Karelia was cold.

I am glad Fr. Stanislav packed my four days there so tightly with events. I didn’t have much time be outside and exposed to the elements. We were, however, doing quick rounds to and around the old monasteries and churches on our path. In one convent, two hours to the west of Petrozavodsk, we actually stayed for a night and taught classes there for its nuns and novices. All summer long they are super busy receiving thousands of pilgrims, visitors, and tourists. Only in the winter does their prayer and labor-intensive schedule allow for (still rather intensive) classroom time. My “Historic Foundations of Faith” course was very fittingly augmented by Fr. Stanislav’s class on the “History of Christian Church Sects and Schisms.”

I am leaving for Russia and Belarus via Germany and Lithuania tomorrow, very excited about my very full travel and teaching schedule for the three weeks of the trip. As always, it will include both church and secular audiences, this time in and around Moscow, Petrozavodsk, Volgograd, and Minsk. My ministry partners in Karelia only told me about the first two days of teaching at the university and technical college. “Be prepared not to have any Internet access for the next three days of ministry” – that is all they want me to know. What is it going to be? Remote villages? An army base? Prison ministry? I’ve learned to trust my local friends in how to best use my time on the ground and not to ask too many questions.

Both in Russia and in Belarus, this time of the year promises random and fast-changing weather, especially when I take overnight trains north and then south within just a few days. What I can firmly count on is the unchanging interest of my students to learn, to ask questions and to challenge their teacher. I am so looking forward to it!

I am half-way through my trip and, honestly, nearly two-thirds through my energy bank. Luckily the next week is not going to be as extensive with events and travel as was the last one. I truly enjoyed doing two (or more) teaching events per day in different locations and for different audiences. Meeting new people and sharing my faith with them is what actually energizes me! It was travelling from place to place by all possible means of transportation (including long walks on icy sidewalks) that was sometimes rather exhausting. Besides, I only once had a chance to sleep two nights in a row in the same bed (or a night train) and at this point looking forward to my four-night’s stay at Kursk Evangelical Trinity Seminary dorm where I will continue and complete video recording of my of lecture courses on the “Arguments for the Existence of God” and “Intro to Christian Education.”

The weather in St. Petersburg these days is authentically Dostoyevsky style. Short and gloomy daylight hours combined with chilling and wet winds blowing from the Baltic Sea make one want to stay indoors with a cup of hot tea rather than crossing the city on public transportation. I truly admire my seminary students and my public-school teachers who bravely overcome all the elements in order to be in my classroom for a couple of hours of presentation and discussion on the topic of Christian Faith and Biblical History!

My six days of video recording and preaching in Kursk will be remembered by the background sound of air-raid sirens which went off multiple times every day and nearly every night. I was probably the only one, however, who paid any attention to them. Life was just going on as usual on the streets of the city. My camera crew didn’t even stop recording my lectures when explosions were heard in the distance. “We’ll just edit it out,” said the sound guy.

All-in-all we recorded eighteen academic hours of classes, plus a few short devotional messages they will offer to audiences in Russia and other countries (with subtitles).