Russia Mission Trip
Our team has arrived safely and will be sending short email updates which I will post on this blog as they come in...Stay Tuned...
June 30 - From Missionary Jon Muhly (in Russia)
First of all, please don't be worried about the lack of email communication. They are in a village about 30 minutes outside of St. Petersburg called Koltushi. Unfortunately, this location where they are (where the Russian partner church's seminary--where they are staying--and the local congregation of St. George--where they are holding the camp--is located) doesn't have great internet--only slow dial-up. Plus, that internet is located in the rector's office in the seminary, and depending on the day, he leaves around 5 in the afternoon. Thus, they might simply not have been able to send out emails from there.
Also, however, they sound busy (in a good way). Yesterday (Tuesday), I called the mission director, Alexey, whose wife Alina is the main translator for the camp, and who is organizing the activity to check in with them. He said nothing about the luggage, which makes me assume that they have received it. From my exerience when my luggage was lost in Russia, it was quickly resolved--by the next day. And, since I had asked him to contact me if there are any issues or important problems (or if the group wants/needs to talk with me), I can only assume that everything is OK. Also, he mentioned to me that Tuesday night they were having a traditional Russian barbeque at a member's house in the evening (cooking shashlik--kind of like shish kebabs, if I recall correctly), and that Wednesday evening they were going into see St. Petersburg. If I am not mistaken, they had also organized activities on Sunday and Monday nights as well. All of this leads me to believe that they are both busy, and undoubtedly tired, and so the extra effort to email (Alexey had offered them to use his email at his apartment--a 5 minute drive from where they are staying) might have seemed to be too much effort/simply not possible.
Regarding the camp itself, it sounds like they have had to make some adjustments of their program after the first day because some of the things they had planned didn't fit the language level of some of the Russian participants (actually, however, this isn't too surprising to me, as it is really impossible to predict the language levels of every student in advance--it is often necessary to make adjustments on the fly). They discussed things with Alina, Alexey's wife, and adjusted things on Monday evening, I was told, and now things are going much smoother (when I spoke to Alexey on Tuesday afternoon, that is). So, that is what I can tell you about the English camp itself.
Tonight (Wednesday night my time, noon your time), I am taking a night train to St. Petersburg, and will be spending Thursday from lunch until evening with the group, and then will be returning back to Moscow late Thursday night.
June 27
Hello!
We made it to Russia!
We are all excited to be here. Our luggage got lost, but that doesn't matter. We are getting it back as soon as it comes. No one is sick, ha-ha. Pray for the children.
