The price of paint!

One of the most frustrating things we encounter at the church, actually, in life in general, is trying to get accurate price information on things we wish to purchase. This might seem like one of the smaller, “proverbial” pebbles in the shoe, but somehow it always manages to position itself right at the tenderest spot where it causes the most discomfort. For instance, today, we needed to buy some more green paint for the fence that we are constructing around the church’s property. Consequently, we called up the nearest hardware store and asked if they had green paint in stock and how much it cost. We were told that the paint was in stock and its price. As it turns out, we might as well have spent the time wasted on that phone call doing something constructive such as counting the number of granules in a cubic centimeter of sand from the children’s ministry’s sand box.

When we arrived at the store to buy our green paint, we were informed by a rather phlegmatic store employee that not only did they not have the green paint, but it cost 30% more than we were originally told. Our only option was to order the paint at a premium price. Needless to say, misinformation can be a source of major frustration and disappointment.

Isn’t it wonderful that when we come to the Word of God we can be certain that we will  never receive anything misleading from it! Every one of God’s promises is sure, and He is always faithful to make them good in our lives. In fact, Jesus said that He was the TRUTH. When you turn to Jesus you’ll never be disappointed. He not only is faithful to bless you with exactly what He promised, He blesses us abundantly with even more than we ask for. Now, that’s a deal that you can’t beat.

Car Alarm

Car theft is a major problem in Khabarovsk. No one leaves their car parked outside at nights by the side of the curb. Cars have to be kept in special high-security lots, or impregnable garages to keep them from being stolen. It is unheard of for a car not to be equipped with an alarm system. Consequently, the church’s min-van, which I drive, is decked out with a state-of-the-art alarm system that is guaranteed to be theft-proof. I am  now a true believer in this guarantee. The only problem is, it works just a little too good.

Before I get into what happened, let me explain to you something about the alarm system. The system itself is hidden somewhere inside the dash of the van; I’ve never seem its innards and I don’t want to. The part of the system that is visible and functional is in the guise of two small electronic remotes. One of them is used to basically open and lock the vehicle’s doors. The other one is simpler in design but of much greater import. The idea is that without its presence in the car, the car simply will not run no matter what you do. Now to the thick of things…

Yesterday evening we had a glorious leader’s meeting at the church. After the meeting, since it was late and cold, I invited as many people as possible fit to cram into the van so I could drop them off at various stops on my way home. Everything started out fine. We were exhilerated from the meeting and the fellowship freely flowed. All of a sudden, on the way down an icy and steep hill, the van’s engine suddenly cut off. I managed to steer the van to the curb, where we safely came to rest. At the same time, the alarm system’s lights began to blink wildly and I knew that it was to blame for the engine failure. Now it was time to figure out why it stopped the car.

To make a long story short, we discovered that several contacts in the simple remote, the one that you can’t drive anywhere without it being in the car, had come loose and rendered the remote completely useless. No matter what we did, the car wouldn’t budge. We had to call on the aid of a brother in our church who owns a soldering iron to come and fix the remote. He came to our rescue, took the remote home while I waited in the car with several other church members, soldered the contacts, and returned the remote – a true hero indeed. A little after midnight, I was finally able to make it home without further incident.

I don’t know if this alarm system would stop a  dedicated car thief, but it certainly stopped its owner, the very one it’s supposed to serve! Perhaps the next time we buy a vehicle we’ll install the economy alarm system.

Defender’s of the Fatherland Day

February 23rd is a celebrated holiday in Russia. It is officially labeled”Defender’s of the Fatherland Day”. As you can imagine, it does carry military connotations. In fact, I would consider it to be Russia’s version of “Armed Forces Day”. As it stands, this venerable holiday actually serves to honor all men (since all men are technically speaking defenders of the Fatherland especially in Russia where military service is compulsory), which makes it somewhat similar to “Father’s Day”. The point is, that February 23rd is the official holiday wherein men are honored and celebrated as a whole.

In light of this glorious event, the church staff (all female except for our live-in guard, Sergei) wished me a Happy Defender’s of the Fatherland Day today. They came up with a clever greeting card, spelling out English words in it using the Russian alphabet. Best of all, they gave me a beautiful cake from my favorite coffee shop “La Vita”. We all had a wonderful time celebrating, and best of all, we scarfed down the cake in short order. Everyone agreed that I was the best defender of my piece of cake, which though not as important as the “Fatherland” was certainly more tasty!

I Walked the Dog

No, I have not abandoned ship! There are lots of excuses, all of them related to time, that I could give for being unfaithful to this blog, but I won’t give even one. I have, however, discovered a problem that keeps me from blogging more frequently - I am a writer. When I sit down to write, it’s hard for me to share something like, “I took the dog out for a walk today.” I have an inward drive to write something substantial, and substantial takes time. The good news is, I have come to the realization that it’s OK to write about walking the proverbial dog. Every post doesn’t have to be Shakespeare or Apostle Paul level revelation.

I make no promises about how often I will post from now on, and I refuse to allow this blog to condemn me, BUT my intention is to do it more often, even if all I have time to say is – “I walked the dog.” Now, if only I could find time to walk the dog!

Hard Candy

My mother-in- law recently sent us several sacks of hard candy by post. Inga promptly exiled them to the church office to save our children from a cavity invasion. Though I normally don’t eat hard candy, for some unfortunate reason, I decided to try a piece after lunch one day to accompany my lonely cup of tea. Although the piece I sampled wasn’t really “hard” by the strictest definition of the word (it was more of a nougat), it contained a diabolical surprise lurking in its heart. Just as I was getting used to the candy and had decided that I like it, a terrible sound akin to a steel toed boot being smashed down onto a pile of gravel emitted from my mouth. At first, I couldn’t tell what happened until I retrieved the piece of candy from my mouth along with several particles from one of my favorite molars. Come to find out, this piece of candy was wrapped around a tiny stone that I bit down on with gusto. It broke my tooth. The good news is, the tooth that broke had endured a root canal several years earlier (read – its nerve had been deadened), and, therefore, I experienced a minimum of pain. 

Thank God, our family dentist was able, with the help of a piece of re-bar for internal support, reconstruct my tooth. Her parting comment as I left her office was, “Only chew soft foods from now on!” Yes, I’ll have to remember to try and eliminate rocks from my diet.

Back On Line

I deeply apologize for not posting for over a month now. Please don’t think that I have abandoned my post. I have not. The reason for my absence from the blog-o-sphere has been my need to concentrate on finishing a book that I am currently writing. My goal is to finish it by the first of the year. It is a book that tackles hard to understand passages from the New Testament that seem to challenge the goodness of God. I love my Heavenly Father and I delight in defending and upholding His goodness and grace. When this book is finally completed, it will provide its readers with answers to almost 50 challenging verses. The book is primarily intended for Russian speaking audiences, but someday I hope to see it published in English. 

By the way, my first published book, complete with ISBN number, has just been released. Praise the Lord! It is titled, “Must a Christian confess his sins to obtain forgiveness?” Essentially, this book is a study of 1 John chapter 1. The point of the book is that forgiveness of sins belongs to us as part of our inheritance in Christ. We have already been forgiven of all our sins. Our confession today as believers should declare – “I am forgiven, in Christ!” We confess what belongs to us in Jesus. 

Well, keep checking back. I hope to wrote to you about how I broke my tooth and about my most recent traffic ticket in upcoming posts. I think you’ll like them! 

 

Busy as a Bee Hive

 

I love it when I am surrounded by activity. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy quiet times too. There’s nothing like that time late in the evening, after a day of satisfying work, after supper, after the kids have been tucked into bed for the night, when I can sit on our bed with my back propped up with a pillow, let out a deep breathe, and delve into a good book. But when I am at the church, I like action! At the church, “The more the merrier” becomes my mantra. There is something about the buzz of happy voices and the patter of dozens of feet that thrills me.

 

Yesterday, I led my small group meeting for young married couples. We had a great time of discussion, and had the privilege of welcoming a new couple to our group. It was one of those meetings where we were all “on a roll”, and we didn’t stop till around 9:00 p.m. When we finally said our last prayer and started pulling on our winter gear to leave, I was so blessed to see that our little church building at 9:00 p.m. was abuzz with activity. As I exited the room my group met in, I brushed past two staff members and stepped out into our new addition, where a gaggle of voices were raised in excited discourse. The voices belonged to a group of students studying English in a new English language program we recently started in the church. I poked my head into the room and said “Hi, how are you guys?” in simple English, just for fun. I was rewarded with several responses from the students ranging from, “I am fine, thank you!” to “I am pleased to meet you.” Of all the students, I was most glad to see Pastor Vitaliy from our daughter church in Rakeetnoye. I think that his interest in learning English will pay off big for him in the future.

 

When I finally cut loose and headed for our mini-van in the parking lot, I couldn’t help but contemplate on how proud I am to be the pastor of a church whose people are so tightly knit together in their mutual love for Jesus and each other, that even at 9:00 p.m. on a Tuesday night the church was bursting at the seams due to all their activity!

 

 

ElectionS

Does he have a chance of winning? I mean the Great Dane...

Two weeks ago, the citizens of Khabarovsk voted for city mayor. I am sure you missed that one – it never made CNN news. It wasn’t even that exciting to the residents of Khabarovsk. There was no tight, fingernail biting race between the two mayoral candidates. In fact, I would hard put to call it a “race” at all. The candidates were the incumbent mayor of Khabarovsk and some “upstart” that no one ever heard of and even fewer had ever seen. The incumbent mayor of Khabarovsk, with all his years of service, oodles of connections, mountains of cash, and stranglehold on his office was never really threatened by the upstart. In fact, I have been tempted to think that the upstart never really existed in the first place. Maybe he was just a fictional figure, a ghost, or a shadow to box with? No one was surprised at the outcome of the election – of course the well- supplied incumbent won the day. No one was stricken with grief, except, perhaps, the upstart. No one was elated with joy that their candidate had won! Why? There really was no choice in the matter. Though there were two names on the ballot, there was only one name to vote for. Totally predictable; totally boring; totally blah. Now, we thank God for our mayor, and yes, we pray for him. He’s doing a fine job. It would be great if some day he were challenged by a worthy opponent that had more of a hen’s chance in a fox den of surviving a political race against him.

 

Some of you may be disheartened by the outcome of the recent presidential elections in the States. Some of you may be thrilled. Whatever you’re feeling today, thank God you had a free choice. Thank God that there was a true, nail biting race between two capable candidates. Thank God that your vote counted. Thank God that you as a believer have the right to freely pray tremendously powerful, nation-shaking prayers for your country and president. Thank God that God’s Word never changes no matter what comes and His promises are sure. Whatever happens, your life in Christ is secure. God is ALWAYS for you and He ALWAYS loves you. Jesus said that you are the salt of the earth, and remember that a little salt goes a long, long ways. Lastly, keep this in mind: there is a ton of salt in America!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Essay

It’s about time that I give you a photo essay of our building project. We have practically finished all the major things that needed to be done. All that remains are the minor, yet annoyingly persistent details, e.g. wallpaper, trim, baseboard, fire alarm system, etc. The only things that we still haven’t purchased, and currently don’t have money on hand for, are the fire alarm system and a bio-toilet. But we believe that the finances for these things will come in soon and we’ll be able to completely finish the interior of the addition. Of course, we still need to wrap the exterior walls in siding and insulation, but that’s a different story…

 Well, here goes:

 

Propane tanks for gas furnace

 

The gas furnace itself

Doors and walls

Two front doors: metal and glass/vinyl

Outside view of addition

A Thumbnail Tale

This is how it all happened!

I am proud to announce that we are applying the finishing touches to our new addition at the church. After this week all that will remain to do is to hang the wallpaper, paint, finish connecting the heating system pipes, and a few other odds and ends. By the way, in a few days I’ll have some fresh pictures posted here of the most recent work we have done. Thanks to the fact that our construction work is coming to an end, I have more and more time to dedicate to “office” work, therefore, I was able to make this post today. Actually, there is also another reason why I have been freed up from construction work, and I want to share that with you now…

 

Two days ago, I decided that it was time to spruce up the property a bit. One of my primary task targets was to clean up a pile of boards that was in complete disarray. As I was carrying a heavy, wooden beam across a surface of slick, water-logged boards, I lost my footing and slipped. I went down and the beam flew up. I landed well, without harm; however, the beam’s landing was rougher than mine. With a solid “thhh-uuunk” the heavy beam slammed down on top of my right thumb which was solidly planted on the wet, slick decking. My thumb, as it were, was caught between a rock and a hard place. Though I didn’t realize it at first, my thumbnail immediately and completely flew off. Blood gushed everywhere. My first thought was that my thumb bone had been crushed since my thumb, sans thumbnail, looked smashed-in, flat, and irregular. Thankfully, the bone was preserved, only the nail suffered.

 

Directly preceding this horrific episode, I entered into shock and grasping my bleeding thumb tightly with my left hand I exclaimed over and over again, “Jesus, thank you for healing my thumb!” Later I recalled with joy that this is what I said instead of something less edifying. Somehow, in my shocked condition, I managed to stumble into my office and flop down on a chair. Minutes later, the pastor of our daughter church in Rakeetnoye, Vitaliy, unexpectedly happened to swing by and he found me in my troubled state. Vitaliy whisked me off to the emergency room, where they cleansed and bandaged my wound with surprising care. Thank God, that in the midst of trouble my Heavenly Father provided for my every need.

 

The first day of the accident, my thumb hurt terribly. By the second day, I was back to my cheerful self. Today, my thumb still aches from time to time, in a dull sort of way, but the greatest inconvenience is that due to the bandages I have very limited use of my right thumb, which makes typing a challenge. Still, I believe that my thumb will heal completely and swiftly. In the mean time, I will work on my nine-finger typing skills!

 

 

Triumphant Ending