july 13-14

July 13 – 14

Sunday morning we had a church service/bible study at Kira’s apartment. Two gentlemen joined the five of us and we sang some hymns and Kira went through some scripture and we had a time of prayer. Kira did the lesson in Russian, so it was a bit difficult to follow, but we read the scripture in a circle and read in whatever language was our own so that was pretty cool and the same with prayer. After lunch Kira and Michael met some people to go see a movie, and Brandon, Zena, one of her friends Katia, and I hung out at the apartment for the day. After the movie, everyone returned to the apartment for a big group dinner where we got a chance to talk with some youth over tea and hang out with them so that was a lot of fun. The Lord is moving despite the language barrier for sure. We have created a language of gestures and sounds to communicate with Zena that has some Russian and English words but mostly just noises and it is so hilarious to watch from the outside but it make perfect sense to us. Pictures and diagrams are also frequently used. It’s kind of like playing a mixture of Pictionary and Charades to have a conversation.

Monday (today) we had some errands to do and bus tickets to buy so we spent the later part of the morning and early afternoon out and about town. We met up with some friends after a quick Russian fast food dinner to hang out for a while Kira went home for a bit. The place we went to was a billiards, bowling, restaurant, hangout place and was really quite nice. We played Russian billiards which is similar to pool but with all white balls and one dark ball and played on a much larger table with smaller holes. You can hit any ball with any other ball and you just count how many each team hits in to see who wins. The guys played (and I played a little as well!) and the girls talked over some cokes and we all shared some sushi and it was a great time of believers and non-believers hanging out together and us being able to share the love of Christ through just “being” and speaking when the opportunities come up. After billiards we came back to the apartment for tea and cookies to meet up with Zena and some other friends.

All in all our time here is going well, despite some difficulties in language. But the Lord is moving despite all of the barriers that come up. The only way to describe our time here so far is to use an often-overused phrase that a friend reminded us of recently. God works in mysterious ways :) and we are so thankful for that!