Weekend in Russia

Saturday June 28th

We took your advice and had a wonderful day in Russia. Yesterday we had moved to another hotel which was across the bridge on the other side of the river. Our translator told us we would need to take a taxi to get to the main street in town that takes you to the Kremlin. Well, we decided that if we could get across the bridge, we could just walk there. So we set off down the river and when we got closer we noticed that people were indeed walking over the bridge. It is a car bridge but has sides for pedestrians. We walked across, got some good pictures, and then went up 250 stairs up the side of the bluff. From there we knew exactly how to get to the main street. It took us about an hour to walk and it was a beautiful day to be outside.

We did some shopping and found a very nice restaurant that had a menu in english. The food was great as we sat outside, talked, and watched the many people who walked by. Finally, we walked back to our hotel.

We woke up today with a new look at what is ahead and what we need and will try to do. It's amazing what some time and a good night's sleep can do. This morning I read Psalm 100. Starting with verse 4 it says; "Enter His gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations." It was a good reminder to me to continue to be thankful to the Lord in our circumstances and that He is always faithful.

Sunday June 29th

We had a wonderful day meeting new people and worshiping at a Russian evangelical church. We learned about Pastor Vlad from friends of ours in Grand Rapids. Vlad graciously gave us a wonderful tour of Nizhny on Tuesday and we thought we would not see him again this trip since we were to leave Thursday night. We called him last night to get the details of his church service (time, location, etc.) and he quickly arranged for us to be brought to the church and to have a translator at the church for us.

After church we went out to eat with a family from the church. The wife teaches English to students studying Economics at the local university. We enjoyed talking with them and hearing their testimony, and learning more about the ministry of their church. We now have people in the US and Russia praying for us about our adoption. God is so good.

This church was started in the late 90’s due to the missionary work of our friends in Grand Rapids (Wade and Connie). It grew and became self-sustaining and Wade turned it over eventually to be pastored by Vlad. It is now is a growing church of 150 believers.

Vlad spoke on Mark 10: 13-16. Christ was exhorting the disciples to have a child-like faith. Children believe in people that they trust. They don’t need to know all of the intellectual details in order to believe. As people grow in Christ, they learn more of the details and their faith is strengthened.

It was an appropriate message for us. Putting our faith in the details of what is going on and in what we know is not at all encouraging. Trusting God to work out the details as He knows is best gives us hope. That really summarized this whole adoption process for us thus far. It has all been about faith. Faith that we were supposed to adopt Anjaela in the first place. Faith that we should adopt again. And faith that despite the many delays and hassles and expenses that we have experienced that we should continue in the process.

Tomorrow, plan A for us is to go early to the ministry of education to try to accomplish all that we had hoped to do on Friday (see previous blog entry). We would then travel to Moscow by train in the evening and out of Moscow on July 1st. Based on the track record that we have seen thus far, plan A is not likely to occur as we would hope. We don’t know what plan B is yet. The bottom line is that God is in control and we can trust that whether it is plan A, B, or whatever that it will all work out for the good.

Thanks again for your prayers for us.