Quite a few stories to tell, but there’s no Internet here! We’ve been working, running street outreach times and kids’ programs, and we hope to visit the Barabinsk orphanage on Wednesday. Everyone is well and doing okay, even though some of us are feeling homesick now and then. One of us still insists he wants to come live here for a summer or a year sometime 🙂

Right now I’m borrowing someone’s iPad with cellular Internet but don’t want to hold onto it for long. So, the stories will have to wait another few days:( We will be back at a spot with Internet on Saturday, Lord-willing.

A quick personal request for a kid I met named Dima… Just out of the army, having graduated from the very orphanage we are living at and helping remodel. Witnessed to him a bit and should talk to him more lag. Pray for some good sowing!

-Pete

Well, that was a surprise. We have wifi here, but the graceinport.org website is unavailable from Russia…or at least, unavailable from where we’re at. So I need to control a USA PC from my iPhone to make these posts. And photos probably won’t be up until we’re back in the States. Hope you’ll all understand!

After 9 hours in the air, we landed for a whole day of tiring walks and bus rides in Moscow, plus jet lag. We really had no time or desire to do anything but see the Kremlin and Red Square area, and the best part of that was going inside St. Basil’s Cathedral. From the outside it looks like it might be one big room with lots of arches, but after paying admission and getting your bags searched, you find out the place is a cool mini-maze, with crannies and staircases winding around the main sanctuary on the second floor. And just as we were about to leave, a quartet started singing sacred Slavic music and the whole building resonated with the beautiful tune.

After a meal at an Arabian cafe, we left in plenty of time for the half-hour bus ride to the airport…which became two hours of putting up with the heat in stopped traffic and a half hour of stopping at every other airport terminal first. We were all out cold on the second flight, two of our bags were delayed, and jet lag was killing us, so arriving at our first stop in Novosibirsk was wonderful.

I’d love for this post to be better thought out and more personal, but I’m typing on a 3-inch screen, it’s hot, and we’re leaving on a train ride in a few minutes. Pray for us! I might have to post them all at once, but I’ll be writing some more posts soon.

-Pete

There was no other way that I could see. The visas had to come in. After 3 weeks of delays, with 2 days left until the trip, some of us were starting to doubt. Rescheduling tickets would have cost us $400 a person, our day in Moscow, and part of the team orientation. And we didn’t have an extra $2400, anyway…we didn’t even have an extra $400. God had to move, the visas had to come, or we wouldn’t be going.

Well, long story short…we leave tomorrow morning, praise the Lord! Our daily plan: orphanage maintenance work in the mornings, children’s programs in the afternoons, city/village outreach in the evenings. We’ll be gone till July 17.

Pray for us. We’ll try to be in touch each day, with pictures and stories, but no promises…Internet might be hard to find. See you next post!

~Pete