Week One

Moscow in the summer is green. 

Every day, to get to the metro, I walk through a maze of tall, grey apartment buildings, past ponds and children on playgrounds, past thousands of trees and cheap little fruit stands.

The metro comes every 40-60 seconds and so on the platform, we never wait. When the doors open  throngs crowd in and throngs hurry out. We try to find an empty seat because the ride will take awhile.  Sometimes I leave the metro smelling like men's body odor because their sweat transfers to my shirt when we are pushed so close together. Everywhere we go street vendors cover the sidewalks and they sell everything from panties to flowers to fresh fish to meat pie sandwiches. 

At the center, I help teach classes. This means I speak in basic English on about a 3rd grade level with adult Russians. We talk about expressing emotions and giving directions and tell stories and practice new vocabulary words. We laugh alot sometimes, especially when we have a hard time understanding each other.

When we have free time, we explore this great city. We gasp in awe seeing something unexpected or beautiful for the first time and walk for miles and miles, trying to see as much as we can. The Moscow river, the monuments, the Kremlin, the cathedrals, the parks, the statues. Yesterday, Natalia took me to a Soviet exhibition hall park and it was one of the strangest things I have ever seen. We rode a roller coaster for 250 rubles and my throat hurt later from all the screaming. 

God is answering prayer and giving me boldness and faith to pray for even more gifts. He is working in my heart a greater desire for unreached people groups to know Him. I am thinking alot about intentional living, about raising a family, and about discipleship. I am daily blessed and encouraged by sisters here, and feel overwhelmed and thankful for the goodness of these days.