Dear family and friends,
Wednesday will be a day we will never forget. We started the day at four in the morning with the ladies saying goodbye to Melissa as she returns to be with her daughter in the hospital. Our prayers are with all who are sick in Pittsburgh and we lift each one up in prayer when we worship each evening.

St. Tikhon of Zadonsk

We started the day going to St. Tikhon's University. We met our friend Yury who teaches there in the theology department. He took us to an third and fourth year English class. Most of the students spoke English very well and will become teachers or translators. We talked about Eastminster and our ministry. We told them about our worship that is very foreign to them. The idea that we have music and a band was inconceivable. How can you play rock and roll or jazz in church? How can you have a flexible liturgy and open prayers? When we told them we did communion once a month their eyes got very large and mouths opened wide!

Melissa

Paradoxes & Contradictions

Russia continues to be an amazing land-- a land of contradictions or paradoxes. They have technology, yet we rode on trains from the forties and fifties. They have new buildings and cars, yet cleaning the streets or sidewalks seems impossible. Moscow is a city of apartments not homes. The apartments are huge and most of them on the outside look like our public housing. Russia is a poor country in which the infrastructure is breaking down so we find there is much to pray for here. The people have endured terrible political and economic tragedy.

Icons
Sunday afternoon we met with Father Mephody to discuss the world of icons. To go to church in Russia is to be brought into a world of icons, candles and incense wafting in the air. People bow to the icon and pray and kiss the icon. Father Mephody, doing his best with an English translator, made it clear that these are not false idols. The Orthodox know that idol worship is a sin. They believe that icons are a path--a place where the spiritual realm meets the earthly realm.

It is Saturday evening at St. George Monastery on the Volga River in Russia. We are at a monastery that only ten or so Americans have ever visited. We got here by taking a 15-hour train ride and than a two-hour truck ride that included a mile and half traveling on the frozen Volga River. We got stuck as we tried to go up the bank of the river to the monastery.

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.