Wednesday, October 17, 2007
After a buffet breakfast in the hotel, we boarded the tour bus and stopped at the Adventist Euro-Asia Division office. This is headquarters for Valery, who needed to pick up some files on our way to another destination. However, having arrived at 9 a.m., when the staff were having morning worship, Mauri asked to speak to them in their chapel. So we were ushered into the chapel, took our seats, and listened to Mauri’s talk about the exponential growth of the church around the world. Every week, there are more than 21,000 people baptized around the world, and joining the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

I connected with the man who organizes mission projects in Russia, Vitalie Zgherea, and he provided resource material for The Quiet Hour that may show up in appeals. He was delighted to make contact with us, and provided high-resolution images on a CD.

Many members of our group took photos of each other by the Cyrillic brass letters on the lobby wall. Then we were back on the coach for a three-hour trip south to the Tula Oblast, where the SDA university, Zaoksky Theological Seminary, is located. During our chilly days in Kiev and Moscow, it had been snowing in this area. The trees still had autumn foliage, so the accumulation of snow had broken many branches and trees were uprooted. However, during the hours we were in the village, the clouds broke up and the sun was warm enough for us to remove our coats.






The intent for the group had been to give them a tour of the university and the publishing house. But I had asked if I could meet with the organizers of the evangelism outreach to the state-run orphanages around Tula region while the rest of the group toured. The Quiet Hour raised thousands of dollars from its supporters several years ago, to support this program. So when the president—Dr. Vladimir Tkachuk—heard that Quiet Hour representatives would be present, instead of giving a university tour, he invited our group to a conference room next to his office, and treated us to a presentation on how the donation had been spent. He introduced us to the social worker (she spoke through Valery Ivanov, who translated for her) who has coordinated the orphanage outreach, and who has herself adopted six children. At the conclusion, our group was moved (not to mention motivated by Mauri Bascom) to literally pass a hat amongst our number. We instantly came up with $2300 to help the program. The social worker was close to tears. In addition, the university president gave me resource material for the next cycle of funding. The Quiet Hour’s supporters seem to love supporting evangelism, particularly with children, so watch your mailboxes in a few months and be among those who count it a privilege to help the “least of these,” Jesus’ beloved.

The school cafeteria provided a tasty lunch for our group, and we were joined by the president again. The social worker and I, neither of whom could speak the other’s language, traded favors: she was shocked at my bare feet in flip-flops (healing from several days of “good shoes”) and gave me colorful knitted socks—whereupon I draped my Disneyland flannel scarf, embroidered with Minnie Mouse, around her neck. So I was laughing at my loud footwear, and she’ll be the envy of every child and student at Zaoksky.

Valery showed us the Adventist publishing house, and while others saw the web presses and production end of things, my colleague Valery took me to meet the photographer and graphic designer, who do really beautiful work—using light tables, Xacto knives, and rulers instead of publishing and design software and computers with fast graphics capability.

We took the warm and comfortable bus back to Moscow, past autumn farms and forests. Our evening destination was the Moscow Circus. It’s a theater in the round, with (as we discovered during the show) several stage floors: for large animals (horses and camels) to gallop, for ice skaters, a tank for synchronized swimmers, and a cage for the lions. While the floors were being set up in the dark or in the basement, our attention was directed to aerialists, acrobats, gymnasts, dancers, clowns, musicians, and a variety of themes from around the world. The high-wire act was really tense, as the safety net wasn’t even tightened until they’d been skipping across the wire a few times. They ought to sell sedatives instead of popcorn! In contrast to a Cirque du Soleil ticket in Los Angeles ($90), our Moscow Circus tickets were about $12.

At the intermission, an announcer said that the football (soccer) game a few miles away, being played by Russia and England, was progressing nicely, if you were on the Russian side. The score was 2-1 at halftime. A huge roar went up from the crowd. Valery threw his arms up in the air and said he couldn’t believe it—it was pure joy, because Russia was not favored to win, and England had beaten them the last time the two countries were matched up. After the circus played its final acts and the show was over, another announcement came that Russia had won the game, with the same score, 2-1. Another deafening cheer went up. Valery was all smiles.

As the bus passed the stadium on the way to the hotel, we noted that the streets were very orderly, with no drunks or brawls. Many cars had Russian flags fluttering at the windows, though. [A few days later, the St. Petersburg English-language newspaper reported that one Russian and two English citizens had been arrested for violence that evening.]

Thursday, October 18, 2007
After breakfast, the group brought all the luggage down those five floors to the lobby, and then loaded the bus. We rode to the train station, and while our large bags went on carts by porter to our train car, we dragged our rolling pieces behind us to the train car. The men of our group loaded the bags into overhead racks or under the seats, then the rest of us boarded. The seats were quite comfortable, and because we were able to walk around during the trip, no one got antsy. The ride was about nine hours, and the tracks run in a very straight line from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

Again, we passed fields and forests. Although it was relentlessly overcast, there was not much snow in this part of the country, as the storm from last weekend seems to have passed between Moscow and Kiev. Several times, we passed large rivers. According to the map, one of the largest rivers we crossed was the Volga. Didn’t every beginning piano student play “Song of the Volga Boatmen”? (“Yo ho, heave ho…”)

We arrived after dark, and reversed the process of the luggage, piling it on the train platform until we had the bus secured and the porters could push our mountain of living essentials and computers to the parking lot.

Then it was off to our hotel. The hotel is in a warehouse district of the city, built many years ago around an open square. It’s either being renovated, or it’s a new hotel start-up in an old building. In any case, the lift didn’t work. So our bags were hauled up four stories to our rooms. (Five, if you count the grade from the street where the bus is parked, to the beginning of the stairs!) Some of our group were thrilled to know that they could purchase wi-fi Internet time on the computers they were obliged to carry around until they go home on Sunday. Jeff Paisley, for one, spent hours chatting by e-mail with his family in Kansas. (He let me borrow his computer when he was done, so I could purchase time and send some personal messages to my family and friends.) Also, for the first time in a month, there was television I could understand: although the rest of the channels were Russian, there was BBC Prime. Excellent! I got to see programs that won’t turn up on PBS Masterpiece Theatre until next summer.

Read Russia Extention trip reports, October 19-21