Here are highlights from our wonderful Kamchatka trip. Thanks for the prayers, covering and support to make this time such a great success with complete safety, total health and daily energy. God is so good.
· Thursday, March 27, 2008
We made it all the way to Kamchatka across 20 time zones through NYC and Moscow, albeit very weary, tired, and disheveled. They did manage to lose the guitar somewhere but we got it two days later at the airport in PK (Petropavlovsk – capital city of Kamchatka @350,000 people)
· Saturday, March 29, 2008
The pastor (Anatoli), an interpreter (Katia) and the head of the School of Worship (Vlad) met us at the airport and helped us get our stuff and then shuttled us back to the base, which is an old Communist Youth Camp – for retraining the youth – and a Communist Radio Station. It continued to stay around 30 degrees or lower so we are pretty cold most of the time. Saturday night we were privileged to go to a concert with the world famous Kamchatka Chamber Orchestra (the principal violist is the worship director at the church and the head of the school of worship). They did a delightful hour and a half of dance music through the ages. We found out they had daylight savings starting Sunday so we lost an hour already besides the 20 going east!
· Sunday, March 30, 2008
Sunday morning we were off to the church in PK (Petropavlovsk, the capital city where the main church is). About 45 min. later we arrived at the astounding sight of the church complete with a big blue and white domed roof with a big cross on it. It was astounding to see this building since four years ago we had dedicated the support beams and the basement was barely done. Now they meet in the finished basement that’s all toasty and heated and filled with wonderful people and a fun worship team that did so many different styles and flavors of music that it was simply a blast to watch and participate when we could (it is all in Russian so we said a lot of ‘watermelons’ and ‘la-la-las’ – they were impressed) 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) 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 actions. 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.
· Monday, March 31, 2008
Back at the base where the School of Worship is held, they have 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 on the third floor of the dormitory. I taught four times on the Vision of Worship, 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. 22 official students with a few more sitting in. After a good lunch of Russian soup and ‘sandwiches’ (bread with jam) Maryl taught a class on dance. In the evening, Maryl got ready to teach another class on personal prayer life to many small group leaders at the PK church, and apparently did a great job in PK all alone, since I stayed behind to rest, shower and study for tomorrow.
· Tuesday, April 1, 2008:
Maryl led a small prayer discussion at 7:30am that led to a lot of inspiration in the whole school. Then we dove into the classes for the day. Boris B. (my friend and interpreter 4 years ago) came in and did an outstanding job of course. 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. At the volcano, they had us go up on a sledge towed by a snowmobile. 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 Koryatsky, 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. Another day, another adventure. We faced the jungles of Uganda, and now we have faced the wilds of Kamchatka and survived to tell it.
· Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Great morning with 4 classes on leading worship. Really got them going today with lots of examples, songs, and fun. We begin every days’ sessions with a Psalm for the day (I do 5 a day, read, sing, pray) where I have them read it out loud together with passion, then we set up a chord progression and have them sing the psalm all the way through, then I have them pray a scripture with a certain emphasis and finally I would have one person boldly sing their prayer over the class. By the end of the two weeks they were pros at this format, and we had many prophetic, and emotional moments as God sang among us from His word. 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.
· Thursday, April 3, 2008
Fun morning with a birthday celebration of Andre, the 35 year-old who drove the snowmobiles Tuesday. After 4 more great classes on leading and working with their lists and some great brainstorming between us (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. 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 ‘your 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? That night at the PK church for a service where I preached a stunning sermon about something (John 4 the woman at the well). 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.
· Friday, April 4
We had only three classes today so they could have a small group at the end. I taught on working with teams and got to use a lot of fun examples on the guitar and piano on what not to do. We got some good discussions going. After lunch, we went to Orphanage #3 in Kamchatka, overlooking the whole beautiful valley and mountains. I introduced us 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 and it was the coolest moment, without guile and totally uninhibited she just kept dancing. Then we did some flute and guitar and danced some more with all of them. 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. Great time with 56 wonderful kids. Isus shavoy! (Jesus is alive)
· Saturday, April 5, 2008
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.
· Sunday, April 6, 2008
Pastor Vladimir (2nd generation Korean descendent, very funny) picked us up and brought us to the church in Yelisova. 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. 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 again 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! 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.
· Monday, April 07, 2008
Today 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. 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. Then we showed slides of Uganda and answered questions about Uganda. We ended with ‘Aloha’ of course which is always a big favorite.
· 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. 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 (a wonderful flautist) 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).
· Wednesday, April 9, 2008
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!) 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.
· 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 had 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. 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. In the evening, back at the PK church I 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.
· Friday, April 11, 2008
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 Koriak 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. 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
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.
The flight home of course was grueling but an overnight in a nice Moscow hotel with sleep and showers and soft beds to give us a breather between flights. Then 10 hours to NYC and 5 ½ hours to PDX (home!) What a whirlwind (20 time zones in 48 hours), but we made it. I did leave my expensive camera and digital recorder on the Russian plane and they couldn’t find it. So we lost that plus some great video of our last day. Sad but overshadowed by a wonderfully successful and full trip to our friends in Kamchatka. A lot of great memories and safe and sound, new friends, new songs, new opportunities in God. Worship leaders were equipped, teams formed, musicians released, songwriters unleashed, orphans touched, congregations encouraged and inspired, lives changed and leaders strengthened. Maryl and I spoke over 50 times in two weeks! and never lost our voices! Thank you all for your prayers and support over these two weeks. We sensed it very much. We will never be the same, and neither will Kamchatka!
We love you all,
Your worship missionaries,
Tim and Maryl Smith
Worship Without Borders
www.wwob.org