I am already half-way through the trip and the Lord graciously keeps me safe, strong and healthy. I keep moving upstream the Volga River having started from its delta in Astrakhan where my suitcase (with all my cables and other computer accessories) caught up with me after spending an extra night somewhere between JFK and Sheremetyevo. Praise the Lord, Pastor Benjamin had extra cables to connect my notebook, projector and sound system and I was able start my first FaithSearch Discovery presentation on time – three hours after I landed on Russian soil. Almost fourteen hours of sleep and very nice airplane meals on three flights from Minnesota to Astrakhan gave me plenty of energy for the presentation and the Q&A session that night. Two young skeptics were following me all the way to the pastor’s car as I was answering their question and providing them with references for their subsequent research in the matter of faith. God bless their hearts!

My next morning started with a joyful nose of the worship service at the Pentecostal church that supplied me with enough power for a teaching event after the service and for a great walking tour around this historic city. A mixture of Muslim and Christian motifs in its past and present has given this whole area of Sothern Russia a very special look and flavor.

Four hours on a minivan across the endless steppe that vividly reminded me of my trips across the plains of North Dakota brought me to the capital of Kalmyk Republic – the city of Elista. It would have been a typical and most boring Soviet-times provincial town if not for a huge golden Buddhist temple – hurul – the largest in all Europe, in its very center. Kalmykia does not have much to offer economically and is trying to build its path to prosperity by attracting pilgrims and tourists from all over the globe to this “world wonder”. That, of course, created quite a stir in local churches and even in secular communities such as schools, colleges and universities. My presentation on the historic foundation of Christian faith including some comparison references to other religions were met with great interest and appreciation. I must go there again sometime soon to reach out to even wider audience as their church and education leaders have tasted our material and saw the impact it is having on the event participants.

I stuck my whole last week with Volgograd’s Evangelical churches: teaching a course on Apologetics at their Missions School, preaching at their communities and presenting at Volgograd teachers’ conferences. It was so great not having to hop on another bus or train or van or plane at the end of every other day! Teaching at the International Church attended mostly by exchange students from Africa was surely the highlight of that whole time in Volgograd – FaithSearch International has now extended its mission to yet another continent!

I have already seen Volga River fully covered by ice at its mouth and I have seen it freely flowing less than a mile downstream from Volgograd hydroelectric station and am seeing it again today frozen over in Saratov. I have just spent most of the day with a group of Baptist leaders training them to present the FaithSearch Discovery in their churches. I will spend the whole day tomorrow with public school teachers and Orthodox Catechism trainers before catching a red-eye flight up north. Good-bye, Volga! Hello, Moscow River! Ӏ

My friends in Moscow have been asking me lately, “How bad the cold has to be in MN that you are fleeing from it to Russia?” What can I say? It will be about the same -25 C in most of Russia in February, and all I will need to do once I am there is simply to change the perspective from “we will all freeze to death” to “there are some places in the country that are even colder today.”

I am taking off tomorrow for three weeks of teaching and preaching in churches, universities, schools and colleges in “Southern Russia.” In the past, I have used this as a euphemism to avoid scaring my family when I was in fact visiting Chechnya, Dagestan, and some other… not-so-safe areas of the country. This time I will actually be going all the way south, to where the Volga-River meets the Caspian Sea (which is actually, the largest lake in the world). I will start in the city of Astrakhan and then move upstream (with quick side tour to Elista) to Volgograd, to Saratov, and then to Moscow. Southern Russia does not mean it will be much warmer in those areas (you may remember the story of the battle for Stalingrad).

My only hope is for the Lord to send me good and caring friends and ministry partners who will help me to stay healthy and to move around safely.

After all was said and done—with delayed flights and an unscheduled overnight stay in Tokyo—it did not take that much less time flying over the Pacific Ocean than it would have over the Atlantic. Praise the Lord, I still made it to Kamchatka on time—two hours before I was scheduled to speak at the Conference opening ceremony. I am glad they let me change my clothes right in the City Hall Director’s office, as all other speakers kindly looked the other way. I am also glad my laptop battery lasted through my whole presentation and died seconds after I finished (there were no electric outlets anywhere near the lectern to plug it in). After spending the whole night changing planes in the Vladivostok airport and then in flight to Petropavlovsk (loosing two time zones in the process), I was too tired and very disoriented to realize how low the battery charge was. Praise the Lord for taking care of these little things for me when I am not able to!

I am also grateful to Him for my hosts here! I have a very comfortable private “cell” to stay in their church-house, with three meals provided and somebody always willing to give me a ride to my next venue—whether the State University, the Teacher’s Continuing Training Center, the Medical College, Army base, or Penitentiary Department, etc., etc.

Speaking of which, I just cannot believe how interested and engaged my audience was—prison guards, security officers, and other penitentiary staff—when I presented FaithSearch Discovery at their training conference! My hosts were extremely worried and warned me many times about this “tough crowd”: that they might be difficult and even offensive to the message of God’s love and mercy.

I was reminded that what they see everyday does not necessarily represent the best of humanity but that most of them are well trained professionals and officers who value professionalism in others very highly. That turned out to be the key. My appeal to their rationality and logical thinking got them on the track of making discoveries—step by step, one after another. “Tough crowd,” eh? If God is for us, who can be against us?

My last two days in Kamchatka were divided among an Evangelical church, a Medical college, a military base and an Orthodox group—totally different audiences within fifty miles around Petropavlovsk. There was, however, also something the same in the audience each time: a sense of surprise and joy of discovering a new and important aspect of life: life with God. The title of one of C.S. Lewis’ books which contained these two words kept coming back to me as I looked in the eyes of the people in the audience: cadets and officers; students and teachers; lay leaders and clergy.

Praise God, who is able still to surprise us—and those who hear His Gospel—with His joy and with faith in His truth! 

I am leaving for my next three weeks in Russia on December 1^st and will be back right before Christmas. My destination this time is the Russian Far East, which means I will be flying West all the way across the Pacific Ocean. with a change of planes in Japan. I will be crossing only (!) seven time zones vs. seventeen time zones if I were to fly over the Atlantic and then across all Europe and all Asia. I am already getting a little lightheaded even from merely listing all these locations, directions, and destinations! [Read more…]

It felt almost like traveling in a time machine when my plane landed in Murmansk. Most of the city center architecture goes back to Stalin’s times, which is characterized by a contrast of the grandeur of the main street fronts and wooden barracks of the back streets. Both are still very much present here, as well as a good measure of pride for the heroic past of this land during and after the WWII.

It sure takes some special human character to live in this land of forty-days-long polar nights, high humidity, and almost constant oceanic winds. The city itself is squeezed in what looks like a canyon made by the mouth of the Kola River, but is in fact a long and deep Barents Sea harbor.
So far, I have been presenting twice a day, every day while I am here. I did not plan that, but each presentation opens yet another opportunity – participants would come up to me after the event and invite me to teach at their own place: a church, a school, a conference, etc. – sometimes on that very same day! Grabbing a snack on the go and having only one normal meal per day has become a pattern here. My hosts at Pilgrimage Center of St. Tikhon always leave some great food for me on the stove and I absolutely love their cuisine, which consists of the whole variety of fresh fish products.

My absolute favorite audience so far was a class of fifth-year History students at Murmansk Arctic State University. They were so confident that they know it all and that nothing would ever make them even consider changing their firm atheist/gnostic positions. It was so much fun to see their faces, their eyes, and even their postures gradually change in the course of the presentation! I wish I had taken more pictures during the whole event. Their professor later shared with me how much her students liked the presentation, which connected so many dots in their understanding of history and in their own lives: They knew History very well but now they also understand it once its key event takes its proper place and significance. Of course, she said, they were “too cool” to tell me about it but they liked the presentation very much and would like me to come back sometime soon for more conversation and Q&A.
I am leaving Murmansk tonight for the last four days of presentations in and around Moscow before heading back to MN. A memorial to the American and British convoys of the WWII times in one of the central parks of this city made me feel a little homesick.