We made it all the way to Kamchatka, albeit very weary, tired, and disheveled. The flights were relatively uneventful, PDX to NYC (5 hour flight – didn’t get to see the city) then quickly on to Moscow on a 9 hour brutal flight with intermittent nodding off trips to the back of the plane. A lot of Russians around us that clapped in delight when we landed in Moscow. The customs wait was long of course but we got through okay though I think they were suspicious of Maryl, being so beautiful and Cherokee and everything. They did manage to lose the guitar somewhere so we had to take an extra hour to file a bunch of papers and get them to send it on to Kamchatka (we got it two days later at the airport in PK). The lost and found lady asked if i was famous musician and I blushingly obliged the thought for a minute and to curry any favor or lightheartedness in a bleak countryside (customs is in a poorly lit large basement with peeling paint and suspicious restrooms). After a few gentle laughs and nudges they started acting really sad about me losing my ‘famous’ guitar. Finally we exited to a fairly bright airport lobby, greeted by a sweet blonde lady named Tanya who was the wife of a brother of one of the guys (Timofea) i had met 4 years ago in Kamchatka. She spoke no English and of course we spoke no Russian, so our 4 or 5 common phrases wore thin in the first five minutes. She took us to the domestic terminal and proceeded to sit with us for about 5 hours in a boring stuffy smaller lounge area.
She pointed us to a nice cafeteria-style cafe where we got some nice soup and kabobs, etc. After that I got the computer out and showed Maryl how to show Tanya pictures of Uganda and then our family. they laughed and seemed to enjoy themselves for quite a while though i noticed Tanya giving a few furtive looks over her shoulder. she was just probably checking to see if our flight was boarding yet (please, God) but it looked like she was stalling to keep us there so the KGB could come and get us before we left for Kamchatka. (everybody looks stereotypically ‘Russian’ quite amazing) but they finally called for boarding before the KGB got there apparently and we stood in another long line. When we finally got the front of the line they looked at our tickets and started to act like these were ‘play’ tickets and wouldn’t be accepted and that they were amazed that customs let us get this far. Then after some bureaucratic finagling and ‘hmmming’ and looking at both sides of the tickets and at our passports and literally holding the passport picture up and looking back and forth at me and then the pic and then me and then the pic, they finally relented to the obvious, ‘we must let these Americans onto this flight’. then we went to the ticket counter to ‘weigh in’. I think they train everybody to be suspicious and disgusted with foreigners especially Americans, but this lady was very put-out by our extremely overweight luggage (good thing we didn’t have the guitar to haul up on the scale). In Russian domestic flights they weigh everything together and you get 20 kilos per person for everything including carry-ons. (international flights are 20 kilos per checked bag and you get two per person!) we totaled out at 72 kilos. The lady started to load our carry-ons as checked luggage and we protested (she said a bunch of stuff in Russian which of course we just ignored) she then rolled her eyes and I realized she had written up baggage tickets for everything and now had to check through and destroy the previous tags…the joys of flying Aeroflot.  I’m sort of glad we cant understand Russian now. we then proceeded to another lounge area to wait for actual boarding (1 1/2hours later) we sat next to last existing smoking lounge in Russia apparently since there were so many furtive and anxious people puffing away as if this were their last ever. Finally we get in a long line to board our last 9-hour flight to Kamchatka. It was a big 767 and it was packed (very surprising – for Kamchatka? really, you’re all going there? on purpose?) but the seats were spaced very nicely so we could actually stretch out a little and we both zonked out within minutes after getting our obligatory drinks and last meal. I actually slept off and on for the first six hours! It was amazing, a true record for me. Maryl had a more difficult time but slept some nonetheless. Anyway, we finally landed between the beautiful snow-covered volcanoes on a fairly barren and cold stretch of land cleared for the airport and the crowd applauded again – perhaps a custom, or perhaps relief that they actually landed an Aeroflot airplane!
Our driver forgot the car license which is required to show at police checkpoints at the outside of the city, so we had to go back via the back roads which were beautiful and there was a great sunset to enjoy on the way (about 9:30PM the sun sets. Once we got back we ate and studied. they have loaded up our room with fruit and goodies and teas and coffee and juices so we’re pretty set for the long haul. I don’t remember being this well treated last time. must be that gorgeous woman on my arm. they also have hot showers!(theoretically) 7:30pm to 8:30pm for the men and 8:30pm to 11pm for the women (totally unfair) but hot showers! yeah! so after a hot shower, food and study, we hit the sack around 11 (though we found out they had daylight savings starting Sunday so we lost an hour already besides the 20 going east!)
there were two services back-to-back 10am and 1pm so I got to preach twice on 1 Peter 2:9. Maryl spoke some Cherokee greetings to them (I interpreted sort of loosely – or very loosely) and then the Russian translator translated my poor translation. it was actually pretty hilarious and got the whole place laughing. in the second service there were many ‘first nation’ people waving and smiling when she spoke. pretty cool. i sang a song i taught them four years ago ‘Aloha’ and they really enjoyed that, then i brought all the kids up and did a fun kids song (Cut Like a Sword) with them with actions. got everybody really going and having fun. then i calmed them all down with my eloquent preaching. actually it was pretty good and even got better the second time around with a great response at the end of both times. Probably around 400 people total there. wonderful happy people full of joy and the spirit of God.
Had a great sleep finally even with the lights flickering all night. Got up, prayed, got dressed and had a great breakfast of bread and tea. they had a great song and prayer time with some very Russian sounding songs with four part harmony that was pretty astounding. then we started the school of worship upstairs in the dormitory (our room is on the 3rd floor with a view of the volcano, the classroom is down the hall with another great view too). we couldn’t get the computer hooked up to the projector at first so i stalled a little and told my life story – they actually found it interesting. i taught four times with short breaks in between and got a pretty good pace going though interpretation (interrupting they call it) always tends to slow things down. i have one beautiful Russian song down now so i sing it all the time. i suppose they’ll get tired of it pretty soon and just roll their eyes at me but for now, I milk it for all its worth. my goal as always is to sing as much in Russian as I can by the end of the time here. I have a ways to go. 24 official students with a few more sitting in. very receptive group and even laughed at my jokes and funny stories. gotta love that. I shared my opening set on the Vision of Worship in Kamchatka.
after a good lunch of Russian soup and ‘sandwiches’ (bread with jam) Maryl taught a class on dance. (a last minute addition that she wasn’t totally prepared for) we think they were expecting some dance steps, etc. instead they got good ‘solid’ teaching on Jewish dance and then a Cherokee two-step. Finally they sorta broke into their own dances and everything was fine. i got it on video so you can enjoy Maryl dancing with the ‘natives’. she’s the cute one.
after the class we napped for a bit and then Maryl got ready to teach another class (they had asked me to teach on personal prayer life to a bunch of old ladies, so I deftly deferred to my wife who graciously accepted the challenge and apparently did a great job in PK all alone, since i stayed behind to rest, shower and study for tomorrow). while she was gone, after I showered I was invited to an impromptu rehearsal in the classroom with a dozen singers and musicians and got to give some input, write an arrangement of one song for them and play guitar with them for awhile. most of the songs have that Russian minor (fiddler on the roof) sound so it was fun to add a little ‘Spanish’ guitar sound to the mix. they were impressed. oh well…
Tuesday:
Another long and grand day. up at the crack of ‘O-dark-thirty’. Maryl led a small prayer discussion at 7:30am that led to a lot of inspiration in the whole school. she really is amazing on this trip. she has now ministered 3 times to my 9. She’s taken a lot of pressure off me in so many ways I can’t ever imagine doing this alone ever again. Plus she’s so darn cute…
anyway, after an incredible breakfast of this yummy hot rice cereal with jam mixed in, we dove into the classes for the day. Boris showed up (he was my incredible interpreter from 4 years ago) he just got back from a world tour (the S-Tour: San Francisco, Siberia, St. Petersburg) so he is pretty exhausted but he interpreted anyway and did an outstanding job of course. he makes it look so easy, and he is so happy and pleasant and self-effacing yet confident. Personally, I had a great time teaching this particular set of notes since its one I do a lot and I have a lot of fun in it with the students on leading worship. we ended one hour early so we could go to the volcano before dark.
they loaned us snow pants, boots and gloves which made all the difference we found out. we took out about 20 students with us along with two snowmobiles and two sledges that are towed behind the snowmobiles. we drove for a long ways up to the volcano area. parked the cars in the snow and proceeded to hike a few miles on a mild uphill old dry riverbed covered in snow that leads to the foot of the volcanoes. A little hard on Maryl since we don’t get much exercise and the boots and pants were a little tight and cumbersome. but we made it to the ‘camp’ safe and sound. it seemed like everybody knew exactly what was happening and what to do, because in a few minutes, in the side of the old riverbed among the hundreds of empty birch trees, they created a camp spot that was delightful, complete with a pit dug out in the snow piled high with deadwood blazing with fire, a post hanging between two forked branches over the fire with two kettles of snow rapidly melting in them.
the men got a ton of deadwood from all around while the ladies set up and picnic looking tablecloth on the snow and pulled out breads and meats and pastries and tea and coffee. a feast fit for a king, if a king was lost in a snowy forest and all he had was this food.
‘Russian snowmobile’ (the other was American) broke down much to the disgust of the people there. not much respect for Russian products I guess. they finally got back and then they took another group up with just the one which takes about 45 minutes. then they had us go up on the sledge. we bundled up best we could and hung on for dear life. Andre, the driver, did a great job of making it a better ride than any Disneyland rides and we got pelted with ice as he scooted all over the riverbed for miles until we ended up looking directly up into Koriatsky, the big volcano, all covered with snow and clouds and incredibly beautiful. after a few pictures and cleaning the ice off my sunglasses, we got back in the sledge, tucked in and away we went. what a blast. though frozen, it was a thrill. very akin to our Uganda experiences only in reverse of temperatures.
hopefully. (they got in at 11pm we found out) another day, another adventure. we faced the jungles of Uganda, and now we have faced the wilds of Kamchatka and survived to tell it.
Great morning with 4 classes on leading worship. Really got them going today with lots of examples, songs, and fun. We are starting to click finally and it is easier each day to flow with the interpreter (now Boris) I turned down the pastors invitation to the Blue Lagoon (a hot springs spa and pool for the moderately wealthy and extremely middle class. we will go tomorrow, today we rest from our volcano experience yesterday. sore and tired!
in the evening, I went into PK and worked with the Youth Band and gave them some pointers and then created some new stuff together. pretty fun though i got some basic funny looks from Russian teens who are still trying to figure out who this old bald guy is and why is he trying so hard to be cool. Home late but exhausted once again.
Thursday, April 3
Fun morning with a birthday celebration of Andre, the 35 year-old who drove the snowmobiles Tuesday, is a native Aleut, he and his wife (Nastia, the incredible flute player)have three really cute even by my high standards, daughters and 20 sled dogs and one Norwegian Sports Hound that has won first place internationally in racing with Andre. We got a video of some the native dancing they do. pretty cool to watch. hurts to try. their oldest daughter, Anya, 4, did the dance incredibly well. we’ll have to get her and Nissa together. wow.
after 4 more great classes on leading and working with teams (with lots of laughter, song and high-class teaching) i went with Boris and pastor Anatoly to Blue Lagoon so they would quit pestering me to go. i impressed everybody with my sleek, white body and bright flowered swimsuit (i noted that Russians wear the old-style short swimsuits, so passé compared to our cool long and baggy falling down to our knees suits!) we started in the Jacuzzi for a while, and then I did the waterslide quite a few times. then the pastor mentioned jumping in the snow. i thought he was kidding so i said ‘ladies first’ and he did! he ran and flopped bare-belly down in the snow, did a face-down snow angel in his swim-trunks, got up rubbed snow all over his red body and said ‘you’re turn’. I was stunned and stuck, I had to do it! so i did, though I didn’t jump, I sorta tiptoed into the freezing snow, went down on my hands and toes and held a pushup position over the snow while yelling in frozen agony ‘I can’t do it’. Boris just laughed and said ‘let go, you can do it’ so I did and it wasn’t too bad, so I did the snow angel thing, rubbed some snow on my belly and then realized I couldn’t feel my feet so i stumbled over to the tube that led to the hot pool waiting me. boy did that sting for a long time, but i did it! can you believe it?
we got back late just in time to run to the church for a service where i preached a stunning sermon about something (John 4 the woman at the well). my mind was so tired and fried from these last few days. i hear that i did really good and that it changed the destiny of the church but that’s another story. About a dozen people came forward to receive Jesus and healing. Great time.
Friday, April 4
up at the crack of… another interesting breakfast of tea, bread and a hot rice, oat, wheat cereal. very good but unfortunately full of all those glutens that your Maryl loves. she has stayed off bread for a day and that really helped her stomach. then we sang and prayed and celebrated another birthday with balloons, song and dance. a totally different dance, sorta Ukrainian conga line dance, but cute and Maryl jumped right in while I hammered away on the guitar.
we had only three classes today so they could have a small group at the end, i didn’t fight too much on that one. taught on working with teams and got to use a lot of fun examples on the guitar and piano on what not to do. impressed them I’m sure. did a rendition of ‘hava nagila’ that got them going big time. at the end i showed them some pics of Uganda that they really enjoyed, especially the contrast between the nations. Hot and cold, black and white, bad roads and well, bad roads. pineapples and pickled squash.
after lunch, we went to Orphanage #3 in Kamchatka, overlooking the whole beautiful valley and mountains. we took a translator Stas and a young man Sasha (reminds me a lot of Jordan Weston) who is really animated, knows the kids at the orphanage and does clowning for $100 an hour at birthday parties so he is great with kids. He also plays a decent guitar so right from the beginning he introduced us with a guitar strum and did his trombone sound that I answered back in trombone voice and we went back and forth to the delight of the kids. then i introduced ourselves as people who go around the world and get to sing and do music in different countries and styles and started my Spanish flamenco thing and sang over it and sort of stomped around, while I’m being silly, a little girl (4?) in a pretty white dress (we think she was maybe downs syndrome) spontaneously got up and started to dance right next to me in front of everybody. everyone was laughing and enjoying this moment so i picked up the tempo and she stayed with me, so i bent down and started dancing right along with her (my practice with Nissa and Mazzy finally pays off!) and it was the coolest moment, without guile and totally uninhibited she just kept dancing. i hope we got some pictures of her. you would all love her. then we did some flute and guitar and danced some more with all of them. and taught them some motions to songs. lost some in the translation but ultimately they had fun. then Maryl told the story of David, the lion the bear and Goliath in her story-telling voice that was so fun, Sasha and Sergey another young guy there, played the parts of the lion, bear and goliath and played up their death scenes again to the delight of the kids. We then showed pictures of Uganda especially the orphans there so these kids could relate and even showed them my famous ‘dance’ on Zinga Island. then we fielded questions about Uganda, since we are now the resident experts on Ugandan culture of course, harumph. finally i taught them my ‘Aloha’ song which is always a big hit and got them to sing it really loud. at the end, the director presented us with a document thanking us for coming and sharing and then a picture made by the kids themselves of the ships ‘Peter and Paul’ (Petropavlovsk) coming into the harbor. cool picture we’ll show you when we get home. great time.
came home and i am writing this now so we can email you tonight this whole treatise. sorry about the length, but you can read over a series of days to break up the monotony. we love you all. Jesus Is very alive and well in Kamchatka. Isus shavoy!
Part Deux:
Saturday, April 4, 2008
Got to sleep in! Really helps when we get some rest. Maryl went to PK today to teach young mothers and women about childbirth especially in the church culture here in Russia. She is very excited about helping mothers make healthy decisions for their babies. I got to have a ‘lazy’ day at the base, studying, reading, cleaning, eating, drinking, playing my guitar, recording some songs, being merry, etc. Our little room looks great now, all vacuumed and cleaned up, our garbage taken out (phew). I even found the inflatable raft Maryl brought for the bed since it is so hard. She has complaining about her back after sleeping on these small twin beds shoved together. I blew the raft up and now it’s a surprise waiting for her tired body to enjoy tonight after a hot shower and a good meal. Should make her happy.
She got back from PK and I found out they took her on a tour of the city instead of shopping. She forgot her long johns so she pretty much froze a lot, but enjoyed the sites. We read to each other and studied for Sunday and then slept.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Easy morning of breakfast and wait for ride to church. Pastor Vladimir (Korean descendent, very funny) picked us up and brought us to the church in Yelisova. Evan and I were here four years ago and they remember me, including of course, the song, ‘Aloha’! Very nice church facility all cleaned up and well used, chandeliers in the sanctuary, large flowing white chiffon curtains on the platform. Heard a lot of new Russian songs I had not heard before. I like that instead of a lot of American or Australian songs translated into Russian. These are more authentically Russian. A lot of students from the school go to this church so we saw a lot of familiar faces and a lot of smiles and waves too.
We had the children come forward and do ‘cut like a sword’ again. Fun group. Then we sang ‘Aloha’ and got them going on that back and forth. This song seems to be my trademark song. I had Maryl greet in Cherokee again and I ‘loosely interpreted’ it. The only word I recognize is ‘Cheezus’…
I preached real good too, on 1 Peter 2:9 about the chosen, royal and holy people! Had a great response at the end and got to pray for many sweet people. A couple of broken arms too! Maybe they will get healed? Stay tuned.
We had an incredible 6 course lunch at a restaurant, till we could eat no more! Before going to PK we sat down in the foyer of the base waiting for our ride and I pulled out my guitar and Nastya (a phenomenal 25 year-old flutist here in Kamchatka) came in with her flute and started playing and Maryl got her flute out and we made a pretty incredibly delicious musical moment complete with interpretive dances by Nastya’s two girls, Anya (Nissa) and Masha (Mazzy). Could have done that all night. We hope to do it again Tuesday night. At 5:30pm we went to PK for a youth service with about 25 young people and I shared a lot of my growing up stories, cello, math, choirs, orchestras, school, teaching, mistakes and all. I had a lot of fun with them. Applied the 1 Peter 2:9 to their lives. Great response. We ended with tea and cookies (we were too full still to eat much) and drove home to a blazing sunset over the frozen tundra.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Lots of food, music, prayer, and then into the teaching just a rich day. I got to introduce the tools of writing good songs for worship and had a lot of fun using a lot of my songs as examples. In the afternoon we headed to Orphanage #2 which turned out to be #5 and we got lost trying to find either one. They don’t have street signs or anything. Apparently everybody just knows where everything is, or else. We took so many back alleys full of potholes (I don’t know how their cars can make it through one year of this abuse – bad stuff – a little worse than Uganda) that we were literally sore stepping out of the car onto terra firma. We finally got to the right orphanage about an hour late. Sad, but they didn’t seem to mind too much, and they brought the kids in and were very attentive (compared to the other orphanage that was on the mild side of chaos – this one was the mild side of mild). They even wanted to sing us some songs, so we got to enjoy about four songs and a poem by these sweet kids. We sang some fun songs with dance steps and I had Maryl play her flute. Then she told the story of David and Goliath but this place said they would not allow any religious references so Maryl changed it to a little boy and a big bully, complete with a subtle moral of violence solving your problems. Slingshots do a masterful job on big bullies, but just stun them to come back another day. (sorta like the ‘A Team’)
Then we showed slides of Uganda and answered questions about Uganda. We ended with ‘Aloha’ of course which is always a big favorite.
We came home, showered, tried to get online for about an hour and gave up and read and studied instead. Limited choices make for similar nights.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Today we had more fun with songwriting. I really enjoy teaching this class. We created a song as a class and I gave them all sorts of pointers on how to make it better, funner, sweeter, etc. Maryl was hurting so she stayed in the room pretty much all day and rested and studied and finished the two books she brought with her. After lunch, I taught all the pianists for an hour and then the guitarists for an hour. It’s fun wearing many hats and feeling good about it all. Still, very tiring.
We met with Nastya for about an hour and a half of wonderful extemporaneous music in many different styles (she is so flexible and capable and obviously misses doing this kind of jamming) I recorded it though not great quality. Maryl did very good playing with her even though she is a little nervous and out of shape on the flute. I’m proud of her for sticking in there. (She is also struggling from the immensity of gluten here. It’s everywhere in everything. Her stomach is constantly in turmoil – prayer). We went upstairs and just watched most of a long movie about Moses (new one – remake of Ten Commandments – grander but poorer writing unfortunately.)
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Up and running early. Breakfast, music, prayers, teaching. But today I had Maryl teach two classes on personal devotions and she was brilliant and of course had the class riveted to their seats (those rivets can hurt sometimes!) I have made all the students very nervous since their ‘test’ on Thursday, is to write a simple song about what we have talked about for two weeks and sing it for me tomorrow! I think my popularity index just went down unfortunately. Friday will probably bring great relief when we lift off in that plane.
We spent the afternoon separating the gifts, designating them to the appropriate people and writing brilliant thank you cards for each (about 12 main people and then a general one to the rest of the school) we are leaving a bunch of cds to listen to in their library, my Ibanez guitar, case and capo; much of my teaching notes and power points, miscellaneous pictures, an electronic copy of my piano book which was very exciting to discover I could do that instead of carrying heavy books around with me everywhere I go. Tomorrow we will distribute all the gifts and thank you cards discreetly (since they say not to do it publicly or everyone expects something).
We are doing okay, but really missing Oregon, the family, N&M and ‘normalcy’ whatever that is! We love you all. We do get an overnight in Moscow which is having a heat wave, so that will be exciting for us. We arrive Saturday night around 10:45pm at PDX. We love you all. Jesus loves Kamchatka. See you in a few days.
Thursday, April 09, 2008
Up for breakfast, prayers, worship. We heard that the Russian Congress today started their session with prayer! The first time ever! It evoked great praise and when we went into our Psalm (40:3) for the day, I lead them in singing intercession for Russia, powerful anointing that was hard to stop.
Teaching today consisted of finishing my notes the first couple of hours and then having each student (22) sing their song that they composed these two weeks. Wow, what a delight to hear such diversity and creativity come out of these quiet Russian students. Some were profound even though we don’t understand Russian. Some were funny. Different styles, different instruments, different moods and thoughts. I love it. This is the fun part of what we do, releasing them to do it. They were so excited to hear each others too. They cheered each other on. One man, Slava, just shook the whole time in nervousness but he did an excellent job, plus he accompanied himself on the guitar that he had only learned in this last year. Amazing. One woman wept while she sang sweet words over her land. One lady had the whole class help her sing her song, men then women. One guy, Little John (Ivan), asked me to play piano for him, which I don’t think helped him at all, but we worked through it and by the end everybody was singing along. It was interesting to hear people sing along with songs they didn’t even know because there were good ‘hooks’ in them that they crafted to bring people into the song. (I talked a lot about that). One lady asked me to play guitar for her and we clicked immediately and it worked wonderfully. So many songs, the two hours flew by, and besides being relieved that the nerve-wracking part was over, there was great delight and confidence that they could write a song and grow in the craft in time. Fun times.
We had lunch with the pastor and Boris and Tatiana in the Fox Burrow in Yelisova, wonderful meal. In the evening, back at PK I played guitar during the worship time and then sang my Portuguese song ‘Alegria’ and had a lot of fun with that, and then introduced Maryl to preach. She did a great job expressing sweet and beautiful and profound looks at God’s love in scripture, stories and her own life. She is really getting good. Pretty soon I can just let her preach and I will just teach and do a few songs.
Came back to the base to pack and finish up some details. Finished packing about 1:30am. Solid sleep. Last night in Kamchatka.
Friday, April 11, 2008
7:30am who set that alarm for so early? Finished our packing details and got down to a great hot rice cereal (Kasha) with jam swirled in…mmmm. We had a wonderful time of music, worship, prayer and dance (they even did Hava Nagila this morning, complete with dance) it all just evolved into our going-home party. They did all sorts of dances and even got Maryl and I to try the Koryak dance. I am hoping this is not the beginning of some cruel trend of having Tim embarrass himself with your local native dance. Maryl said I did okay though. They shared many warm comments, gave us some sweet gifts, and then we expressed our thanks and gratitude to them and how proud we are of them and what God is doing in them in Kamchatka. We presented my guitar as a gift to the School as well as many miscellaneous cds I brought from home, and gave them each a piece of Almond Roca. We love giving and giving more everywhere we go. We have been so blessed. So many tears, lots of hugs and kisses on the cheeks. The big moment was when they pulled out a song that they wrote for us and they sang it very robustly as only Kamchatkans can:
Blessed are these days, O Tim and Mary
We are so sorry that these days are over, O Tim and Mary,
We will always remember you
By the spirit of your mouth,
You burned our hearts with great love, O Tim and Mary
Come back to us soon as possible
Kamchatka is waiting for friends.
And guitar-players, piano-players, drum-players, flute-players, violin-players and all singers.
Otherwise would come to Aloha
And we will sing funny jass [sic] all together!
Then they broke into a spontaneous call back and forth with Sasha saying:
Aloha
Kamchatka
Uganda (they know all about Uganda everywhere here now)
Forever
I hope to get the video of this amazing moment. Powerful for us. The loudest I heard them sing all week.
Well, then Pastor Don Finley from Salem arrived for his week of teaching so we updated him and then said goodbye to everybody and loaded up the car and drove off to the airport. Hard but exciting.
Boris and Pastor Anatoly helped us get on, and setup the contact again in Moscow to pick us up and take us to the hotel. A sweet Koryak brother went with us on the same plane and helped us figure out where everything was in Moscow before he headed out to St. Petersburg. The plane ride of course was grueling 9 hours, I slept a little, but Maryl didn’t. we found out we forgot my camera on my seat in the plane and have yet to hear back from Aeroflot to see if they found it. Sergey (Timofea’s brother) met us at Terminal 1 to take us to the hotel. Again, he didn’t speak any English so it was a short ride to the hotel with a few awkward words back and forth, though I think he has a burden for Serbia, Kosovo and is going there as a missionary some day.
At the hotel we just crashed for 8 hours (4pm-midnight) and now have been up for hours and feeling great after a good night sleep, soft bed, shower, hot water, catching up on the news on CNN and now getting online. We fly out in 6 hours from Moscow to NYC (10 hour flight) then NYC to PDX (6 ½ hour flight) and home at 10:21pm. What a whirlwind, but we made it. A lot of great memories and safe and sound, new friends, new songs, new opportunities in God. Thank you all for your prayers and support over these two weeks. We sensed it very much. Please pray for our last two flights home today.
We love you all,
Tired Tim and Maryl