Well, I said I would write again soon, but it appears that I've been a little sidetracked lately. Blogging consistently is actually a very difficult thing...it seems to be yet one more commitment that is difficult to make time for! Anyway, my apologies for keeping you all waiting for over two months for the continuation on this one! Here's the rest of the story for our first day in Moscow. Don't worry, the memories live on strong in our minds so we'll still be able to tell you the rest of the story... :) We pray you are all doing well.
Our first stop on the trip into Moscow that first day (besides the bathroom break at McDonalds!), was at ICF (International Christian Fellowship). Of course the building looked nothing like a church, but after we went past the security guards and made our way up to the third floor, we found ourselves walking into a pretty good-sized auditorium. We arrived a few minutes late for service, but were there for most of the worship and sermon. Overall, the service was much like a typical evangelical church service in America, not surprisingly since many of the people attending and serving were Americans! In fact, the elder that gave the sermon that day was also from South Dakota...can you believe it?!? There we also met people from Ireland, Australia, and a former CNN news correspondent returning from Afghanistan who ended up joining us for the rest of the afternoon.
We enjoyed a delicious lunch at a place called "грабли" (gra`-blay), which we came to find out means "rake" in English! Interesting name...all I could figure is that it had something to do with being garden fresh food (which it was!), or maybe that it "raked" you in, or possibly they were hoping to "rake" in some cash (although it was quite a bit cheaper than the airport meal we had!). It was very elegantly decorated, with one floor serving all kinds of different foods cafeteria-style, and two floors of dining above that. It was an exercise in looking for what appeared "safe" for us, and then pointing and hoping the servers picked the right thing, as we couldn't read any of the signs, and none of the servers could speak English!
After lunch we walked towards the main attraction in Moscow, Red Square. But along the way, we stopped by the apartment where Francis (our new friend, the former CNN correspondent) was staying. That was very interesting to us too. What appeared on the outside to be a very normal, simple-looking building, turned out to be very "not-normal" on the inside! Her friend had bought the flat about 12 years ago for about $1 million. Most likely, it was a few Soviet-era apartments that had been combined into one and beautifully remodeled. I was a little surprised to notice that it wasn't the carefully crafted, everything-done-by-hand kind of remodeling job, but rather a recent, American-style remodeling job, complete with laminate flooring. Don't get me wrong though, it was far and away the most lavishly decorated home we witnessed on our trip...
The rows of souvenir stands just outside the square, and the brightly-colored ice rink inside Red Square seemed to sharply contrast the seriousness of the place.
I guess that's one thing we noticed about the culture: you just don't see much public "goofing around" like you might here in the U.S. Everyone seemed very busy, and always seemed to be moving with purpose. Even in the downtime (on the metro, train, etc.) people seemed to dive right into reading on an e-reader or something. However, I do recognize that my perspective on all this is probably limited. We aren't familiar with big cities...maybe they are much the same in the U.S.? We also didn't speak the language, so maybe they were joking and goofing around more than we thought, without us even knowing it! After all, everyone likes to have fun, and people are the same all over the world, right?
Since coming home, I've noticed more of that here too. We all have our lives, our habits, our comfort zones, and different levels of willingness to be stretched out of that.
Lord please give us understanding of others, and help us to see them with Your eyes, rather than with our eyes which so often see nothing but differences and difficulties. Your eyes always look upon all of us with love.
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| Building where ICF meets on Sundays |
Our first stop on the trip into Moscow that first day (besides the bathroom break at McDonalds!), was at ICF (International Christian Fellowship). Of course the building looked nothing like a church, but after we went past the security guards and made our way up to the third floor, we found ourselves walking into a pretty good-sized auditorium. We arrived a few minutes late for service, but were there for most of the worship and sermon. Overall, the service was much like a typical evangelical church service in America, not surprisingly since many of the people attending and serving were Americans! In fact, the elder that gave the sermon that day was also from South Dakota...can you believe it?!? There we also met people from Ireland, Australia, and a former CNN news correspondent returning from Afghanistan who ended up joining us for the rest of the afternoon.
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| Beautiful decor, great food, all at a place called "Rake"! |
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| Typical building...outside |
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| Not-so-typical...inside! |
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| The north entrance into Red Square |
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| The mall that forms one border of Red Square |
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| Lenin's Tomb...the Kremlin in the background |
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| Selling souvenirs in the rain outside Red Square |
Since coming home, I've noticed more of that here too. We all have our lives, our habits, our comfort zones, and different levels of willingness to be stretched out of that.
Lord please give us understanding of others, and help us to see them with Your eyes, rather than with our eyes which so often see nothing but differences and difficulties. Your eyes always look upon all of us with love.
