From Russia - With Love (Part 1)

Written by Pastor Paul Roberts

nikolai-anokhin-russian-winter Dear Church Family,

We have experienced a rare winter - even for Russia. There is three feet of snow on the ground and about ten below 0F! The trees are all frozen. In the center of the city there are people everywhere. The women wear big fur coats in many colors an styles - and fur hats as well. The men have big hats with fur and all kinds of coats too.

The blue jean look has overtaken the men. Even older men are wearing jeans.

When we ride the mass transit it is such a strange phenomenon - Russians don't talk. It is very quiet as hundreds of people are getting on and off the subway. Today, as we were riding the subway, a veteran got on and he had no legs. He simply was sitting on a board with wheels and move it with his hands on the ground. He announced his presence and asked for money. People did help him. However, the people have a tired and sullen look on there faces.

"Thank you women of the church for helping the school"

Carol

Visiting the Christian school we support. Garth talked with us about the school. We discussed the Russian perspective on education. The school has 65 children. On the past the school was totally run by the state. There are so many obstacles in Garths ministry. Finances are tight for payroll - almost every child is scholarshiped. The problems of red tape with the govt is great. It made me proud. To think we support this mission.

We also went to the church of St. John. This church (with the catholic church) ministers to the street children. The priest showed us how they use puppet shows and art to reach out to the orphans. He described many scenarios to make a child become a street child. (Thank you woman of the church for helping the school.) We went on to discuss with the priest about worship and icons in the church, as well as discussing his calling to the priesthood after the soviet empire fell. He was a physicist until the fall and than became a priest.

Two Pauls

Life has changed so since the fall of Communism. People were not allowed to enter any religious group then. It wasn't till Peristrycha that they could become priests and go to seminary. The Orthodox Church is once again trying to become the Russian faith. They are stressing the re-awakening of Russian identity and church being in symphony. The church is seen as good in producing moral citizens. This closeness also has a bad aspect though. The church is seen as blessing the state and there behaviors. This has the possibility of back firing - if you see the state being bad. If the state does bad things then the church is seen as bad.

When Lenin led the Bolshevik revolution the orthodox church was partially destroyed as well. Over time - thousand of priest were killed. It is very sad.

One of the things constantly talked about are the 25 million deaths in WW2 and the 20million killed by Stalin. There is a culture of deep sadness or pessimism from this I think. Life is very hard and most families have experienced death or the gulag but Father Alexi showed us that there is hope in Russia. The church shares the good news that God cares for the suffering Russians.

He thanked us for supporting there street ministry. God bless till - write tomorrow. Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerr