Where are we going????

Up until orientation, we’ll try to post every few weeks about various things you may or may not find interesting.

Many of you probably think of Siberia the way we thought of it a few years ago: A vast, cold, snowy region of the world where dog sledding is the only form of transportation. Right? Well, truth be told, a fair amount of Siberia fits that description, but there are also some big cities, especially sitting along the Transiberian Express. Novosibirsk, the city we’ll be serving in our first term, has over 1 million people. It has a Subway (both the restaurant and the underground versions), an IKEA, and a beautiful opera house among other things. Imagine a very large city in the United States without skyscrapers or interstates, and you’ll have a decent mental picture of Novosibirsk.

Greetings!

Hello, Blog Readers!

Well, this is our very first communication! We started becoming interested in missions about 2006. While travelling in Vietnam, we wandered into a bakery run by missionaries who shared the gospel by employing deaf youth. We wondered then if God was possibly leading us to share the gospel among the unreached. In 2007, we started an ESL class at our church (Fairview Baptist in Grand Prairie, TX) and experienced the joys of working together in cross-cultural ministry.

When we contacted the IMB in 2008, we had no clue where God wanted us to go, but He continued to clarify our direction. We are scheduled to serve our apprentice term in a city in Siberia (which is in Russia) starting early 2012. See our schedule for more details.

As of this writing, we have completed appointment week and are looking forward to Field Personnel Orientation (FPO) in Virginia starting in July 2011. We are excited about the direction God is taking us, and we hope you will journey with us as we seek to be God's instruments to reach the unreached in Russia!

More to come soon!

David and Chara

Our Schedule

Here is a brief summary of our tentative schedule:

Start	End	Activity	Location
July 25, 2011	September 21, 2011	Field Personnel Orientation (FPO)	Richmond, VA
September 22, 2011	October 16, 2011		Grand Prairie, TX
October 17, 2011	January 21, 2012	Urban Training	Vancouver, Canada
January 22, 2012	January 23, 2012		Grand Prairie, TX
January 24, 2012		Leave for Field	Novosibirsk, Russia