have any gloves! I don’t think the kids did either! Again, they enjoyed the play and loving contact!

That evening we went and ate at a small café near the Day Center. Sergey and I took a Marchucka (small city bus) back to our apartment after doing some grocery shopping for the next day. As we were standing at the bus stop, Sergey overheard two older women discussing the Bible and which book of the Bible that should be read first. Sergey translated a little of the conversation while we were standing. I silently prayed for that lady who was sharing with the other lady. I didn’t want to interrupt the conversation or join in. It probably would have been a disruption to her as she was trying to share. However, I wanted to encourage her. When we got on the bus and I passed her where she had just sat down, I simply touched her shoulder and said, “Bog Em”, which is Russian for “God Bless You”. She looked up in surprise and then went on with her conversation.

My hope is that more conversations like this will occur in Sosnovo that will lead to knowing the Lord better there.