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.

Last Day of Ministry – Fri, Oct19th

It was our last day at the ministry sites! The week seemed to fly by fast as we worked through all the problems and working to bless a few kids with the touch of Christ! It was a great week, but it was about to be over!

It was tough to say goodbye to the toddlers we had come to know and play with during the week. We knew it was going to be difficult for them the next few days as they look for us when they come into the activity room looking for something to do or someone to hold them. They will cry and be unhappy, but we’ll know that at least for a week these kids had felt the love of Christ as He worked through us to minister to those kids. They may forget the activities, but I know they will long and strive for that same comfort again now that the seeds of Christian Love have been planted.

Upstairs at the Lomonosov Baptist Church we had our last lunch. It wasn’t a last supper although the table was long and the fellowship was loving! It was however, our last lunch with Pastor Andre and the ladies who had prepared our lunch all week. One of the ladies the day before had made a little cloth handkerchief for Ansley, age 7. Later that afternoon, Ansley made one of those cross mosaic trivets and wanted to give hers to this lady. She was touched and in tears when Ansley gave it to her. I think that special gift will take its place in a special place in her home somewhere. She seemed to treasure the gift of the cross from a little girl.

At the hospital we told our last Bible story, did our last craft and then gave the kids backpacks that we had prepared for each of them. I think the kids and the staff were surprised to receive gifts. At the end and closing to our hour of time I showed the kids how to play some of the table games that we left for them. The kids had nothing to do during the day and I knew they would enjoy these gifts long after we had departed as a memory of our time together. We hoped that they would remember that this team and these gifts came from the Lomonosov Baptist Church!

Our trip back to the hotel was long. Since I had access to the bus, I needed to deliver the remaining backpacks to the other ministry sites. We had loaded them in the bus the night before and they took up most of the backseat. We had to go to the Fuydor shelter, the hotel to drop off the ministry suitcases, to the Road of Life Transition Home to drop off backpacks, and then uptown for pizza at Patio Pizza, a popular place for SAC mission trip participants. I thought this wouldn’t take too long, but I failed to consider St. Petersburg traffic on a Friday evening. Our trip normally took about 50 minutes, but with all these errands, it took 4 hours! It was a long ride, but I think God had a purpose in that ride. You can see that special article in the next SAC printed newsletter that will come out in a couple of weeks!

The Kids Can Weave!? – Thu, Oct 18th

Today, we brought out the weaving cards so that the 1-2 year old children in the Baby Home could begin this activity. The speech therapist who had been with us and all our activities the whole week began to explain to the translators that this wouldn’t work and the kids couldn’t do that. Susan Bollinger was persistent that we should try and the therapist agreed. The kids immediately took to this activity and the kids were weaving away! One little girl would raise her hand and exclaim “Yeah” each time she finished threading a hole! She was enthusiastic! The speech therapist was… speechless! At the end of the day, she asked for us to leave the weaving boards so that she could practice that with the children! We knew then we had a hit and had won over the confidence of the speech therapist in what we were doing to try to teach the kids. It was a huge success for us and should lead to developmentally better children for years to come!

At the hospital, we had won over the staff with the tea earlier in the week. Now today there were 12 kids that came in! Wow, we were excited, but hoped we had enough supplies and crafts for everyone to do! In addition, we had three young girls from the Lomonosov Baptist Church join us to help. Two of the girls were the niece’s of Pastor Andre! Of course, we wanted them to do the crafts too! As we counted we had enough! It’s amazing after all the planning we do months ahead; God already knows who will be there when it’s time to do a craft!

I was looking forward to today’s craft with the kids. Months ago I had found these wooded cross trivets that the kids would put mortar into and then decorate with mosaic tile and different colored beads. It took up a lot of volume and weight in the ministry suitcases, but I thought it would be worth the effort. Fortunately, Mike Nevil was there and mixed the mortar for the trivets. It was the mortar that made the project look great! Of course, the kids had something to do with it too!

Today, I had Tall Anya, one of the former residents of the Road of Life Family Home; share her personal testimony with the kids at the Hospital. I thought that hearing a young lady not much older that they were would have an impact. She shared in Russian of course and I hope it planted some seeds for these kids that were there. God had already ordained this meeting and had these kids there who needed to hear those words.

I told our team before that we may not be able to measure the success of our mission trip with statistics or a count of the folks led to salvation. Sometimes we don’t know what impact we will have. It’s like what Mother Teresa said to a reporter who asked her about how she would measure the success of the orphanage she was opening that day in India. Mother Teresa responded and said, “The Bible doesn’t talk about success, only obedience”.

McDonalds Outing for Orphanage #14 – Wed, Oct17th

Wednesday was planned with a little different schedule. In the morning we worked with the kids in the Baby Home. Today we had them making tissue paper rainbows with different colored tissue paper. The speech therapist really seemed to like having the kids do this activity as it helped them teach colors.

At the end of our time with them, we were able to spend some time talking with the director. The first two days had been too busy, but we wanted to present her with some of the humanitarian aid and gifts we had brought. One of the gifts was a suitcase full of handmade baby blankets. Mary Arrant, a member of Hunters’ Glen, had worked on these all summer. The director was happy to receive them and they immediately put them on some of the beds for the children. These soft blankets would be warmly enjoyed by the children this winter in this 130 year old mansion converted to a Baby Home.

After a wonderful lunch in the Lomonosov Church we headed back to St. Petersburg to take the kids of Group 2 in Orphanage #14 to McDonalds. Susan Bollinger, one of our trip participants, had worked with us each fall for the past 5 years in this Orphanage and worked specifically with this group of kids. SAC always tries to put trip participants with the same group of kids on return visits so that relationships can continue to be built. Sasha, one little girl in this group, hugged Susan so hard and nearly took her breath away! Sasha (in red coat) loved being with Susan!

It was raining as our group began to walk to a place we could catch a Tramway. This Tramway is an electric railcar that travels’s tracks on the street. They are much like street cars in San Francisco except these have a more industrial feel rather than quaint wooden streetcars. Our Tramway took us over a bridge and stopped near another Metro station near a McDonalds.

The crowds were overwhelming and people in line had their backs against the wall! I thought, “Oh Boy”, this is going to be interesting trying to seat and feed 11 kids and our team and translators! I sent the kids upstairs in this McDonald to try to find seats. Orders were taken and three translators worked to get everything right. It didn’t go as planned, but nothing seems to go that way anyway! It was a nice outing and the kids seemed to really enjoy it. I could tell as four of the boys sitting at a table, who had just finished a McFlurry shake, shook my hand and gave a sincere “Thank You” in English!

The kids headed back to the Orphanage with their group counselor and we headed to the Metro to ride back to the hotel. As we came closer to the metro I could see problems. I hadn’t seen a Metro station that busy in about 4 years and that meant crowds of pushing people. We still needed to buy tokens for the trip. Some of us were swept away in the crowd like a swift flowing river carrying us downstream. Nevertheless, we all stayed together and made it down the escalator. It was still busy downstairs and the subway cars were crowded, but again we all made it on board and several stops later we were back at the hotel. It’s a metro experience I don’t enjoy, especially when you have a team with you!

An Interesting and Busy Day – Tue, Oct 16th

I knew this was going to be a busy day when we started. At the Baby Home our team would be there along with another team from Buckner now called Orphan Outreach with a team of 15 people. In addition, there was one couple that our team members met on the plane that would be coming to see their adoptive child on their first trip to Russia. We were going to be busy and the director would be very busy as well!

Our time this morning with the kids involved paint! It’s going to be messy when you combine two year olds, fabric paint, and active little hands! As you can see by the picture we were having the kids make t-shirts with their hand prints. The activity was a fine with the staff as I was worried that they might decide it was too messy for them to deal with.

That day, they also brought into our group some special kids. About 8 kids they brought in that day had HIV. They needed attention too. HIV is a huge problem in Russia and it is growing. Even little babies at a Baby Home are infected due usually to drug use by their moms. It’s sad and unfortunate, but hopefully we made their day brighter with a little love from caring Christians!

At lunch at the church, we had Natasha play guitar and sing some Russian Christian songs. Natasha is a music major and can play the piano, guitar, and Domra, a traditional Russian string instrument with a rounded back about the size of half a watermelon. The songs resonated the spirit of Russia and were a perfect lead-in to the sharing of testimonies. We had invited the ladies who had been cooking for us to share their testimonies. They did and shed tears along the way. We were blessed again and encouraged one another as we hugged prior to our leaving.

At the hospital, we had our tea planned. We set the table and prepared the tea. Chairs were arranged around the same table we used to do crafts with the kids. We spent an hour talking about our ministry, why we do this, and that we were an outreach of the Lomonosov Church. At the end of the hour I could tell through the laughs and questions, that the staff felt more comfortable with us. The tea was a big success and it allowed us to fellowship and build relationships so they could see Christ working through each of us!

The kids came in a few minutes later and we had a great time of fellowship, bible study, and crafts. We still only had an hour, but I think the staff was better connected with us now that we had the tea.

One of our craft activities was painting bucket hats. These were older kids and it wasn’t as much as a mess, until one of the young girls squeezed too hard on the plastic bottle and the top came off and exploded fabric paint over her t-shirt and freshly painted hat. It didn’t seem to bother her as she kept on working as we attempted to clean up the mess. It also ruined her shirt despite efforts to wash it out. They did like the hats!

One little girl had just come to the hospital that day. She wasn’t in our activity room, but was around the corner in another room. She was homesick for her mom. We made it a point to bring a bucket hat to her and some paint so she could work alone on this without having to come to the group crying in front of others. I never did see her, but I think that painting the hat at least took her mind off her homesickness for a while.

Our day ended and we traveled back to the hotel for dinner. On our mission trips, I plan dinner in the hotel where the hotel prepares the same dinner for all of us. It’s a nice sit-down dinner and is easier than trying to order from a Russian menu! Sunday and Monday nights had been a nice quiet dinner. However on Tuesday, they have a band that comes in to play. It was loud and we could barely hear each other talk! We complained, but they said there was a wedding party coming in to the room and they would need to play for them.

Well, it was too late to change and we tried to make the best of it. We were disappointed as I had invited Maria Grinfeld to come and eat with us to see some of our returning team members. I had also invited Masha Oshkina so I could have a conversation with my kids, Tanya and Dima. We wanted the evening to be a time of conversation.

Soon the wedding party came in and there was more loud music. To our surprise, the groom came to our table and took the hand of Holly McGee inviting her to dance! I think Holly was out of her comfort zone, but she agreed! Several of us stood and began to take pictures. One of the photographers was Mike Nevil. The bride then approached Mike and invited him to dance! He was surprised too! According to the translation of the announcements made by the Best Man after these dances, our flash camera’s made it appear like a CNN news event!

It was an interesting and busy day and what started out as lemons later became lemonade! I guess we learned a lesson and ended up being blessed!

No Colored Butter – Mon, Oct 15th

We were all excited when we got up to experience our first day in the Baby Home in Lomonosov. After breakfast we had a short devotion time and prayer before heading out. Our small bus arrived at the hotel at 9am to take us to Lomonosov. Everyone was ready and on the bus as we headed out. It was about an hour drive this morning due to more traffic today.

A little after 10am we arrived. The director was in another part of the building and met us in her office. She was warm and pleasant and seemed excited to see a 7 year old as part of our mission team! We brought in all our ministry suitcases and shed our coats before taking a tour of the building and the groups. In one of the rooms upstairs we were able to observe the speech therapist working with a couple of children on their language skills and recognition of colors. The therapist was anxious for us to see what she was teaching the children although the kids were a little shy with a bunch of people in the room watching!

Already, our time was running short and that morning we only had about 50 minutes with the kids as time was taken up in the tour. Actually, as we toured, we picked up a few kids along the way as we were told that these kids would be with us this morning. We brought out a few activities, but didn’t get to complete what we had planned for that first day. The kids were taken from the activity room at noon so they could have lunch and a nap. Our team left to go to the church to have lunch as well. Unfortunately, the nap wasn’t included!

Pastor Andre went all out in working to serve us and accommodate us at his church. Three ladies in the kitchen worked to fix us a three course meal which included soup, a main dish, and tea and cookies. It was great, but for most of us it was more than we were used to eating. It was a lovely lunch prepared by loving hands. We were blessed!

After lunch we took our bus to the Children’s Hospital which was just a few blocks away from the church. We made our way into the room and started preparing our activities. Soon there were five kids that entered and a little shy of us. These kids had to stay in the hospital for various reasons, but most had energy and were ready to do something fun! Dasha started off by telling the Bible Study she had prepared from the material we had given her. She did it all from memory without looking at notes and all in Russian of course. The kids listened as small seeds of faith were being planted. Our story theme was about Joseph and the multicolored coat given to him by his father. During the week we planned to tell different portions of the story of Joseph and his brothers.

After this, we began some crafts that the kids seem to enjoy doing. One of the crafts was an activity that served as a snack and a craft activity at the same time. Our craft related to the Bible Study. Making the connection with the multi-colored coat we had planned to have juice along with bread and butter colored with various colors of food coloring. We showed what we planned to do to the head nurse and our colored butter idea was not approved. Haley Nevil, a trip participant who had nursing experience, told us that sometimes food coloring will affect medical tests as this coloring is passed through. We hadn’t realized that. So, there was no colored butter for the bread to be given to the kids. A few of us ate some colored butter so at least they would get the idea.

At the end of our time, we were told by the head nurse that the next day, we should plan on only an hour. Of course, we had planned to spend two or more hours with he kids, but that seemed too much for her and I don’t think she was too sure about what we were doing. She kept coming in and observing. So, maybe we needed to rethink some of our plans.
On the bus one of our volunteers form the Transition Home, Tall Anya, suggested that we have a tea with them tomorrow so we could sit down and discuss why were there and what we planned to do during the week. It was a great idea so we made plans and arrangements on the way home with Pastor Andre via cell phone. After checking with the staff at the hospital, they were in agreement. We were looking forward to a new beginning the next day!

Mission Lomonosov! - Sat-Sun, Oct 13-14

Our team arrived on time on Saturday evening and with all their luggage! Praise the Lord! Everyone was in good health and ready and excited to see the sites of St. Petersburg. As our tradition, after checking into the hotel we all strolled down to the Mouse Café to eat before going to sleep after being up and traveling for 30 hours.

Sunday began with a breakfast buffet in the hotel and then a bus ride to the Lomonosov Baptist Church for services that began at 11am. Pastor Andre and his church of about 30 members have done a lot to the facility since our last visit. Their sanctuary is complete, brightly lit and they have fully remolded this structure built in 1892. Other parts of the building are at different stages including the heaters on the wall in the kitchen. They have been there for 3 years, but it will take 38 pages of documents to get approval to hook them up! The rules keep changing, so they have just continued to use the portable electric heaters.

The service was beautiful with the choir singing familiar tunes, but of course in Russian. I could see all of us trying to remember the words as we would recognize the song. I was invited to share a little about why we were there and how we wanted to be an extension of their church as we serve in the local community. After the 2 hour service, we were greeted warmly by the members as we graciously tried to understand each other. You could tell Christ was in our midst.

They invited us for tea upstairs. They have a small room that has a small kitchen at the end and a long table with benches on either side. The room was about 64 degrees as the electric heater hadn’t been turned on. However, it was a warm fellowship and the hot tea felt good on a cool Sunday afternoon. I can see why the Russians like hot tea so much!

We had a short team meeting and discussed the things that we would do the following week. We were excited about the possibilities of what God could do!