Our depletion, God's completion

You've heard that stress can add grey hairs to your head. Well, try living in a foreign culture, and look at what happens! (Yes, you do see a faint beard forming along my jawbone!)

Oh the pleasures of being a teacher at Hinkson! I was able to be the victim of students who threw saturated, wet sponges at my face last Saturday during the Fall Festival!

Here they are! Davide and Tanya Cantarella took me to a professional soccer game on October 31. It was awesome! Spartok, the Russian team, lost 0-1 to Intermilan, an Italian team. Davide (district superintendent for the Russia North District of the Nazarene Church) was especially excited because he is from Italy! Tanya is the pastor of Moscow First Church of the Nazarene, my home church!

Here's the stadium! The stands were packed, except for the bare area you see in the background. This is the Olympic Stadium where the 1980 Games were held and also where Billy Graham preached first in 1982 and then again in a crusade in 1984. Quite historic!

Sashka and Eara continue to provide much love and comfort for my roommate and me. They are precious and a true gift from God!

One of the most touching events of my time so far in Moscow occurred last Saturday. I had just finished a morning run, and I was about to start my abdominal exercises on my bed. I had put my hands above my head and against the wall to steady myself, and Sashka decided to enter the cavity between my arm and head! She lay down directly next to my ear, and I could hear her gentle purr and rapidly palpitating heart. We sat there together resting for about 10 minutes! It reminded me of Isaiah 40:11: "He tends his flock like a shepherd; he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young."

"The kids" like to sit on Daddy's lap while he works, too!

We had our first snow early last week, and we just had another a couple days ago. How beautiful to walk into a bright classroom! It's starting to be consistently cold here...in the 20s and 30s, which I hear is quite comparable to Michigan weather.

I took this picture months ago, but it captures the state of my soul lately. While here in Moscow, I have often seen this dear babushka feeding stray dogs with her own meager resources. It touches my heart each time I see it. Neither the dogs nor the babushka appear to have much at all, and yet the babushka's generous and compassionate heart prompts her to give what little she does have to these innocent little stray puppies! How does that relate to me? During these first 13+ weeks in Moscow, I have often come to the humbling fact that "I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me" (Psalm 109:22). I have reached the limits of my natural strength and abilities and found them insufficient. What I have to offer is so trivial in comparison with the greatness of Almighty God, but that tiny bit is what He wants. Really, we're all poor, destitute, weak, and needy when we admit it, and we all need the touch of Love. God intends us weak people to experience His extravagant love by sharing it with our fellow needy neighbors. Only when we approach our neighbors along the lines of our true poverty will we understand what Jesus experienced. "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9). When we embrace our poverty, we will become the channels through which the mighty riches of God's Love flow to a world in desperate need. Will the world see the God who became poor through people who realize that that is what we are? Will they see the God who "[stooped] down to make[us] great"? (Psalm 18:35). Through our depletion comes God's completion.

Praise God that my parent-teacher conferences went extremely well last Monday! I could feel the prayers being lifted up for me; I felt like I was in a zone through the 15 meetings (13-straight). Please pray that I would continually draw on the joy that is found in Christ...my heart is quickly discouraged at this point in the journey. (I eagerly look forward to coming home for Christmas.) Pray for my kids, that they would grow in faith and their love for others. Pray for my students' parents as they carry out God's work in Moscow (business, church-planting, etc.). Pray for the Russian people, culture, and government...it, like all nations, is in desperate need of God.