My September teaching trips are usually the hardest to plan, as the planning period falls right into the summer break and vacations times in Russia. Teachers and students don’t even want to think of what they will be doing in the September and October! Luckily, some ministries and churches work hard all year long, and I only have to fill a few days with teaching-the-teachers events.
My geography will again be partially dictated by the incredibly inexpensive air tickets within Russia these days due to the falling ruble. I will first fly to the Eastern Siberia city of Krasnoyarsk for a week of teaching in Lutheran and Orthodox Church communities as well as the local Christian Teachers Association. I will then make my way back to Moscow, stopping for a week of teaching in Baptist and Pentecostal Churches and state universities in Novosibirsk. The last week of my trip will involve 
training clergy and lay leaders in and around Moscow region, with a possible quick two-day run to Tatarstan.
I can’t wait to meet my audiences and try some new presentation material I have developed since my last trip in July.
Please continue your prayers for the last-minute changes, corrections, and confirmations. Russians don’t like to plan so far ahead as even a couple of weeks (see more about that and some other cross-cultural Russian-American perspectives in my recent article in the Star Tribune.)
