You know you live in Siberia if . . .

Since we are currently navigating through the coldest December on record in Russia (yes, that's right!) I thought this would be a great time to start a "You know you live in Siberia if . . ." list.  Here is how I am starting it . . .

YOU KNOW YOU LIVE IN SIBERIA IF:

1) You check the weather at the North Pole and think, "Man, that's warm!"

2) You check the weather in Greenland and think, "Man, that's hot!"

3) You check the weather in Minnesota and think, "Man that's blistering!"

4) You breathe in and there are immediately icicles in your nose.

5) You think about wearing shorts outside when it hits 0 degrees F.

6) You go into your freezer to warm up.

7) The seat inside the car is actually hard (frozen).

8) You forget what it was like to be above freezing.

9) Your high temperature is -38 F (brrrrr! but at least it is under -40)

10) You see something like this . . . ice cream stand . . . yes it's -10 F, and yes . . . it is open . . .

The beauty of snow!

I wanted to briefly share with you some photos of our surroundings, as it is obvious this will not be considered a light snow year in Novosibirsk!  Despite the extra time and effort it takes to get snow off my shoes, off the car we use, and off of everything else that goes outside, snow is very beautiful and continually keeps me inspired. Seeing perfectly formed snow crystals on my coat is an ever present reminder of the beauty of God's creation down to the most minuscule detail. If you are in a place where November and December are fairly warm, you might enjoy looking at these photos to cool yourself off a little bit!

Be blessed and inspired by the beauty of snow, and remember about the snow that covers our hearts when we trust Christ --  it is a snow that transforms us into something completely different!


Photo 1 -- Kirby next to a pile of snow!

Photo 2 -- Outside our building, this car won't be going anywhere for a while!

Photo 3 -- Another view of the side of our building.

November travels!!!

Greetings Blog Readers!

We have just returned from an excellent trip to Germany and the Czech Republic. We spent a few days sightseeing in Berlin, Dresden, and Prague, and then went back to Germany for a conference near Frankfurt. This afforded us an opportunity to get a lot of new training, share experiences from our ministry in Novosibirsk, and just in general to fellowship. This was a great chance to push the pause button and evaluate where we are almost 10 months in to life in Novosibirsk. Thank you for your faithful prayers, and I think God has really given us renewed focus and vision to reach the people He is bringing into our path!

Here are photos for your enjoyment!

Dresden, Germany

Prague, Czech Republic

Berlin, Germany

Holhauzen, Germany

First snow!

Greetings Intercessors,
We got our first snow of the fall/winter today! Unfortunately it lasted only a few minutes and I did not even get a picture. We have had an exciting few weeks. We presented the gospel at ESL Bible Study and have a young lady with many spiritual questions. Please pray for Anna, as she is currently reading through the book of John and we hope to be able to address her questions within the next week.

Chara's parents recently made the trip here and we took them to the Altai Mountains for a few days of site seeing. It was great to be able to practice our Russian, and we were able to share God's love with a roadside souvenir vendor and give her a Russian gospel tract.

Here are some pictures from the trip!

Living in the light of the Son!

Greetings supporters,
Thank you so much for your continued prayers. We are seeing God draw many more people to our ESL Bible Study in Akadem. At this point, we are averaging about 20 people per week, although sometimes they are not all the same people. We are excited by the opportunity to teach them English but on an even deeper level to pour the gospel into their lives. Please be in prayer, as next week we plan to do a full fledged gospel presentation. We would like to do several through the course of the semester. Pray that people will hear the message and that they would see the Holy Spirit desiring to work in their hearts and lives.

On another note, Chara and I recently visited a very interesting museum in Akadem with a huge collection of artwork from pre-Christian Russia and other places from around the world. She actually worships the sun. It was quite an interesting afternoon. At the end of our tour through the museum, we got to give her a gospel tract and invited her to our Bible Study.  She evidently read the Bible many years ago, but has no interest now. Our desire is that one day she will walk by the light of the risen Son instead of simply the light of the sun!

It is people like this that drive us to make further progress in language, so we can have the opportunity to share the gospel completely in Russian. Please continue to pray as we press on!

Humble beginnings . . .

Prayer partners,
It is evident with noticeably cooler weather (with the exception of an occasional 79 degree day) that we are moving into fall!

But there are other indications that we are on the precipice of seasonal change -- our English Language Bible study has started in Akadem! We greatly like the format of the Bible study, which includes an intro, a joke, 2 songs, and a Bible story where we ask questions and prompt the group toward discussion in English.

Our first evening, this past Tuesday, saw 10 people from last spring's ESL school come to give the Bible study a try. Although the makeup of our first day's group was mostly older women, we are hoping that passing out flyers near the school as well as word of mouth will cause even more people to begin coming.

We are currently looking at the life of King David, and we feel that his trials and failures afford an outstanding opportunity to highlight the necessity of God's grace in everyday life. The idea is, with each lesson, to show how God was working, and to show how ultimately our own failures lead us to the foot of the cross!

Continue praying and we will keep scattering seed to see on whom it falls!

An island in Siberia?

I knew this post would get your attention. We actually had the opportunity this past weekend to visit an island in the Ob River a couple of hours south of Novosibirsk. Our friends Alex and Sveta invited us to Sveta's parents' house in the village. It was a great day of sightseeing and fun. We actually took a ferry to get to the island, although in winter the river freezes and so you can just drive across. I have included a video from our ferry ride.

We got to tour Sveta's parents garden as well as visit an old Orthodox church with a quite opinionated groundskeeper who seemed shocked that women wear jeans!

I have also included (for your enjoyment) a neat looking optical illusion taken from downtown Novosibirsk. This whole picture was painted onto the ground, but when seen through a camera (as you can see), it comes to life!

Enjoy the video and picture, and also keep us in prayer as we aspire to serve as ambassadors for Christ in everything we do and for everyone we meet!

Where have we been?

Funny you ask, but we have been in several places the past few weeks. All in all, we spent one week in Istanbul with Chara's parents. We had multiple opportunities to share about our faith in Christ there due to the prevalence of English speakers and the fact that it is a very religious (mostly Islamic) population. For example, I (David) asked a young man who took us on a tour of the Blue Mosque, is there ever a time in Islam when you know you are good with God and will go to heaven. Naturally he couldn't answer that question. I briefly got to share my testimony, and pray that seeds were planted in his life that will cause him to one day turn to Christ.  In Athens, we attended a meeting with around 1200 of our new best friends who work all through Europe. It was a busy time, and after 4 days of meetings, worship, and listening to great sermons, we realized that you could feel both refreshed and worn out at the same time. Pray that, as get back into the groove here in Novosibirsk, that we will continue to press into language study, making as much progress as possible while getting as many people as possible a  chance to respond to the gospel (even with our limited language)  . . .

First, we were in Instanbul . . .












Inside the Ana Sophia . . .

Underground cistern near the Ana Sofia . . .

Seaside in Greece close to the conference for all European personnel (no need to be jealous though, as we were in meetings the majority of the day!)















.

Busy times!

Hello Prayer Partners!


Sorry for the long time between posts, but things got very busy over the past couple of weeks! We participated with our other team members in an intensive English as a Second Language school, and approximately 50 students got to not only learn a huge amount of English, but got to hear about the change Jesus Christ can make in their lives. Pray that God will continue to work in their hearts and lives. This past weekend, we had the opportunity to join our friends Alex, Sveta, and their son Matvey and went to the Ob Dam south of town. People enjoy boating, fishing, and recreation there (see picture below). Pray that Christ will work in their lives in a powerful way and use us as His ambassadors in their lives.  This week, I (David) have been helping out with baseball camp. There are 4 awesome coaches here from the US working with about 20 youth on skills and sharing Jesus with them (see pictures below). Thanks for your prayers and we look forward to sharing more soon!!!!

  

Trip to the Dacha

Hello Intercessors, 

Many new things to report on this end of the world. We moved to a new apartment last week, which is a located a little farther from the center of town. It is quieter but still has many opportunities to talk to people with several parks nearby. We also had the opportunity to visit a dacha this past weekend with our new friends Alex and Sveta and their son Matthew. Alex speaks excellent English so that helps immensely, but we also try to practice our Russian on him as well! Dachas are small vacation cottages that Russian people visit on the weekends. Many of them are very primitive, not having running water or electricity (many times families build the dacha themselves), but they are great for getting out of the city for a day or two. Here are some pictures from our visit! With the summer getting into full swing, we will have several large events going on. We will both be teaching in an English intensive school the last week in June and then in mid July we will be traveling to Turkey and finally Greece for a convention for European personnel. Be in prayer that we will continue to find opportunities to engage those around us and that the gospel will shine through us more and more, especially as we gain more proficiency in the language!

View of the main dacha house (far right), storage shed (middle), and sauna (left--these are popular as well in Russia).

Working in the garden beside the buildings.

Chara with our friends -- Alex, Sveta, and Matthew.

You've got mail!

One of the cultural differences we have run into has been the mail system on this side of the world. Today we just got a package that Chara's parents mailed on -- pause for effect -- February 21! That being said, I'm sure there are countries in the world where the package might not come at all or come in pieces, so we are thankful for actually getting exactly what was mailed.  

Overall, life is good here in Novosibirsk. We had our last official ESL class of the semester last week, and  I wrapped up our study on the deity of Jesus by giving the decision: Either Jesus is God (in which your only response is to make Him Lord), or your other options are that He is a liar, a lunatic, or the Bible isn't accurate. I challenged the group not to see Jesus as just a good man or a prophet, but exactly who the Bible says He is. Although there were no faith responses, I am sure that God is working in hearts. 

We will continue to press into our language learning going into the summer, and we greatly appreciate your prayers for us as we continue the steep climb toward proficiency in Russian!

Back to school

Last week, we had the experience of visiting several classes at a Russian school with one of our American friends, who lives in Akadem and runs the ESL program we teach at. We answered questions from the students about life in America on everything from what kind of music do you listen to to what do you think of politics. It was a great experience getting to see and experience a Russian school firsthand. It was amazing to see a school with hundreds of students ranging in age from kindergarten through high school. Although our students seemed  fairly well behaved, there very little discipline compared to American schools. For example, students would show up for class way late without the teacher giving any correction. According to our friend, this is a holdover from the communist philosophy that all people are inherently good and that children, if left to their own devices, will become productive members of society. Of course, the Bible has a completely opposite philosophy on that.

The students asked if we believe in God, and one student in particular asked why! Our friend gave a great response that looking at the order of our world and the universe, it makes logical sense to understand that there is a Creator. God is always creating opportunities for His message to be shared!

Afterward, we enjoyed a meal at one of the Mexican restaurants in Akadem. Unfortunately, the waitress did not understand my order so Chara and our friend got their plates and I waited for a long time before realizing that mine was not coming out! Both of them let me have some of their food though!

Please continue to pray for the ESL ministry at Akadem, as we are close to the end of the semester. We are close to wrapping up our series on the identity of Jesus and I would like to close by asking our students to make a response to the gospel. Pray for God to work in their hearts and lives during the next few weeks in particular. We will likely be transitioning the ESL program into an English language Bible study during the fall with our friend potentially leaving for a new city, so pray for a good transition as we move toward this. We are also looking at possibly going back to visit the school in the next few weeks, so pray we will have more opportunities to share our faith.

Until next time!

Short sleeves? Sort of!

It has been an exciting couple of weeks here in Novosibirsk! We have actually had a few days in the 70 degree temperature range, and this has been perfect T-shirt weather. In Siberia, the motto for spring could be, "If you don't like the weather, wait 5 seconds". Lo and behold, Saturday we had cooler weather and in the afternoon we looked out the window and snow was going sideways! This continued for about 20 minutes, but virtually all of the snow that accumulated was on cars and melted fast. Needless to say, spring is an interesting time of year! 

Ministry at Akadem ESL has been very good lately! After the Bible story last week, we got a few really great questions about whether Jesus truly is God. One person asked why Jesus can't be just a man considering Lazarus was raised from the dead and he was just a man. Good question indeed. I explained that Lazarus came back from the dead because Jesus called him. Lazarus couldn't have come back without Jesus calling him forth. But Jesus said He had the power to lay His own life down and take it up again--thereby accentuating one of many critical differences between Jesus and Lazarus. The biblical evidence for Jesus' deity cannot be stronger!

Please continue to pray as questions like these are exactly what we are looking for. They are inroads to the Gospel. Also, be praying for the future of the ministry at Akadem, as it looks as if this is going to shift from ESL this spring to more of an English language Bible study this fall. Of course, we also continue to request prayer for learning Russian -- we are learning slowly but surely! Once again, your prayers are much appreciated!

Where's the snow?

Well folks, over the past week or so the snow decided that it had overstayed its welcome this winter and made its way out of Novosibirsk! We had a few days of "mini-rivers" and puddles to navigate, which made getting around a little tough, but the past few days I (David) have actually been able to wear a short sleeve shirt outside (yeah!!!) Of course, we are continuing our steep climb of language learning and are continuing to build relationships with our EFL class at Akadem. Pray that the Word will plant itself richly in students' hearts and that they will begin to understand their need for a relationship with Christ. Also pray for our encounters around the apartment complex -- there have been less people to talk to lately as people tend to go to their dachas (country homes) when the weather warms up, but we continue to try to meet people and plant seeds for the gospel as we are able to. Thank you for your faithful prayers!!!!

March Madness

March has brought its own form of madness -- but in a good way!! Believe it or not, we actually live in a place where it has just recently gotten "warm enough" to snow (if you can get your mind around that). Once it started snowing early last week, it was on and off snow for several days! It actually made the dirty-looking spring snow look white and clean again, at least for a little while! It would be a great analogy--whereas the fresh snow will soon melt, revealing the dirty snow again, Christ sprinkles our hearts anew with fresh snow that makes the dirty snow underneath disappear!

We are continuing to work with our language coach, practice our Russian in varieties of venues, and teach in the ESL program at Akadem Gorodok. Pray for hearts to be opened as we discuss the identity of Jesus in our big group time with a focus on the deity of Jesus! I pray that many seeds are already being planted in student's hearts and lives that, like the mustard seed, will one day become a mighty tree! 

Conversation practice?

It has been an excellent couple of weeks here in southern Siberia, despite some tense moments! We were both walking to church the Sunday before last when I (David) walked across the street when the "don't walk" signal was flashing. I ended up being escorted into the back of a police car for a few minutes. After calling the language teacher on my cell phone, she was able to explain to the police officer that I am new in the country and he let me off with just a warning!!! I imagine this could have been much worse if I had gotten one of the not-so-good cops, but all in all, it was a good chance to practice my Russian phrases under pressure!

Other than that, we have been out and about trying to talk with people and slowly improve our Russian. Today, we went to lunch before our language lesson at the one Mexican food restaurant in Novosibirsk. Chara got chicken fajitas and I got a burrito. We actually set our expectations pretty low (since Russians really aren't into spicy foods), but we were pleasantly surprised as it actually tasted pretty much like Mexican food!

Keep praying as we are beginning to meet people in our ESL class at Akadem (about 20 miles south of the city proper). Pray specifically for (initials only) P and D as they both appear to be seeking the Lord. Also, Chara and I are looking at possibly being the only current teachers in the ESL program for this fall, so please pray that the Lord will give us wisdom as to how to continue and grow the program as a way to share the Gospel!

Settling in!

Prayer partners--We have successfully survived the first 3 and a half weeks in Siberia. The cold has been quite an adjustment, but not a bad experience by any stretch. We are starting to figure out other places to eat besides Carl's Jr and KFC, which has improved our quality of life  immensely. Sometimes our Russian is understandable, but other times the cashier will run to the back and find someone who speaks a few English words! Alas, we know how far we still have to go in language learning when I (David) tried to buy sour cream and came home with cream cheese (at least I got the cream right)!!! All kidding aside, we have started to build some relationships with people in our ESL classes, so hopefully even as we are learning Russian we can begin to share the gospel (at least in English at first). Thank you for your prayers and look for more to come soon!

From Russia with Love

Greetings Intercessors,
Sorry for the long delay, but we have made it to Siberia. It was a balmy -30 F when we stepped off the plane (brrrrrr!!). I had actually expected it to be much worse than it was, although needless to say we have broken out our heavy duty winter gear! We are getting set up in our apartment and have ventured out several times this week to go to ESL class, meet with other m's, and go to stores to forage for things for the apartment. Unfortunately internet hookup is one of those things that takes a long time here, but better late than never!! Above is a picture of arguably the most famous part  of Novo, the statue of Lenin and the Opera House. More to come later!

Race to the Finish!!!

Greetings All,
Well, as you probably know we are preparing to leave Vancouver and begin the next exciting phase of our journey: traveling to Russia. The past couple of weeks have been an all out sprint to the finish. Last week, we had some wrap-up accountability meetings as well as having a language coach come in to give us some language acquisition tips. He has challenged us to learn 10 phrases we can use when we step off the plane in our new country, so we are working on those and will attempt to recite them in class this coming week. We also did a presentation of a "4 to 8 hour church planting strategy," which gives us things we can do immediately with just 4-8 hours per week (assuming we are spending the majority of our time on language learning). We are also working to get an medical screening for our visa that was just added as a requirement. As far as prayer requests, pray that 1) we will be able to be intentional about engaging people in spiritual conversations even though we are wrapping things up and 2) that our visa gets approved quickly with no complications. Thank you for your continued prayers and stay tuned for more!