Monday we received our visas in the mail! It's a very strange thing to have them in our hands...an invitation to come to another country half way around the world. To us, it's permission to come and share the good news of Jesus Christ with people we've never met and will probably barely be able to communicate with!
Yesterday we bought our plane tickets! Now it's all there...dates are fixed and it's real! Here's the plan:
We fly into Moscow, where we will be picked up by someone from CCCPM. We will stay with them (they have a lodge that can house large groups of missionaries) for four nights. We then board a plane for Novosibirsk (the largest city in Siberia at 1.5 million people!). There we will be picked up by Bill Shepherd, pastor of Calvary Chapel Novosibirsk. We'll be staying at a hostel in Novosibirsk for two nights. Then we'll board the Trans-Siberian Railroad with Pastor Bill (thankfully!), and begin a 30-hour train ride to another city further east in Siberia called Irkutsk (which is about 500,000 people!). We'll stay four nights in a hostel there before boarding the train again for the return to Novosibirsk. After two final nights in Novosibirsk, we fly back to Moscow for two more nights with CCCPM before boarding a plane for home.
Like I said earlier, it may be tough to communicate, but thankfully even that barrier can be overcome. Regarding the brethren that we will meet (and hopefully encourage!):
Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God. --Romans 15:5-7
Whoever we may meet, even if we cannot understand them, let us remember this:
My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. --1 John 3:18
Please pray for us!
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