july 8-9

July 8 – 9
We walked around yesterday afternoon and Michael fixed dinner later in the evening for the two of us, Kira, and her roommate Zena, who 18 years old and an art student and is hilarious. We are slowly learning some Russian and Zena is doing a great job of teaching us the language. She always gets so excited when we say the word correctly and it is so precious! Kira, Michael, Brandon and I went walking around some more after dinner, played some air hockey at the movie theater, and ended up getting some tea and some snacks at a small cafe and talking for a while before coming home to call it a night. Kira’s flat is great and very spacious, s we are all staying there during our time here. Kira is sleeping in Zena’s room (she has two beds in there), I am sleeping in Kira’s room, and Brandon and Michael are sleeping on the fold out couch in the living room. We prayed together and hearing Kira and Zena pray in Russian is quite moving. I can pick up a few words, but the passion behind them is what makes all the difference. You can tell just by their tone their urgency and love for the Lord. I’m excited to see relationships grow with them while we are here.
Today we had scrambled eggs for breakfast and the five of us staying at Kira’s had a bible study after breakfast about obedience to the Lord. Kira has such a strength and a heart of obedience that her example is such an encouragement. Zena took the guys and I around to a couple of second hand stores (thrift stores basically with clothes from Europe and the states) before we met up with Kira for lunch. We walked around and ended up eating at a small cafeteria type restaurant for students and workers that had traditional Russian food. Some of us had borsch, a hot vegetable type soup, is a local favorite and was quite delicious. Cabbage is also very popular and this drink, kompot, which is common and that looked like there were nuts floating at the bottom of water, but that tasted pretty good. We met up with a guy, Sasha, that Kira had talked to before but never met, in the plaza under the statue of Stalin and talked for a while and watched the skateboarders before grabbing some ice cream and walking around downtown. We went to the movie theater to play some air hockey, and got some dinner at a vegetarian friendly restaurant (Sasha is one), and found a place to go play Russian billiards together another night since it was getting late. Sasha is not a believer, but we think a path has been opened up to share the Gospel which is so exciting! Relationships are beginning to form and we are thankful for that.