We left Sacramento on Tuesday, June 14, and we arrived in Moscow on Wednesday evening after 3 flights. All the bags arrived, and we walked right through customs without even needing to stop. At the hotel we were welcomed by our missionary Ellen Smith along with her husband Al and daughter Emma. We spent Thursday in Moscow taking a walk around the Kremlin. Chris' Fitbit logged 24000+ steps.
On Friday we met up with Yuri, our translator, and took the train to Oryol. On Friday evening and Saturday Pastor Cliff led a marriage conference and Jayne helped with that. Meanwhile the rest of the team entertained the children so their parents could focus on the conference. We played games outside and did crafts and arts inside.
At Cliff's conference on marriage, there were approximately 15 couples. They were a delightful group and very friendly. Although noone spoke English, we managed to have a couple of conversations with Yuri or Ellen as our translator. The couples were all between 25 and 35 and had lots of children. It was a meaningful time spent with some very dear young people. Jayne told a personal story about body language and how she can determine what he wants without even a word spoken. Both Cliff and Jayne felt the warmth one receives when we are accepted and really enjoyed being with the Russian couples at Oryol.
Saturday evening we went with members of the host church out to their camp and they served us sort of an Armenian BBQ. We have been kept well fed by our hosts.
We attended the host church's worship service on Sunday morning. After church, we presented a couple of gifts to Pastor Valeri and his wife, Vera. She commented on the age of our group and we laughed. Vera said our team was extra attentive to the children and she was very impressed how we learned the names of the children. Many special moments!
Sunday afternoon we took the train back to Moscow. Misha and Venya from Kostroma greeted us at the train station and then we all transferred to a different train station. Yuri's wife, Nina, and their 3 children joined us and we took an overnight train to Lipetsk.
Early Monday morning, David Andrusyak picked us up at the Lipetsk train station and took us to the Transformation Christian Camp (TCC). We settled in at TCC and met Rick Kirschman and the other missionaries here and then started to prepare for the family camp. The families started arriving in the afternoon and part of our team kept the children busy with a craft while their parents checked into their rooms. Some of the women came over to do the craft too.
Monday evening we had some time in large group worship and one of the Russian pastors taught from Proverbs 31.
Apologies for not posting sooner. We did not have wi-fi in Oryol.
