My May trips have to fit between the “mayskie prazdniki” (days-off, from May 1 through May 9) when most of the people are working in their gardens or dachas (cabins), and the schools’ finals when my student audience are totally incapable of receiving any new information. This year, I had to also wait for after the Holy Week when my Orthodox church audiences are still too tired from celebrating Pascha. I will be leaving for three weeks of ministry in Russia and Belarus tomorrow afternoon, and will start by teaching a class at Moscow Baptist Theological Seminary, twelve hours after arriving to my Moscow living quarters. I will, however, not be staying there for more than one night at a time as most of my ministry will be happening elsewhere: one week – in Southern Siberia; the next week – in Belarus; and the rest of the trip – between Bryansk and Moscow regions.

I cannot believe it has already been ten days since my last blog entry – so full they were with events and travel!

First, I flew over to the city of Izhevsk where I taught twice almost a decade ago to the local teachers’ community and at a church summer camp. This time the invitation came from one of those campers who wanted the “Gospel with Evidence” to be proclaimed to a wider circle of her family, friends, and to the general public. The Orthodox Diocese did their part by providing an excellent venue for the events – three presentations on Saturday and two more on Sunday. Passing a Museum of Kalashnikov and a huge ammunition plant on our way to that place every morning added a certain thrill to the whole project.

Done. Three weeks of travel, teaching, preaching, meeting new audiences, and fellowship with old ministry friends and partners in five cities in two countries were very exciting but also very exhausting. Except for the last four days, I slept every other night on the train, and every night on a different bed. Most of my accommodations were very nice – even the monastery cell in Kazan was well heated and came with a USB charger for my phone (somebody left one there). It’s XVII-century, six-foot-thick, brick walls allowed only very limited Internet connection, but made me feel well protected from every kind of enemy forces.

The picture outside my window on the Moscow-Bryansk train is completely black-and-white, with the predominance of white for almost five hours. This is my fourth train on the trip but the first daytime one. Travelling on the overnight trains is more like a space/time-machine: you go to bed in one city and wake up on the next day in the other.