Слава Богу!!!!!!! (Praise God)

I am so thankful for notebooks... seriously, I am a journaling person... and it's at times like these that I remember why I love it so much! I feel like we've been here for a week! We have done so many different things and seen so many different kids that I feel like I could write 10 posts and not give you all the details of the past 2 days!

I'm going to give you the short(er) version!!!

Sunday:
The day started with Nastya (one of the graduates that we came to see) meeting us at Slava's house. We took the trolleybus (bc we're so russian), and met Viktor and then went to the Baptist church. The service was long, and we couldn't understand..... BUT the reason I love going there is because of what comes after the service... I have made some great connections in the past with some college age people there, so we stayed and hand lunch at the church with them. They are always so welcoming! It was a great time of fellowship and encouragement. Also, at this church there is a rehabilitation center for boys/young men that are struggling with alcohol and drugs. We met a young man who is living there and heard his story of redemption through Christ.... it was great to hear what the Lord is doing there. After that we went to the Coffee Bean (be jealous Ricardo!!!!) and got our traditional cheese sandwich and cappuccino and had a great talk with Nastya about the Lord. She had a chance to tell us her story and it was great to get that time with her. We then went to Slava's church (the pastor that we are staying with). Many of the students from our orphanage have started to attend this church, and so it is so amazing to walk in and see faces of students that we already know and love.... and they are sitting in a place where they will here scriptural truth about Christ. I am just SO amazed! After a great service, we were able to get to talk to Valdemar and his friend Ruslan. Ruslan is living in a transition home for orphan graduates, and he shared about his experience so far with that. The pastor of the church with the transition home took us on a tour of the transition home... and it was there that he told us that in the Ryazan Region alone there are 3,000 students living in orphanages.... how heartbreaking. Finally, to end the night, we took some of the kids for dinner and then went bowling! Some graduates from the orphanage, some girls from the baptist church, some from Slava's church...... it was great to see the Lord making connections between all the different church bodies represented there..... also that night, Nastya spent the night with us and we were able to have some quality time just hanging out with her! What a day... and God provided us many opportunities to talk about His Son!


Monday:
Monday started early again... we realized that we hadn't registered here yet (this is a very big deal.... when you leave Russia, they look at your visa application and look at the place where you registered upon arrival and they make sure that you came to the place where you said you were going -- a person may run into problems if they do not follow protocol). After running errands, we headed out to the orphanage. We were prayerfully approaching the situation of going to the orphanage but we'll just say this --- the Lord completely worked out EVERYTHING! We met with the director and then when we left her office, all I saw were sweet little faces RUNNING up to us to hug us and say hello..... man, my heart is breaking for these kids. We ended up spending 4 hours there!!!!! We sat in the craft room with kids of all ages coming in and out, but we were able to spend some time with them...... and see them smile. I fee like it's not that often that they smile.... i mean really smile... anyway; one of my favorite parts was seeing Zhenya (a boy I met when he was 12)... for some reason God has drawn me to him... he has been one of the ones I've had a huge burden for... and I got to talk to him for a good while.... and I saw God make a connection between him and the pastor that went with us.... man, God is SO good... I can't even do justice to what He is doing with this little (yeah, ok, not so little) blog post. After leaving the orphanage we called some friends and decided to take some graduates and some friends/translators to a pizza place for dinner... what a GREAT time of fellowship, laughter, and conversation.... man, GOD IS GOOD!

I feel like there is so much more... but if you want to hear, trust me we'll be happy to tell you when we get home!:)


Prayer Requests:
- that we would have another chance to go to the orphanage
- get the graduates connected to local believers who can pour into them
- continue to be aware of opportunities to talk about the Lord
- that the Lord would give us energy & rest in the midst of our crazy schedule! (we have had full days and not full sleep :)
- we would be able to get in contact with graduates that we have not yet seen
- for our friend Keith Doyle as he travels to Russia and arrives Tuesday!!!!


*** Funny story to follow.... disclaimer.... if you're tired of reading.... you can skip this part..... it's of no spiritual significance or really important at all.... but it sure was funny!!!!*****

(Pause for Background: At the orphanage, Erin's camera battery died, then my camera battery died, then on the way home, our phone battery died.... so when we got home, I was going to post a blog before going to pizza... but our laptop was dead.... so....)

Resume story...

Charly: 'ugh! it's dead... like everything else'
Erin: 'yeah, like your attitude'
Charly: 'bahah, that's not nice'
Crazy laughter ensues.......
(10 minutes later in the Taxi)
Charly: 'You know, I was talking about electronics, not life in general'
Erin: 'Ok, so you either just said, 'My elctronics are not life eternal' or 'my electronics are not a live turtle'
Charly: 'bahahahhahhaah'
Erin: 'bahahahahaa'

I'm sure this Russian Taxi driver is thinking he's driving two crazy americanski's around!!!! Man, can you tell we're sleep deprived!!?!?!