Talking with Oleg

I had a surprise meeting today too. I'm still in Yekaterinburg. Well, anyway - I was going to stay with Nikita in his dormitory, but his mother surprised us and appeared in Yekaterinburg for the evening and insisted that I stay in nicer accommodations. So there is a place there called the Ch!stian Center that has several rooms and acts like a hotel. I had a room there with my own private toilet and bath! This is really an AMAZING occurrence and I slept like the dead!

Anyway, I digress. So when I arrived at the Center to go to bed, I bumped into Oleg. Oleg was the technical director at summer camp the past several years. I have to be honest that up to this point, I was really disappointed to not stay with Nikita, because I was engrossed in a conversation with a group of his friends at the dormitory and had to leave because it was curfew for them. Well, G0d had different plans all along.

Oleg is 27 years old and gave up his successful career as an aeronautical engineer to work part-time at a school and part-time at the Center. He has completed their B!ble school and teaches and works with the youth there. He was feeling a bit down, because his family thinks he's CRAZY. They don't understand that sometimes we have to give up what we think is important for something that we KNOW is more important. And that it's okay to sacrifice the silly things of the world for more eternal and SIGNIFICANT things. So we talked for a good long time about life, youth, and the downward spiral of morality.

It was really nice to be able to encourage him and to lift him up. One of his biggest concerns was getting married… He's 27 and it's rare to not be married in Russia (or America) by that time. So he's discouraged that he's not met the right girl. It was incredible to be able to share with him that waiting is okay. I'm 35 and waiting has been the smartest thing I've ever done. G0d rewards the patience and brings along an incredible woman like Amy!