Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
I am back in MN with my family, safe and sound, thanks to your prayers.
My hopes for squeezing at least half-a-day of downhill skiing in Northern Caucuses never materialized. All three days in Pyatigorsk were packed with events and presentations at teachers’ conferences and a local 
Bible college. Besides, the Caucasians are known for their hospitality and their excellent cuisine: pastor Ruslan made sure I was always safe, well rested and well fed. Glad they only 
weighed my luggage and not me at the airport–otherwise the difference between the flight there and the flight back would have been too embarrassing. Speaking of safety, they pray for it at every occasion–before and after meals, before and during church 
services, before and after every trip, etc. I only realized the true meaning of that “routine” when I read in the newspapers about a terrorist car bomb that went off only two blocks away from the church I taught in. It happened on the highway I rode on a dozen times while being in Pyatigorsk two weeks before that sad date.
It is hard to believe that it occurred in the same town where I met with the school teachers and church lay leaders who were so joyous, so excited to hear that the Good News of Christ is true and the New Testament is actually a reliable record of history. The word of a young man from one of those conferences still rings in my ears:
I have been looking for this kind of material all my life! Instinctively, I always knew that something like that has to exist, that somebody has to have developed such a curriculum and today I found it! This is truly a very special day in my life. What a gift for upcoming Christmas and New Year! I am so, so happy!
To be sure, not always are the feelings expressed so openly and straightforwardly. The 
further East you go in Russia the more reserved people are and life is slower paced in general. Speaking at teachers’ conferences in Perm and in Osa didn’t bring up any emotional “Caucasian style” outbursts. Audiences there are usually quiet, calm, serious, and very business like. Smiling and, God forbid, joking are completely
inappropriate and impossible. Their comments and responses are usually brief and to the point. Which makes their subtle expressions and signs of gratitude and appreciation ever more precious. For example, in Perm the audience didn’t want to go home until almost 11 pm–two hours after the official closing time of the conference! To be exact, there were only four or five of us left at that time as other people 
were one by one and very reluctantly dropping from the conversation and leaving the room so that they can catch the bus or the train home. After a late improvised supper they insisted that I cancel my hotel booking and stay in their dorm (in fact, a 
medical unit) so that we could continue our discussion just a little longer. I noticed that one of them was also very intensively texting all evening. By the time we were at last saying our good-byes he proudly announced–expecting no objections on my part–that he just set up another teachers’ 
conference for me for the very next morning. Sure enough, at 10 am on Saturday morning the room was full to the capacity even though most of the city streets were still only half cleared from all-night snow storm.
Travelling by air (paid for by the Russian parties) allowed me to cover lots of ground this time, but also made the trip somewhat hectic and a bit unpredictable: two of the flights were canceled and almost all of them were badly delayed. On my next trip in January (Ukraine and Central Russia) I will try to stay closer to the ground.
