No water in the lavatory? The “blue screen of death” on the monitors for the whole nine-hour flight? I am not surprised when little things like that happen on a flight to Russia. We live in a fallen world and some parts of it simply has a tendency to “fall” more often. Seriously, the flight was fine and even allowed me an extra chance to review my PhD abstract which was due on the next morning. Unfortunately, they returned it to me with “some minor remarks” and I had to spend a good part of this weekend working on it again. My next due date is Monday, 11 am. Please pray it to be the very last one.
My teaching schedule so far has been fairly solid. Public school Teachers and Deans were truly “surprised by faith” during our first session at the Institute of Open Education Wednesday. Most of them have been teaching World History for decades and had absolutely n o i d e a of the existence of the early New Testament manuscripts. I am looking forward to sharing with them the external evidence of Archeology tomorrow night.
I made a true discovery today–about myself! I considered myself a well-informed person, well-educated teacher and well-experienced believer. Surprise, surprise! Today, your presentation made me think over how I teach and what I believe in. And what makes me even more exciting is that we are still at ‘Discovery #3’… —said one of the teachers
Not less excitedly did my seminarians sound the next day. They already had taken their Theology, Apologetics, and Missions classes in the Pentecostal Euro-Asian Seminary, and were truly happy to see how it all can be combined and applied in a very practical and 
powerful way. They were especially impressed by the fact that it can be done so “elegantly and yet so persuasively” (their words)–no heavy-duty philosophical terminology, no psychological tricks, no lengthy theological references. Evidence and logic–very simple. Maybe a little humor.
One more highlight of the past week was visiting with a good-old friend who is working now at the Gorbachev Center and remembering those good-old times when Gorby and I used to work together in Moscow Kremlin. Yes, he was the President and I was a tour-guide. But at least we went to the same place every morning…
Many thanks for all your prayers!
