I am on the flight from Astana back to Almaty to transfer to Istanbul, to Paris and to MSP, with four to five hours layovers on each stop.
Counting back, the last two days in Northern Kazakhstan were the coldest (up to -20 C) and the most ministry-intensive. Three presentations yesterday kept me busy and plenty warm at the Shanyrak Evangelical Church, during an online class at Belgorod Seminary (from my cell) and at the Uspenskiy Cathedral Educational Center in the evening. Not seeing much of the city is totally fine with me, knowing that both churches want me back again soon for a longer and expanded training sessions at some nicer part of the year.
The same about my prior four days in Almaty where I spoke at churches and taught at the seminary without seeing much of the beautiful mountains that surround the city. One attempt to ski on the famous Chimbulak Resort failed miserably after spending 3+ hours in the city traffic and reaching it an hour before it closed. My audiences, on the other hand were way above my expectations – engaged, curious, challenging and lots of fun to work with! My concerns about the cultural gap (Russian/American/Kazakh) disappeared after only a few minutes. I taught in Russian but at least a third of my classes were locals – Kazakhs and Kyrgyz – “secretly” discussing my presentation between themselves and then coming up with a really good question on faith, history, spiritual life or culture.
Most of my audiences were young but the most touching comment came from an older lady in a babushka from the front row saying to me after the presentation: “I always believed that someday the Lord will reveal Himself to me in the way that I can trust Him. Honestly, I didn’t know what I was asking for. I just knew that He would do it. It happened today. Thank you.”
Last week I sent to many churches and friends around the globe a prayer request for our very pregnant (expecting on December 31) daughter who was hospitalized with high blood pressure. It was so much fun to share the photo of our newly born granddaughter with the people and congregations that prayed for my family even before I arrived to their city. Praise the Lord for the little Miroslava!
