I am back in Moscow 
today, waiting for the train to Samara.
My presentations in Omsk for the last three days – to teachers, to church leaders, to university students – were very well received and attended. Besides, I was making many new friends and contacts for future ministry in this city and region: local missionaries, university professors, priests, pastors and Bible teachers. Many, many of them emphasized how useful and important was the training and the materials they received. “Your approach to faith is not new but the excellence of the presentation and the
clarity of inner logic is indeed very impressive. You know your audience and your audience recognizes your as “one of our own” very quickly. But even more importantly – after you come and go – your training and your materials will continue to touch and stir peoples’ hearts and minds” – said an Orthodox Priest.
T
here was time for long Russian-style-three-hour-no-break presentations. There was time for Q&A sessions. There was time for small group informal conversations. There was time for formal classroom lectures. There was time for sharing and encouragement with fellow missionaries who opened their home for me to stay and drove me around the city. Coincidentally (!?), they happened to be from Kirkhoven, Minnesota– the town with a very special connection to the FaithSearch Russian Ministry! Small world. Oh, rather – great God!
It has been going too well. Somebody down beneath, apparently, got very upset about it and mixed up some of my plans. Because of dense fog covering the city for many days Samara airport was closed, my flight delayed-delayed-delayed-canceled and the Samara Regional Christian Teachers’ Conference this Sunday had to be canceled as well. I am still traveling to the area tonight for the local public school teachers’ training conferences in Toliatti and Syzran – by train! In fact, those Christian teachers in Samara don’t want to give up easily and are now trying to arrange the conference facility and to reschedule the conference for next Sunday! Which means, that I may have to travel this same route to Samara once again – just for one day and just for this determined and defiant audience (God bless their hearts!). The difference is that I will be buying the train tickets myself rather than using the funds from the Russian education book-publisher that was initially sponsoring the Samara trip. I am sure I will be able to save on something else. Please pray for these teachers to receive the training in the FaithSearch Discovery curriculum next week!
