Good News All Around

Dear friends and Dairy Farmers,
This week has been one piece of good news after another. First, thank you for all of your prayers. I have been contacted by a professor at the University and it looks like my one night a week conversation table will begin sometime in the second half of February. Students will be able to come and practice their English with me, whilst I get the chance to talk about the things that interest me, you know, music, politics, Christianity...Anyhow, this has been a prayer of mine for about a month and I am so happy it is going forward and I'm looking forward to getting to know the University Students this Winter and Spring.

The second bit of good news, or, er...bizarre news, is that I finally got my chance to go to Mak Dak. Have no doubt about it, Russia's number one trademark abuser makes a very well boxed we-made-this-this-morning-and-we-don't-have-heat-lamps burger called the "Биг Maк Дaк" (Big Mac Duck), plus some french fries that could have fooled me. As you can see, Mak Dak, which is only about a year old I'm told, is an American fast food simulation sort of like McDowell's from "Coming to America," where they have taken Scrooge McDuck (tm) and the Duck Tales(tm) and littered them around a menu that is vaguely similar to McDonald's (tm) (note the Big Mak Dak is sort of Big Mac (tm) with "Duck" added to it). And no, I saw no (tm)'s anywhere. Hold on, gotta go get another cold-burger. And yes, can you tell I don´t eat at Mak Dak much? I look emaciated in this photo. I feel like a waif. Russia drops weight faster than Jenny Craig doing the bench press.



Sincerely,
Peter.

And We're Walking...

Dear friends,
This last week has been a lot of the same, but with a few interesting things to tell you about. First, out of the blue, the teachers at School 42 asked me to give a presentation on...terrorism. Yes, that is correct, terrorism. I guess that being an American makes me an expert, though there is a false ring to that connection. Anyhow I put something together the best I could, but it worked very well that instead of talking for the entire hour, I instead took 15 minutes out at the end to just talk with the students about terrorism related world affairs. The presentation also gave me the opportunity to refer to an old Pastor Wells sermon that I still remember well about Jesus' words, "Love your enemies, do good to those who persecute you." These words apply to no other current subject more than terrorism, since as we've seen from the Israeli conflict, hating people just makes you hate people more, and only love as God gives it truly heals wounds. Thus I was able to refer back to this principle many times, whilst giving my opinions on Hillary Clinton :( Barack Obama <=` John McCain (:I) and Mitt Romney >:($), explaining my take on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (LOVE YOUR ENEMIES), and telling them about the shoe bomber that made us all take our shoes off at airports (what a dumb guy). Oh yes, and in the spirit of my theme, note how much I love Mitt Romney (I have been paying attention folks. And Santana was traded - Boo for greed.)

As for my other activities, I have had some good discussions with some English teachers recently - pray that these conversations would continue and be fruitful. I continue to wait for some sort of opening at the University, so that's another prayer concern. Also, pray for my Russian - I am starting to get conversational though I need a lot of work, since the grammar is really difficult and there aren't very many cognates - I went to buy a clock battery the other day and I apparently cannot tell the difference between "eighty" and "eight" (vosyemdesyat and vosyem), so yeah, I need to practice my listening skills.

I thank so many of you for your heartfelt prayers - a special thanks to all of you for sending your cards all the way over here in Russia. Since mailing things is so complicated, you'll have to settle for me thanking you here and in person when I return this summer, but know that you have been thanked.

Sincerely,
Peter.

P.S. No new pictures, so here's a fun one. This is Vladik, Eric and Liza's son who I look after on occasion. I just taught him how to say 'chair' and 'big ball.' He's awful smart, but I make sure to let him know when he's getting uppity that I still speak English AND Russian better than he does. That's right, Vladik.

Winter Doldrums

Dear friends and primary voters,

Thank you all very much for your cards, emails, and packages that have arrived during the past month. As you can guess, it’s a little lonely being one of three American’s over here and knowing very few people who speak English, and the packages are a good sign of all of your love back home. However I anticipate that soon loneliness will cease to be such an issue. The reason is that since I returned from Syapsya in early January, I have been blessed with very little to do. I have had no presentations on my schedule and few responsibilities besides keeping office hours, participating in Saturday and Sunday activities, and helping Eric and Liza move to their new apartment. I have used the last two weeks wisely, in my estimation, in that I have used my extra time to put in a significant amount of Russian study every single day. The result is that I understand at least twice as much Russian as I did before and I am far more able to express myself than I was before. I believe that God has given me a light schedule for this reason exactly – I even carried a conversation with a student on Thursday that lasted at least fifteen minutes! A week or two more of this and I might be nearing fully conversational in the Russian language. Please pray that I continue to make regular progress.

You might be wondering how I all of a sudden have so little to do. Well, with Lyceum and School 42 just starting back up this week, I do not have any engagements on the docket. Furthermore, we have yet to hear back from the University folks about possible open doors there, so really, I am just studying Russian and praying hard about what to do next. God has me here for a reason and it will become clear when the time comes what my next course of action will be. My thought at the moment is that something will open up at the University, but if it’s at Lyceum or School 42, that’s ok too.

I will admit, though I like the time off, I would prefer to be working towards something new in the ministry – I am the anxious sort that has trouble being patient when I am not worn out, and since I am full of energy about now, I am like a teenager looking for trouble. Pray that my next task will become clear in the next few weeks for I am ready to go (or maybe I am just getting a waiting lesson, which is ok too, I guess). In any case, I have plenty of personal projects besides Russian to keep me busy, so until the Lord calls, I will be plenty busy with things that I hope He’ll be able to use in the future.

Have a great week and I will write again soon.

Sincerely,

Peter.

P.S. I need to announce a moratorium on package sending for the time being. If you want to send a package, let me know and I will tell you personally when the coast is clear. See, Eric and Liza are moving and so if you send anything to them now, Liza's Aunt will get it and not Eric and Liza and it might be more difficult to get if Liza's address does not match the address on the package. So, until further notice, see if you can send it as something that is thin and might fit in a mailbox. Pictured below is what my mailbox looks like. Mine is number 12.

The Russian Village

Dear friends and machinators,
Thank you for your prayers during the last few weeks, as it has been educational, crazy, and fulfilling all at once. Christmas and New Years were lonely and non-traditional, but I did get to see thousands of Russians set off their homemade fireworks against a background of ambulance sirens and see a 1am outdoor "play" that mixed the Nativity, Snegorichka, and the Year of the Rat performed by three Santas, a drummer, and two Peter the Greats (not so greats).

After the New Year, Eric and I accompanied a group from Eric and Liza's church to a village of about 500 people named Syapsya to conduct a week-long camp for the village children and some kids from a home for children who have been recently been taken away from their parents and are waiting to be placed in a home or orphanage. Needless to say, they were difficult yet rewarding children to work with. We did the normal things - play games, sing songs, make crafts, practice skits, meanwhile Eric, Sirozhia and I taught little Sirozhia how to make friends, enemies, and lose at Risk (all valuable life skills).

Sirozhia Risking loss - his are the blue pieces, big Sirozhia's are red (the "Red Army"), mine are black (the Army of Darkness) and Eric's in pink (the army of, er... "My Little Pony")


Thought it wasn't a big deal for kids to go into the woods in fairy tales? What do you think NOW!

Pictured here is the woods around Syapsya. This is wild forest with no sign of human activity for miles outside of town. Wolves live there and it is said that you should only go out at night in twos and threes because the wolves might get you. Ever wonder where stories like little red riding hood came from? Well, there you have it. Lyuda, one of the girls from the house in Petrozavodsk was scared by a number of stray dogs, ran into the woods and got lost. She then prayed that Jesus would help her to get home - remember these woods are only inhabited by wolves and moose for many miles in three directions - she heard the dogs again, got scared and by Providence her aimless run led her to a road back into town and she was safe. We were all so worried about her and very thankful to God for bringing her home safe, since, I should add, it was getting dark and the temperature that day was about -10F...and there are wolves.

Syapsya, aka the set from "Fiddler on the Roof"


Syapsya is like most villages in that while there is electricity, there is also no running water, no central heating, and it generally looks like the set from "Fiddler on the Roof". Thus, everything is done by wood stove, wells, and out-houses, even when it's -10F. It's odd because it's warm when you go to sleep but since it would be idiocy to burn wood while asleep, you wake up and it is about 40 degrees in the house - so cold.

Eric getting some water and trying not to freeze his boots to the ground - actually possible if you are not careful.



The bridge from Indiana Jones...or Syapsya

One of the great joys of this particular stay is that the four guys at camp all slept in a dacha across the river from the main house. This meant crossing this metal-cable bridge twice a day which, I must admit, was missing a lot of it's metal cables, cracked and swayed below our feet, constantly threatening to throw us into the frigid river. The Temple of Doom has nothing on this bridge, except there is not Indian manual surgeon chasing us, so maybe that's the equalizer - Rob, you'll have to ask around in Southern India for me.

In general, though they were really difficult to control, or to get to go to jail when they were tagged, the kids had a really good time and I pray that we made a difference in their very difficult lives. Russian villages have as high as a 90% alcoholism rate with no jobs, no money, and very little hope for a better life. We think we were able to share a little bit of the hope we have in Christ here and I really want to continue to make excursions like this since, as needy as the city is, places like Syapsya are at the point of crisis. These towns, which dot the countryside all over Karelia will probably cease to exist within fifty years as it's citizens either die or move to the city. Meanwhile they mustn't be left behind and I urge you to pray for Russian villages, that God would raise up leaders to bring fullness to these communities with very real physical, psychological, and spiritual needs. Because of the Soviets, most of the towns do not even have a church anymore so the spiritual need is particularly dire. A pastor from Petrozavodsk drives two hours each way every Sunday to preach there, and there will need to be more people like him to meet the needs of these small communities.

I have caught a cold and need to get my sleep, but I will leave you with this beautiful photo of the river that ran through the village. Since the air is quite wet there and the temperature was so cold, all of that white is the frost build up of about five days. Absolutely beautiful.



Sincerely,
Peter.

Dear friends and Christmas-types,

Thank you for all of your prayers and support – we need it. Good news this week is that our attendance for Awana last Sunday more than doubled, in part due to a couple of Christmas presentations I gave to 5^th grade classes. One child claimed that he had called five of his friends to get them to come – let’s pray that he calls them again. We really want Awana to grow and the program has been attacked by mistrusting parents, heavily restricting its growth.

As you know, it’s Christmas today, though not for me, since Russian Christmas is January 7^th. In fact, Russians don’t celebrate Christmas very much since the Soviets encouraged the people to celebrate “Novi God” instead (New Year) and Easter was always more important to the Orthodox Church in the first place. In any case, I would like to take this moment to remind all of the blog posters on stories on CNN.com that if Christianity really usurped Christmas from pagan traditions, then that in fact does not make Christmas a pagan holiday, unless the church was so inept as to unsuccessfully “usurp” the holiday, it would make it, in fact, a Christian holiday. As my business is not the “War on Christmas” which everybody seems to be getting so angry about in the states (I am often surprised by what people will write – on both sides). In the meantime, Merry Christmas (Not Angrymas).

Last week, Eric and I pulled out our guitars and participated in a Christmas concert at the Transportation University of Petrozavodsk. We played five traditional spirituals adapted from one of Bob Dylan’s favorite artists, Odetta (if you haven’t heard of her, Odetta’s Christmas spirituals are worth checking out). We were very well received and we rocked out, playing the songs as spirituals, bluegrass, and blues tunes. If we have more time in the coming months, we are considering recording these songs, so you can look forward to the musical stylings of Eric Debelak and Peter Bodurtha in the not too distant future. We have been invited by a group of Russian Orthodox Christians who hold Evangelical concerts to join them again for future concerts, so Eric and I are looking forward to those opportunities as well. Because we are American, play American styles, and sing in English, we provide the really interesting “Freak Show” to get people to come and sit down at the concert and then the Russians do the playing and preaching in Russian – it’s a really good system, so long as you don’t mind being the eye-catching gimmick rather than the meat of the ordeal, but hey, I am all about gimmicks, I have absolutely no problem with this, so long as people get to hear the Gospel. There were about 250 people there, a full auditorium, and they stayed till the very end, picking up 25 of the books the Russians were offering for free. The Russians are really great guys. Pray for their ministry (one of the guys runs an Alpha course at the main Orthodox Church in Petrozavodsk).


I wind up my presentations this Thursday, thank you for your prayers. I got into an interesting banter with a student about the merits of Nietzche – I am praying that she’ll come to the Christian Center to talk about it some time. I also met a student, the rare type that is studying religion and I’m praying she’ll come by as well, since we are the Christian Center Library after all – it would be a shame if she didn’t use us as a resource. Another highlight were the wonderful hand puppets created by a few 5^th grade students as pictured. Luckily, the teacher (pictured) was very nice and didn’t mind. Hand puppets are awesome.

Ok, that’s what I’ve got for now. Enjoy the pictures.

Sincerely,

Peter.

Picture time!

Dear friends and frogs,
I have received recent complaints that there are not enough pictures on my blog. Enough complaining! I, like such great men as Neville Chamberlain and Pontius Pilate give in! So, for those of you who prefer picture books to full-length novels, below are a few pictures that I think will satiate your ravenous hunger by presenting "Russia: in Living Color (or lack thereof)"



This is my bedroom. I fall asleep here at night and wake up in the morning. It is normally too warm so I keep the window open. There is someone downstairs with a loud stereo or television that stays on as late as 2am.



This is the most Russian photo I could find. This is what Russia looks like. It was taken outside of Eric and Liza's apartment some months ago.



This is what downtown Petrozavodsk looks like - one of the main squares. Despite the hugeness of the intersection (or maybe because of it) there are no crosswalks. Megaphone is the biggest mobile phone company around and -5 C is not a bad temperature for a walk, especially with new snow and long underwear.


This is another main square in Petrozavodsk, juxtaposing an old Lenin statue with the St. Petersburg style architecture. Everything in pre-revolution urban areas looks like this: Huge, austere, plain, intimidating, and light yellow.


This is how Russians have been building apartments since the Brezhnev era - with prefabricated concrete blocks. The upside is that they last forever - have you ever tried knocking over concrete? It hurts - the downside is that it is difficult to modify and properly add such commodities as outlets on outer walls (they are only on inside walls), sound insulation, controllable heating, ventilation systems, level floors, etc. This is next door to Eric and Liza's new apartment, which I think is quite nice.


This is a normal-looking market a short walk from Lyceum #1. No matter what the weather, the sellers are out there, the only variant being the products available and the layers worn by the merchants. You'll see in the background a new Orthodox Church, as well as evidence of evening. Have no fear, this photo was taken at about 1:15pm. That's right, 1:15. The sun is like this for about 4.5 hours a day and then it's night. I am becoming nocturnal very quickly.


What is this? Do you see the duck with McDonald's arches for eyes? It looks like some sort of cloned child of Ronald McDonald and Scrooge McDuck. I need to investigate, if only to find the man who came up with this fantastic combination of McDonalds and Duck Tales.


This is "Blagaev Yest," the church I attend on Sunday. The pastor is a missionary from South Carolina and a really nice, intelligent, stand-up guy. I play guitar every Sunday and I enjoy how much time they spend praying during the service (seriously, each part of the service is divided by a sort of prayer time)


If you made it this far, you get to see me practicing my new skill: Beating rugs! Every Monday or Tuesday I go out in the morning to beat the living dust out of Vera Petrovna's floor ornaments. I will say without reservation that this activity is going to make me an unstoppable hitting machine when I come back to the US. Do you have any idea how many reps I am getting each week? Oh man, it's so great!


So there you have it, so many pictures that I will not have to do this again for a few more months. Please pray for me as I begin my rigorous Christmas schedule next week. I will have something like 20 presentations in a week and a half, so pray that my voice holds out and that we are able to both get some students thinking about God and that they might come to the Christian Center.

Until later,
Peter.

Wow, Nov. 17 was a long time ago

Dear friends and seaside resorts,
My last blog was Nov. 19th? That was indeed quite a long time ago, and I will have to apologize for my delinquency but the internet monster came to Russia and told me that one month was much too quick and efficient for me to receive internet access, and thus I would have to wait yet another week, though he was kind enough to give me the cord I needed, which I admit added some nice ornamentation to our living room.

Since my last post, I have given ten to fifteen presentations about Thanksgiving and Mary W. Shelley's Frankenstein and they're relationship to Christian tradition and philosophy in Europe and the United States. The classes responded quite well, especially the older students of the 10a and 11a English tracks, though I am a bit puzzled as to why none of them have stopped by the Christian Center as yet, since I have implored them to do so many times. Please pray that some of these students, the ones with whom I can best converse, will come to the Christian Center and become involved in our activities.

As for other events, on December 17th Eric and I will be doing a Christmas concert composed of Christmas Carols and old Gospel carols on two acoustic guitars and harmonica. We've really managed to blues/bluegrass-up the music to beautifully, annoyingly, American sensibilities such that our language will not be the only thing American about us. We hope that doing the music in such a non-Russian way will draw more interest into the words we are actually saying, at which point we have the opportunity to explain the true reason for Christmas (which I might add, is the first week of January, not December 25 like in the U.S. It's a Russian Orthodox thing that I sort of like - it's nice to have new years day before Christmas rather than after.)

My Russian steadily improves while, as the judicious reader may have noticed, my English has begun a slow descent into the prose of the early American literature I am currently reading. I think I may return to the U.S. sounding like Captain Ahab.

I feel very blessed to have so many people back home praying for me and I thank every one of you for your letters and notes of encouragement, as being so far away for even two months is arduous, especially in a place like Russia where even the sun won't cheer you up. And, I should add, the sun's lack of cheer here has little to do with the people, government, or otherwise (I am rather happy with these aspects thusfar) but rather it's truancy from the sky. At last count, the sun rises at 10am and sets a little before 3pm, though those estimates may now be entirely inaccurate since I haven't met the sun's acquaintance in nearly a week, for it keeps hiding behind such a thick layer of clouds I haven't the slightest clue where it might be. I will say, however, that it is never quite day here, for dawn skips morning and afternoon altogether and goes on right into evening, dusk, and then a very long night. I do not really understand what all the hurry is, but if Joshua were around, I would have him get that big ball of burning gas to remain in the sky a few hours, and then maybe get him to move it a little higher so that everyone in Petrozavodsk can go swimming and get a tan, two things only bears and wolves dare to do these days.

There, enough of my rambling on about the sun as a personable object, and more blog posts, and more prayers, both from me for you, and from you for me. I pray that God will bless you all in your work.

Sincerely,
Peter.