Check for photos - high speed.

I just posted several photos (finally at the inet salon where there's high speed inet)

The following posts have photos now:
7/29 My man purse
7/29 Money
7/26 Changing a Light Bulb
7/26 Mosquitos in the Cul-de-sac
6/27 Escaping the Pink Bathroom

The good news... maybe. Tomorrow at 10am I'm meeting with the internet folks to see if they can install high speed in my apartment. Please PRAY!

I'll keep you all posted.

At the Train Station

Vok-zal. That’s the Russian word for train station. I was just there with my new friend Sasha (or Sasa as Amy likes to call him). He’s a second year University student and right now he’s thinking of being an interpreter. Mostly we speak Russian together – which is great for me, but his English skill definitely surpasses my Russian right now.

Anyway – we’re going to the Altay Mountain trip together. We’re supposed to leave on Thursday this week. The problem is when we talked about getting tickets like 3 weeks ago, they said it was too early to buy them. So we waited until today. We went to the Vokzal and

Well, now they’re saying that there aren’t any tickets available. And that we should check back on Wednesday.

Amy’s gone

It’s pouring rain in Tyumen today and that’s just fine with me, because it actually suites my mood. Amy left this morning for America (via Moscow and London) and I’m really sad. I’ve been keeping myself really busy today which has been good for me. I really struggle with letting myself experience lots of sad emotions. Amy and I cried together quite a bit on Tuesday this week and then again on Friday – actually I don’t remember ever crying that much in my entire life. I cried when my parents drove away the weekend before I moved to Russia -- it's so hard to say good-bye to those you love. Sheesh. I can’t imagine what it’s like for Jesus to love all of us so much and to be separated from us (John 19 – He leaves His mother).

America!

My second phone call! But this one was for longer than an hour! Yippie. Thanks for calling Todd. It was so nice to just talk and know that everything I said would be completely understood. I’m going to be completely out of commission as far as the phone is concerned for about two weeks in August and then again in August for some time after that. On August 3rd I head to Novosibirsk on a hiking excursion I’ll be back on August 17th and then sometime after that I’ll be headed to Estonia to renew my visa. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll fly to Moscow or St. Petersburg to take the train/bus from there or if I should train it all the way. Jim & Sally recommended a flight with a train – I’ll keep you posted.

My man purse

Guess who has a ‘murse’? That’s what Amy and I call the man purse almost every guy in Russia has. They call it a soom-ka. It simply means bag, but I’m telling you - it’s a man purse. You gotta carry one though. Your keys couldn’t possible fit in your pocket. Oh, yeah – just realized that I don’t have a picture of my keys for you to see yet. I’ll take one – I promise.

This is me and my murse

Here are my keys

420 years

Tyumen is 420 years old today. It’s a BIG celebration. Last night there were fireworks and tonight again. I couldn’t see any of them from my flat because I live on the second floor and they are higher than the angle I can see from my apartment. It’s crazy to live in a city that’s older than my country. Whoa.

It’s crazy how big the celebration is. Yeah – it’s been raining all day today, but the people came out in droves and stores even closed early (yeah – I showed up at one store 3 minutes after they closed). Bummer.

I wish I’d taken some pictures of the crowds today – but I wimped out to protect my camera.

Money

You never really think about how easy it is to make change or to buy something at the store. I’m almost finally to the point that when something costs 1872 Rubles I can actually hear the number only once or twice and be ready to pay… but then you’ve gotta figure out the actual money. I mean the coins and the bills. You see all Russian coins have only 2 different backs. The Rubles (1, 2, 5, 10) and the Kopeek (1, 5, 10, 50 -- it's pronounced ka-pay-ick). So tonight – I sat down, poured a handful of change on my desk and started just making change. I’m pretty good with the bills as only the 10’s and 100’s can be easily confused. Living in a new culture really is like they taught us at PILAT. Becoming a child all over again.

Some Russian money

Changing a light bulb

How many M’s does it take to change a light bulb?

The correct answer is two. Both Amy and I were required to change the light bulb in the study in my flat. You see, the light has never worked in there since I’ve lived here. I turned off the power for the entire flat so that I could use a pair of pliers and my leatherman tool (thanks Todd! Christmas 2003). The woman who lived here before me apparently cross threaded the light bulb. So when I was attempting to remove the dead bulb, the glass part separated from the metal part. So then a month went by without light in that room. Well, I’m ready to clean it and make it my study so that I can start studying Russian in earnest (all seven boxes of books that I shipped here have arrived (thanks Ashley)).

So Amy was shining a flashlight up at the ceiling (it’s a bit overcast here the past couple of days) and I’m using a pair of leatherman scissors and a pair of pliers to remove the light bulb. Well, with a few prayers muttered and some patience… it’s DONE! There is now light in the study. Now to clean it. Dust, vacuum, clean out the desk and mop the floors. The place is dirty – but we’ll tame it.

The light socket in the bathroom that also needed fixing

Mosquitoes in the cul-de-sac

Did you know that I’m a light sleeper? I guess it’s something that lots of folks just don’t know about other people -- our sleep patterns. Well, I’m such a light sleeper that I routinely travel with ear plugs and an eye mask. Wow, that’s like a secret confession or something. Any way. Mosquitoes are really bad in Russia – even in the city and it’s actually incredibly common for people to have anti mosquito repellant stuff in their homes. I’ve got this little contraption that I plug into the wall at light that lasts for 30 nights to kill mosquitoes while I’m sleeping… somehow they still manage to buzz in my ear though. (yes, with the earplugs in – and yes, the windows are closed too…)

Oh, my flat has an awesome location too. It’s on the second floor (so nice in a building without an elevator). And it’s on the end of the building (called a house here). So I’m on the end of the building where they pick up trash every other day at about 5:30 in the morning. And it’s also near the park in our yard where the young people hang out until 3 in the morning. Which is really great for my Russian practice as I’m listening to them talking sometimes.

Please know that I’m writing all of this with a smile on my face and sarcasm. Everything is really great! I’m getting enough rest, although I’m thinking that the custom of napping in the afternoon for a bit is a really, really good idea. Did I mention that language learning and acculturation are both really exhausting? It’s going great though.

Here's me and Amy taping my bed cushions together so I can sleep through the night

They separate in the middle of the night and I wake up when my butt sags!

Time is Ticking Away

Everything seems to take more time here. Let me tell you about grocery shopping. First there are LOTS and LOTS of little shops everywhere. You can pick up the basics really easily. Bread, milk, butter, tea, cookies, etc. It’s a bit scary to comment that usually an ENTIRE wall is taken up with beer and alcohol. I’m really not kidding that it’s easily a third of most stores. Anyway. So, Amy and I went to this store nearby called Passazh. It’s a really convenient and wonderful grocery store (with carts and everything). It’s a bit more expensive I think though – but I’m just starting to do comparison shopping. The first issue is just deciding what we’re going to eat. I’m trying to make sure to try something new every day – and then to continue trying something new at least on a weekly basis… probably more frequently, but small goals first. And I’m allowing myself to eat one meal every week that’s just straight up American feeling. So – we were shopping and we found several items. Then you realize that you just bought a can of vegetables. And you can’t open them without the can opener. So you go in search of that. Then you want some salt and you realize that you don’t have a salt container (still don’t have one of those). The bread is incredible, baked fresh every day – but you cut it yourself at home, and I just don’t seem to have the skill perfected yet to cut it very thin. (like just under an inch – but it makes MARVELOUS grilled cheese). So you finally go to the checkout counter – freak out that you can spend just as much money buying food in Russia as you did in America and the clerk really doesn’t make change… she wants you to search through every single coin that you have to find a single kopeek coin that’s worth about 1/30th of one cent!

Then you have to carry all of it home… on foot.

Oh, and you haven’t started cooking yet! I’m really loving it to be honest. The pace of life is just really different and my multi-tasking self is really being stretched and I’m learning so much about patience. With myself as much as with the new culture.

Thanks for all of your prayers.

Text Messaging

Text Messaging in Russia. I must have arrived to some extent right? I was about to go to bed last night when my mobile (mow-BILE, that’s what we call cell phones here) made a strange beep. Took me a second to understand that the screen message meant that I had a text message. Sweet! It was from Igor’ (the almost 19 year old that I’ve known since 2001). So I’ve started to enter into the youth scene already by being a text messaging dude. I’ve gotta be honest though… T9 in Russian is hard. No spelling errors allowed. I can’t type so to speak on my phone in Russian. I can type in English, but to do Russian I have to use the smart phone feature and use T9. Basically, T-9 is this sweet feature of cell phones (in the US too) that allows you to press each key only once and the phone tries to guess what word you’re typing. So… it’s strange to be here with so many of the advances of home. Just two years ago when I was here it was all so different. I’m not sure yet whether I think it’s a good thing or not. Western culture is invading everything. Seriously – technology is making our world so much smaller.

At the Children’s Home

That’s what the Russians call the orphanage, the children’s home. There’s a second name too, which ironically enough is only one letter different from the Russian word for Internet (it sounds like Intranat). So you can easily see why I was confused that we were going to spend our afternoon at the Internet with a bunch of kids.

The second session of camp was packed with 100some kids and 1/3 of them were orphans. One of these orphanages just happens to be in Talitsa, so Amy and I had the opportunity to go and visit.

The system is so strange to us in Russia. Not all of the kids in the orphanage have no parents. In fact of about 150 kids, only about 40 have no parents. So 110 of the kids go home for the summer. Their parents want them home to work on the fields and help out. About another 1/3 of the kids have parents who are alcoholics or who are in prison. They have been sent to the orphanage by the government. Then there is the last 1/3. Their parents either can’t afford them or don’t want them. So they drop them off at the orphanage. It’s really tough to know that these kids remember (most of them) that mom or dad dropped them off, because they didn’t want them anymore.

So when the opportunity came to go and visit with about 12 kids who were at camp who live in an orphanage, Amy and I jumped at the chance. About 30 or so of the kids at the orphanage actually came to spend time with us. We sang songs from camp, played games, gave them some candy and shared our testimonies with all of them.

This is gonna blow your mind: I talked for about 15 or 20 minutes straight in Russian. And everyone understood. I didn’t even really make any mistakes for the first half of it either! It was really cool. I could tell that G-d was helping me to communicate, because words were just tumbling out of my mouth that I didn’t even know that I knew! I told them about growing up, about losing my mom, about the joy of a second parent. I talked about Our Father and how He loves us. I talked about how I was called to come and work in Russia and that He has a plan for all of our futures (Jer 29:11)

Puke Flavor

I’m really not kidding. Puke Flavored medicine. You see, most everyone that I know is sick right now. We’ve all been at camp together for the past 20some days and I guess that we’re all a little too run down. It starts with just being a bit run-down, then progresses to sore throat, hacking up … stuff and feeling just yicky. Well, I had the great blessing of living at camp next to a Russian who told me the name of a good throat lozenge. So I knew what to ask for at the Pharmacy when I got back to Tyumen.

So that really helped for a couple of days. And then the razor blade feeling started in my throat. So, while I was walking home from Jim and Sally’s on Friday night – I stopped at the 24 hour pharmacy that is so conveniently located about 1 block from my flat. Seriously - Tyumen is a different city now… 24 hour pharmacy. So I just told the pharmacist that I needed something stronger to fix my throat. I told her that I was an American and that I didn’t know what medicine I needed – but that my throat hurt badly and that the lozenges weren’t enough.

That’s how I met the puke flavored medicine. It’s a mist that you spray in your mouth (which is awful too, because it mists… so you can’t control that it goes straight to the back of your throat). Anyway – the first dose actually brought tears to my eyes and I ran to the bathroom (either to spit it out or to heave). I spit it out, you can all feel safe. So then I steeled myself for another dose and tried to take it like a man.

So, I’m getting better now – but it’s rough. All of you at home in the US - please enjoy the tasty medicines that you have. I appreciate it SO much more now!

So your prayers for physical health will be greatly appreciated by Jim, Sally, Amy, and myself! Thanks.

Location Location Location

Well, isn’t there just humor in this world of ours? Turns out that the University where I’ll be taking classes and teaching has multiple locations about the city. The one that’s closest to my house turns out to NOT be where I’ll be teaching/studying. Instead it’s a 40 minute walk. In a way, I think I’m going to appreciate this. I’ll think of it as a built in exercise regimen. I am disappointed though, as I’d hoped to be able to easily invite students over to my flat for tea and start making friends and start an English club. I’m still hoping to start a Bible study – and the location of the campus where I’ll be teaching is closer to the Cultural Center.

Eavesdropping

Did I really just listen in on someone else’s conversation? That was exciting. And I didn’t translate everything in my head either. I just got it. Yeah, so they were just talking about something really simple – but you gotta celebrate the small stuff! So here’s a small party at my flat! I think I’ll have a second cup of tea to celebrate. Yeah – we drink LOTS of tea here… I’ve even got a tea set now. Look out kids – uncle Jeff can through a mean tea party now.

Camp Blog 3: acting

There's a guy here named Igor'. We call him Papa Daring. He's the boys coordinator, 22 years old, full of energy, dancing, singing, and acting. he's in charge of the ongoing camp drama based on Bill Bright's Child of the King.

I have a medium sized roll in the camp drama and I'm telling you it's drama I'm stuggling just to learn my lines, let alone deliver them with the appropriate feeling. And I have to almost die in one seen and I become a child of the king in the last scene. Yikes!

It's been really fun though in reality and i'm connecting as a camp staff member in a different way. I'm truly being viewed as a co-worker and not as an american helper.

Camp Blog 2: orphans

There are several orphans here at camp which is of particular interest to Amy as she's felt called to work with orphans and widows in the past. It's really interesting to see how typical and atypical they are of what we think of for orphans.

Sergei: he's the daddy of the bunch. the tough guy. don't mess with me. He worked on establishing right off that (for some reason) I should be scared of him. He acted like he couldn't understand my russian and spoke as quickly as he possibly could to make it hard for me to understand him. super competitive and sports and with a HUGE chip on his shoulder. I had to talk to dad about dealing with him - but he's come around. He lives in the orphanage in Tyumen' and has promised to stay in touch.

Zhenya: whoa. the worst of it all. screetches, runs around, doesn't obey, smokes (seriously addicted) and in general a bad kid. On the third or fourth day, his counselor asked me to 'babysit' for the morning and it literally started off with me running from one end of camp to the other. Then we went 'berry picking' which was really an excuse to try and get cigarettes from people who work at the camp. When that fell through, he was seriously hurting for a nicotine fix and wanted to get kicked out of camp so he could have a cigarette. He was a problem throughout the session to the point of 'threatening' to run away from the bus so that he could stay for the second session.

pasha: crazy - went swimming in 40 degree weather. says he likes it

lena: a really tough girl who beat most of the boys at sports. a loner a bit, and a deep seeded lonliness. didn't have much interaction with her because she's a girl, but if you think of her say something nice to dad.

pasha: gosh, what a cute kid. he's probably 8 or 9 years old and really wants to be a good kid. he's just had a lot of bad examples set before him.

Camp Blog: 1 the beginning.

We're at camp and really enjoying getting back into the swing of things. Kids have arrived and it's so cool to be with them singing and enjoying themselves. I especially love singing a few new songs that are accompanied with many motions and this year we have an LCD projector! Can you even believe it?!

It was also really wonderful to be able to help out. I know that sometimes being the resident geek isn't the best because you end up fixing everything. But there's another resident geek (more like the sound board man) but he didn't know how to set up the computer to be both on screen and on the computer and I do - so it was an easy fix and solved a huge problem for him.

There are only about 60 kids at camp which is really lower than what we usually have. The camp has only one american team coming to visit and therefore we're short on money so the kids all need to pay full price (except orphans who are paid by the state).